And boy... Was I in for a treat. But first things first.
Installation
Installation is easy as with any ORBX scenery. Double-click the executable file and off we go. ORBX allows you to configure some stuff that will allow you to better control the frame rate impact of the scenery in your system. Pretty useful.
I left it all with the default settings, with are as you can see on the screenshot below and it all worked and looked pretty good.
The Scenery
In one word? Gorgeous.
Narvik is exactly the kind of scenery I love and, on top of that, it's extremely well done and it covers much more than just the ENNK airport. It actually covers an extension of 50 square kilometers (a bit under 20 square miles).
You have an amazing small airfield, just a few meters away from water, surrounded by fjords, big mountains, lots and lots of green (which became white in the winter). The most amazing amount of gorgeous trees, a beautiful bridge as the background for an also beautiful small town with just a handful of tall buildings.
Some small ships, some huge cargo ships -- one of them filled with cargo containers -- and some amazing architecture.
And let's not forget the huge antenna on top of the mountain with an helipad -- inviting you to try some nasty bad weather landings while maybe transporting some teams to and from the station. There's also a ship with a helipad painted on which you can land.
The town is gorgeous, following the side of the mountain in an amount of detail I have not yet experienced in a scenery. This was due to the town being a 3D model so it was all custom-built. That's right: all the buildings, all the little details. It gives you a sense of near-perfection that really pops out and it's true bliss to fly over it. There's a downside to it, though: because of the way the town is built, you cannot land on any buildings or even the terrain, for that matter. But it does look awesome.
The scenery comes with 4 textures for the 4 year seasons, which are activated automatically and provide the scenery with different color palettes that improve the scenery even more.
This scenery is an eye full. Amazing eye candy and an absolutely gorgeous area to fly around and start or finish your flights here (or maybe even both).
This is my newest favorite scenery for FSX right now (it's also available for P3D, of course).
Manual
The manual is not too big at 22 pages but it contains all the pertinent stuff. It's very well-written with a lot of information about the scenery: instructions about the installation, features, advised settings, and airport information and charts. The only thing this manual doesn't do is fly for you, which is good. You should do your flying and in this scenery it will be a pleasure to do just that.
Frame Rate
Impact? Zero. What else can I say? Although the scenery is visually very rich, there's virtually no impact on frame rate. This is mostly because -- like I mentioned before -- the ENTIRE city is a 3D model. This decreases the load on the simulator as the ORBX team is in full control of the models and the amount of polygons display. Well done!
This does come with a price, though: we cannot land on the city. The aircraft will "fall" through the terrain, which is a real shame. I understand why, but it's still a shame.
