The first blow to us from the layoffs Microsoft announced yesterday cuts deep into our childhood memories: Flight Simulator is permanently grounded. The entire development team is gone.

Flight Simulator debuted in 1982, making it one of the longest-running continuous franchises in the gaming industry. Both barely a game and so much more, Flight Simulator was an experience, and one of the first things on a computer that truly astonished me. I was flying (and crashing!) a real plane, really (virtually)! And all on my piece-of-crap Packard Bell that made me jealous of my friends' Gateways, which ran way better than my computer for reasons I didn't understand at the time.

So, what was your first Flight Simulator memory? [Gamasutra via Kotaku]

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