Difficulty: Impossible Learning Curve: About 2 and a half hours Stability: Microsoft Flight Simulator isn't really a game. Over a dozen years it's had five major version upgrades, ports to nearly every platform (and language) on the map, and cumulative sales that nudge the stratosphere of desktop productivity perennials. This can't be a game, can it? Maybe it's not software at all, but the first CD-ROM-based cult. Then the ever-popular cross-continent jaunts, where the most exciting...

Difficulty: Impossible Learning Curve: About 2 and a half hours Stability: Microsoft Flight Simulator isn't really a game. Over a dozen years it's had five major version upgrades, ports to nearly every platform (and language) on the map, and cumulative sales that nudge the stratosphere of desktop productivity perennials. This can't be a game, can it? Maybe it's not software at all, but the first CD-ROM-based cult. Then the ever-popular cross-continent jaunts, where the most exciting things to happen are takeoff, landing, and the seven-odd meditative hours of not crashing in between, would make sense. Actually, before this latest release, a powerful mantra and finger cymbals were necessary to make the thing fly under Windows 95.