Take to the skies as an eagle soaring over this slick interface to Google maps. Circle under clouds to catch thermals.

The arrow keys on the keyboard control direction, and the space bar lets you drop “bombs”.

Although it isn’t technically a game, Google Earth rocks! You can zoom in on almost any point on the planet to check out high quality satellite images.

But what’s better than that is that if you have a joystick you can use it to fly around just like you would a flight simulator.

Here’s how you do it:

1. First, download and install the Google Pack from the link on the right. The pack includes Google Earth and will keep it up to date, along with all your other Google apps. (It’s all FREE!)
2. Plug in your joystick and make sure it’s working properly.
3. Launch Google Earth, go to TOOLS, OPTIONS.
4. Under the NAVIGATION tab check the box that says ENABLE CONTROLLER.
5. After you’ve tried it out a bit in Pan and Zoom mode, switch over to Flight Control mode and go to town!
6. Make sure you turn on “3D Buildings” in the layers section on the left side of the window to be able to fly between buildings.

Enjoy!

Mark Caswell-Daniels has developed a little flight sim game which uses Google Maps to allow you to fly all over the place. You can climb, dive, turn and even crash! You also have the option of shooting things on the ground.

Go try out Goggles, the Google Flight Simulator! And keep in mind that the controls are as follows:

• Arrow keys control left, right, up and down
• The “A” key increases throttle, while “Z” decreases it.
• The Space bar fires your machine gun.

Have fun!