Fast, capable, with great features for Microsoft Flight Simulator. You think I’d be talking about an aircraft just now but no… this is a mini review of the Got Friends Project Crosskart. I’ve spent some time driving it around the world of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 and… I’m really surprised! Let’s talk about this.

Driving, in a flight sim?

This won’t be the first time that I’ve reviewed ground vehicles on this blog. Tank Crew’s various tanks and mobile AA vehicles have been features in the past so its not entirely out of character to review something so grounded.

Project Crosskart is made by developers Got Friends who have put together some excellent products in the past. I’ve previously reviewed their F4F-4 Wildcat warbird as well as their Double Ender and Wilga bushplanes. I’ve also raved about just how good their, made for MSFS 2024, Draco-X and Zlin Norden are.

These are the kinds of developers that really put their best effort forward, even when its a little off the beaten path. That’s where Crosskart comes in. It’s a simulation of a compact, lightweight off-road sports vehicle fitted, in this case, with a simulated Hayabusa 1300cc engine.

Got Friends write in their documentation that the project required them to do a lot of custom programming to simulate the tires, suspension, brakes and gear ratios. In short, they’ve created a simulated car in a sim that’s primarily intended for flight simulation.

How well did they manage to pull that off? Surprisingly good with just a few caveats.

What’s it like?

I’ll admit some skepticism going in. Got Friends do great work and so on that end I suspected this would be pretty good on the whole. On the other hand, this is a simulation product that’s primarily intended to be used with aircraft and how well this was going to work had me a little skeptical.

You start out just like with aircraft in MSFS 2024, standing outside of the vehicle. Here you can use the mouse (or controller) to inspect and change the configuration of the car. Three different tire sets, two wings, two exhaust configurations and two lighting setups. You can adjust the Crosskart to look a specific way! I was already impressed.

Then you hop in the seat and very quickly you can engage the starter and get this going.

Two transmission modes are available, automatic or manual. In both cases, gear shifts happen realistically with blips on the RPM as the transmission shifts. It’s all surprisingly natural feeling. After that, its a matter of breaking, accelerating and steering. Its a car… err… umm… Crosskart!

The suspension system lends itself to driving off road! The sports nature of this lends itself to driving fast and slowing down quickly and the simple nature of the whole thing means you can quickly and easy get started and blast around the landscape. And that I did!

There are some limitations here. First, as unbelievably impressive as MSFS 2024 is, this vehicle functions better in some environments than others. Some off-roading or airport drag racing is good while other locations are too bumpy and not setup to handle a vehicle in realistic way. It works great in specific locations but its not exactly ideal for doing any sort of cross country driving as you’ll invariably end up somewhere where the ground or “road” that you’re on is a little problematic in some way. Still, this is all very impressive and there are good experiences to be had.

Driving it and doing things with it

The biggest and most skeptical piece I had was what you can do with this.

First, you can take it exploring with the caveat already mentioned that there are just going to be some locations and places where this can’t go. Some roads are not going to be very drivable or will have obvious glitches in the landscape.

Other locations, especially with older TIN for their cityscapes, really shows off the “melted cheese” look and some roads are barely passable or impassable. That’s not the Crosskarts fault but an indication of how variable the experience can be.

There are areas that are better setup for road vehicles. One such route is one that Got Friends themselves recommend as a kind of playground for the vehicle called Lost Trail Pass, Idaho (IDS93-IDJ93). It’s available on Flightsim.to and created by TheDukeNewcomb with his own asset pack and assets from Emerald Scenery Designs too. It’s awesome for bush flying and it doubles as a great place for the Crosskart too.

The scenery includes 15 miles of US-93 Highway with textured road surface, 13 miles of textured and flattened off-road trails as a custom dirt track designed for the Crosskart. Blasting through this is a lot of fun solo but I could see it being used for rally races with friends too. I’ve got an upcoming Flight Journal that will tell a bit of a story of how I worked this into a flying narrative too… so there are things you can do!

Driving this section is actually really quite fun. I stopped thinking that I was in a flight sim and started thinking I was driving a motorsports game. The fidelity is surprisingly good thanks to MSFS 2024’s ground technologies and some custom scenery work.

I’ve driven around in a few other locations, such as visiting the Grand Canyon’s visitor centre, and its been pretty decent looking and driving. It wasn’t explicitly setup for this but it really looks the part… if you can ignore MSFS’ sometimes nonsensical traffic.

I’ve also more than once found an airport with a lengthy runway and indulged my inner Top Gear fan and raced around at maximum speed back and forth just for the heck of it. Top speed is somewhere just north of 160 mph with the nitro engaged so you can get some serious speed very quickly.

You can also do donuts in it and have a reasonably good time with it! Hand brake turns are a thing!

How it feels and how I controlled it

Got Friends report that they setup the Crosskart with a variety of different control schemes in mind including racing setups. If you bind the controls right, you should be able to drive it just like any other racing game.

For this, I got out my Xbox One controller and hooked that up. Got Friends have done a default control scheme that just works right out of the box. After a minute or two I had figured out the controls and I was having a fantastic time zooming around. I stopped thinking about it as a Flight Simulator and I was fully into my Forza Motorsport racing mindset. The controls are quite similar!

As for handling, there are some obvious limitations to this. It does feel a little light on the steering and turn in is maybe a little more instant than it should be. Again, this is all such a departure from what this sim is designed for and its really quite good even if the tire physics aren’t quite up to the most modern racing game/sim level. And yes, the cart can do some hilarious jumps off of the side of mountains and continue on. Despite my best efforts I was also never able to roll it by driving at high speeds and turning the wheel hard. For that… you have to go tumbling off a cliff…. which I did!

Still, this isn’t a racing simulator… this is a flight simulator. The fact that I can even credibly complain about that should tell you that it actually feels really quite good. It’s feels better than driving sims of yesteryear and that is really quite impressive.

I also really appreciate the little things like the transmission simulation with the appropriate throttle blips between gear shifts. I almost didn’t notice it except to recognize it as it feels that natural.

Final thoughts

Got Friends have done some quirky projects in the past but I think this is by far the most quirky. I came away from driving it around, for a few hours now, thinking that there’s much more care, thought, attention to detail, and overall effort put in there than there has any right to be. I mean that in the best way possible!

It has multiple liveries, customization, a fold out chart to show you said customization options, it has suspension and transmission gear ratio simulation, the RPM blips when you change gears, the brakes squeal and the tires rumble and… its a kart… in a flight sim. You get the idea!

It’s much more fun than I thought it would be, it’s very well put together, and I think if you’re up for something that’s a bit more on the experimental side then yes you can actually have a ton of fun driving Crosskart around in the world of Microsoft Flight Simulator. On the other hand, I know this isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea and this may not be for you if you’re strictly into the aircraft side of things. If, however, you want to venture out and try something a bit different, this is a solid product worth your time.

Got Friends is selling Project Crosskart from their website for $9.99 USD.

Screenshots