There is also quite a bit of cross chatter in areas where lots of planes are flying. Beyond that, the sound effects in X-Plane are on the mundane side. Routing engine noise and the squeal of tires on tarmac. The one area where X-Plane kind of tanks is graphics. The countryside is a vast landscape of brown and green with occasional smatterings of white or blue.
Buildings are monolith like rectangles that stick up out of the ground.
The aircraft themselves don't fare much better, being constructed of precious few polygons. The realism of the aircraft is entirely dependent on the level of detail that went into the models, which is a mixed bag. If the graphics really bother you though, you can just change them with the World Maker, a tool that can be used to create new textures and objects for the X-Plane world. X-Plane is an interesting game for a lot of reasons. For purist sim fans, X-Plane is as close to a flight trainer as you can get without joining the military or spending buco dinero at flight school.