Air Havoc Controller
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Developed by Published by Released in Genres |
Rainbow America Trimark Interactive 1994 Simulation, Strategy |
Review
Well, who wouldn't want to be an air traffic controller? The excitement of jets all over the place, the pressure of having thousands of lives depending on you, and the satisfaction of a job well done. AHC sadly, has none of these.
Jets all over the place, admittedly is true, but the excitement ends there. It's just like they're meandering about their own business. Everything you tell an aircraft to do, it does, to the letter, even if in most situations it would be very, very, stupid. There is no AI. This makes the game dull, since you already know what's going to happen. The only real danger is it getting to hectic to keep up with, but you could always just slow the planes right down, so it rarely gets that bad if you keep an eye on things.
Which brings me neatly to the second point. Danger, or the lack of it. It doesn't seem like there are any fuel concerns to worry about. The planes will just fly about until they either get passed on to the tower to land or leave your area. The worst that can happen - mid-air collisions - very rarely happens. There are no emergency landings to speak of, either, so there's not really any prioritising to do.
So, satisfaction? Hardly, the only reward you get is a score. Not even a "well done, you avoided a major disaster!", just a little popup window saying "your score is x". All your effort suddenly seems wasted
Since I've not really gone into the gameplay enough, let me make it simple. There are three types of flight plans. One is taking off and leaving the area, the second is entering the area and landing, and the other is just traffic passing through your area. The first and last are easy, the second notso, because it actually involves maneuvering the jets about. This is the hard bit, as you have to get them roughly lined up, and it takes some time for them to turn to where you want to. It's nice. Pretty tricky until you get the hang of it. Sadly, after that, there's not much else to do, it's just the same.
I want to like this game, really I do, but it just won't let me. It can get interesting on the higher difficulty levels, but the effort you have to put in to get good enough for them is rather a lot for a game that's quite slow-paced and tedious. I think they tried hard, but it was a failed concept from the start. A good one, but one that couldn't practically work. Perhaps a tower controller game might have been better.
I suggest that you play this game - you may like it - but it's certainly not for everyone, or even a lot of people.
The good
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45% |
The bad
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- Download Air Havoc Controller (373MB)