A good game for the right person (Airport Inc (PC))

Member Name: Spency

Product:	Airport Inc (PC)
Date:	31/07/01 (156 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Hours of play, Nice graphics

Disadvantages: Not everyones cup of tea

I decided that I wanted to try something a bit different from the other management games like Sim City and Railroad Tycoon and began thinking what game would I really like. I decided I wanted to still maintain a strong management link like Sim City but I wanted a bit more fun and something unique. I read a review about Airport Inc a while back and never bought it due to the fact I would never have the time to play it. The game then came up on ebay and I decided to go for and eventually won and received the game and yes, I was very impressed.

Let me explain the game:

You are the new manager of an Airport. You start of with 3 choices of land and you must decide whether you wish to spend your limited budget on the land closest to the City (more expensive but easy for travellers and customers) or the and further away from the city (cheaper but more expensive for the people to get to you airport). Once you have decided, you then need to build you first ever Terminal, and you can choose from a wide range. Then build your runway, will you start with a small and cheap runway, only accepting small cargo and limited passenger planes, or will you decide to invest in a long and expensive runway so you can start getting those important long haul passenger and cargo flights straight away. You then need to build your Catering Operations, Plane operations etc around your runway, build some plane stands, a control tower and then your ready.

When I say ready, I mean ready to then build you taxi ranks, your roads connecting the cities to you airport, may some bus stops and why no build a train station? Open the runways, accept the flight contracts, hopefully attract some major firms and watch the planes land. Sounds a full game already, there’s so much more! Over the years you Airport is open, you will encounter plane crashes if you don’t maintain your airport well, bomb scares if your police are to “nice” and you will also be offered
contracts by hotels, petrol stations and many retail outfits. If you don’t keep these, plus your passengers and airlines happy, your customer satisfaction will fall and you will lose contracts and therefore money.

You can even watch your airport from the control tower or from the perspective of a passenger.

You can also play scenarios and the like where you must turn a cargo airport into a passenger one within 10 years, not as easy as it sounds. This game requires patience and dedication as no matter what you do, the customers will moan, they want more drink machines, more photo booths etc, they are never happy. The manual that comes with the game is poor, very poor and I recommend making use of the websites out there to learn about the game. In comparison to other management games, its much more one dimensional, its only about an Airport. So if you prefer a much more all around game, Sim City or something similar. If you like airports and want a challenge, I would go for this, but have patience and dedication, and you will be rewarded.

Summary: