Google Earth. Not something that before today I would have associated with gaming, but when Google slips a flight simulator into one of it’s applications and it goes un-noticed for a whole week, you start to wonder what the world is coming to. Now the major blogs have picked up on Marco’s fantastic find, it’ll surprise no-one that their next-door neighbour’s cat just crashed an F16 Viper jet into the Golden Gate Bridge (and conveniently carried on straight through the towering structure).

Enviromental, real-time weather effects? Real time night/day simulation? How about a space simulator, shooting in and out of the stars? Hardly out of Google’s reach. For a piece of software not intended to be a game, I won’t deny I’m incredibly impressed with Google’s ability to expand on existing architecture and engineer it in such a way, it’s core focus can be completely changed. Kudos, to the cool lil’ Googler who spent his lunch breaks working on this!

I think it’s only a matter of time before more Google ‘Gaming’ Easter Eggs start to pop up. A game of snake, perhaps, in Google Talk. ‘Shoot the duck’ Picasa wars. Maybe even a driving simulator, based on Google Street View? Controls for the existing Flight Sim can be found at Google itself. Before any losers start comparing this to Flight Sim X, bear in mind that GE is NOT a game. Don’t forget that this isn’t an $80, 8GB hunk o’ junk. This is a FREE, innovative piece of software, not yet even out of BETA. Rock on, big G! via TC.