For me a sim isn't defined by the length of its controls list or the complexity of its HUD, it's a diversion inspired by something, usually a machine, that's tangible, researchable, and incontrovertibly Real. Mitchell, it's a game that offers users the chance to operate 'a digital facsimile of a real-life vehicle' or participate, from a first-person perspective 'in painstakingly recreated historical events'. What is a simulation? According to the imaginary dictionary I keep on my desk next to my imaginary bust of R.
Ready to discover once-and-for-all whether X-Plane is better than FSX? Whether Falcon 4.0 is better than Milk Float Simulator 2012? Ready to read the word 'realism' 46 times in a single hour, and spit feathers on discovering that the sim that caused got you through your divorce has been cruelly cold-shouldered by an idiot with a bus fetish and a sci-fi blindspot the size of the Crab Nebula? You are? Splendid.
