Are you a control Freak (Airport Inc (PC))

Member Name: tonybone

Product:	Airport Inc (PC)
Date:	14/01/02 (501 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great Gameplay

Disadvantages: Needs a fast CPU

Most of us are control freaks deep down. We may not show it in every day life, but there is something exciting about playing god, or being in control. I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that the concept of games such as Sim City and the like, is actually quite boring. I mean, there is no action to be had…..you just build your own city and see how well it grows. How do games like this sell so well then? It’s because you are playing god in them – we forget the graphics and the action scenes and just concentrate on designing the best city or theme park or in the case of me……..Airport.

Airport Inc is another of these god like simulation games and like many others, is strangely addictive. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that your goal in this game, is to build and manage the best airport you can. You can control every aspect of your airport, from building check in desks, to negotiating contracts to choosing the caterers.

~~ The game

You can select which part of the world you’d like to place your airport in, and then in each of the areas, you choose a particular country/region. Your next decision is how close to the city you place your airport. The closer you are, the more it costs, but the more passengers you receive. Once chosen, you can actually drag out an area of land on which you plan to build your airport on. However, land is expensive and chances are that your airport will remain small for quite some time. Therefore it pays to only buy a small area of land to start with. The problem with this, is that competitors will soon buy the land around you, preventing you from ever expanding. The solution to this is to “option” land around your plot for XX years to prevent others buying it. This will cost you a sum of money each year, but is much cheaper than actually buying the land.

Once you have bought your land, you actually enter it for the first time, and ha
ve to start building your airport. I won’t go through the building process step-by-step, but suffice to say that you need to build the obvious airport components before it will actually work. Planning the layout in your head is very important because if you’ve misplaced components, it is very difficult to rectify it later on.

The terminal building that you choose is very important. It needs to be small enough for you to afford but large enough to keep attracting new business, or have the potential to expand. In the “easy” mode you have a choice of 6 pre-fabricated terminals, which are all, set out for you – your job is to put it somewhere on your plot. The best way to build a terminal, is when you set it out yourself. You just get a basic one or two storey building and must set about designing the interior yourself – you can drag out check in areas, security, departure lounges, retail areas, gate areas and so on. You can then build individual components in each one – check in desks, metal detectors, seats, tannoys and everything else you see in an airport.

After your terminal, you must then build runways, taxiways, aprons, parking stands, fire/police stations, cargo sheds, and so on! You have to connect your terminal to the outside world by road and rail, provide places for passengers to park, and cater for people who don’t drive by building taxi ranks and bus stops. There are various other components available for building but they will depend on the type of airport you are building.

Once ready, you can open your airport to the public and watch the money start rolling in (as if!!) If your airport is suitable then airlines will approach you with a contract. You set your charges (landing/parking fees, passenger fees etc) and then the airline tells you what they are willing to pay for each category. You can then either accept their offer, or put a cross next to the ones you disagree with and
re-negotiate. This is a good way to get them to pay more, but can backfire as they sometimes come back saying that they cannot agree to a contract with you, and you lose them as an airline – not good if you are starting out and desperate for business. The same procedure applies to businesses, hotels, and petrol stations – they will offer a sign up fee and monthly rent figure, and you decide whether to accept/decline or renegotiate – obviously your terminal needs a retail area for business contracts.

There are various other features but I won’t go into them too much – I’ll let you see for yourself. You can see many progress reports, set charges, and view the airport from different perspectives – passenger cam, control tower cam, and taxi cam, to name but a few! You can go into detail with areas such as the police station and control tower. For example you can set the way your Air Traffic Controllers act – normally, cautious, or reckless. If they are cautious, you get less crashes, but more delays….make them reckless and the tables turn. The can do the same sort of thing for the police.

The only real disadvantage of this game is the speed at which it runs. The minimum CPU speed is 200mhz. I tried to run it on my old P120 and it wouldn’t run properly. I know someone who runs it on a P300 and it is still slow. I now run it on an AMD Duron 750mhz processor and it’s fine. Therefore I’d recommend only running the game on a 400-500+ MHz processor. My other gripe would be regarding the manual - I didn't get a paper one with the game. It came in the form of a .pdf file, and really just told how how to install and troubleshoot. There was not enough information to get you going - I suggest running the demo from the main menu to get an idea of how to get started

In conclusion, this game is just another Sim City or Theme Park. It has the same sort of detail and interactivity
levels and can provide hours of entertainment. If you enjoy playing god on being in control then you’ll have fun with it – you’ll probably do better than me, seeing as I can’t get my passengers to be happy!! It can be picked up for around £10-£15 nowadays!

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