I cannot believe anyone would even say G2 is ok for just flying around with a strait face. Sure the graphics are pretty but flight physics are pretty far off, especially if you add a little wind. Let me illustrate my issues with G2.

I own a GP Tracer, and I used to own G2 and expansion #3 (the one that included the tracer in it). One of the big reasons i got G2 was because it looked easy to install, and it had my plane simed.

At the field where I fly we usually have at least a 5 mph wind going. When i land my plane it comes in nice and slow, almost like a trainer. The elevators on the tracer (as with most aerobat's) is fairly sensitive and it's fairly easy to snap a loop rather than make a nice clean line.

On G2 the elevators are not really all that sensitive; You really can;t snap the plane because you were hard on the elevator. Other than that it fly's fairly true to the original, that is of course with no wind dialed into the settings (more on that in a second). When you come in for a landing it's always fast, and doesn;t seem to want to slow down at all. Ok so i look at the weather perameters . . . ah i need to add in some wind and thermals (because otherwise it drops like a rock). So i add in a little thermal, and 5mph of wind. When i come in for a landing the plane cannot pernetrate the wind and hovers rather than lands. It was about as far from the real thing as i could imagine. After 2 hours of tweaking the weather pattern it almost landed like the real thing, except it was with 1mph of wind and a ton of thermals almost nothing like real life. After 2 hours of tweaking it almost worked correctly, and the settings have to change with other aircraft to get then performing correctly also. I am not a 3d pilot but the stall characteristics of the planes in G2 just seems off. Running through spins and such i could get most performing ok, although flat spins don;t seem to work on stock aircraft.

What i generally find is G2 in it's stock condition is not realistic at all, but you can tweak it to make it almost bearable if you ignore the values you are typing in. It does not handle wind and stall speeds well, nor does it simulate aerobatics well at the edges of the envelope (not just 3d). Certain planes do fly better than others, although i have never owned a P-38 to verify. Some planes do fly like they are big, and as a general rule in G2 the bigger planes fly better (as in closer to the real thing). G2 is better than all the free sim's on the market but not by much. You'll learn control reversal, and you can work on stick movements but not much else. The multi-player feature is nice and lots of fun, however it just makes G2 more of what it is: a game , and not a simulation at all.

I sold my copy of G2 and am looking for something else, because simply put I have other games on my PC that are more fun, and if I want a simulation G2 isn;t even close.