Here’s a little tidbit about a game you might not have noticed you had, recalling to mind the secret game built into Excel. Built into Google Earth 4.2, released in August, is a hidden flight simulation game. According to Digital Urban:
By clicking Ctrl + Alt + A or Ctrl + A (depending on your system) Google Earth enters flight simulator mode with the choice to fly either a F16 or SR22 prop aircraft.
In areas where 3D buildings appear overlaid on the map, they are visible in-game, as well as mountainous regions and other bits of geometry. Regardless of the game mechanics, the awesome part is the fact that this is a flight simulator where the terrain you’re flying over is composed of real satellite imagery updating over the internet in real-time as you fly over it.
Imagine the possibilities! I’m thinking of complex political games that feature real news items as they hit, or games that take users profiles on sites like Myspace or Facebook in order to place them geographically and allow them to interact. It’s a whole new degree of dynamic online integration, serving to make the world just a little bit cooler.
Here’s the video of the flight sim in action that appeared on the Google Earth Blog:
