This obsessively detailed rocket flight sim finally lets me cause historic spaceflight disasters from the comfort of my own home

The thing they don't tell you is: it's easy, this astronaut lark. Oh, sure, they make it look hard—all dials and knobs and switches that have protective covers over them, but it's just theatre. Easiest job in the world, really: you just go up.

Such was my attitude when I fired up Reentry – A Space Flight Simulator—a videogame you know is good because it kicks off with archival audio of John F Kennedy—but it was an attitude I was quickly disabused of.

Reentry is, more or less, a flight sim...