'Flight Control' – A Casual and Incredibly Fun Air Traffic Control Game
posted March 9th, 2009 5:21 AM EDT by arn in $0.99, Reviews, Time Management, iPhone games, iPod touch games
Last week, gaming developer Firemint released their newest iPhone game into the App Store called Flight Control [App Store]. Yes, the same Firemint that has been hard at work on the impressive Real Racing iPhone game due later this year. For their first self-published release, however, they focused on a simpler time management game which involves routing incoming airplanes to their proper landing strips.
While the game seems incredibly simple on the surface, the company has managed to hit upon the winning balance of easy pick-up gameplay, ramping difficulty and tickling the need to try "just one more time".
Flight Control presents you with a single map with two runways and one helipad. Airplanes and helicopters fly onto the screen and your job is to simply direct each plane to their respective landing pads (designated by color) while avoiding mid-air collisions.
Airspeeds vary by aircraft type. The large red airplanes travel the fastest which can cause some timing issues when coordinating landings with the small red airplanes.
The intuitive controls of the game, however, are what tie everything together into an addictive package. By simply swiping a path from the plane, you can quickly redirect a plane. You may choose a longer or shorter path depending on the desired timing, and planes can be redirected at a moments notice.
The developer provided gameplay video shows how it works:
[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]
While we're big fans of the game, we should be clear that this is a rather simple package with a single map, 4 types of aircraft and a single goal. Still, as always, gameplay is king and we feel it's easily worth its $0.99 introductory price.
Those looking for a more in-depth Air Traffic Control experience could consider the other two options in the App Store: iATC [$1.99] and ATC 4.0 [$2.99] — as they try to offer more depth but with arguably less of a "fun" experience.
App Store Link: Flight Control, $0.99 (introductory price)
Have anyone tried airportmania??? Its very good…and looks better than this one…
Airport Mania is a very different but more traditional time management game like Sally's Salon and Cake Mania.
arn
This one also looks interesting, will take a look.
I purchased Airport Mania and I absolutely LOVE it. Graphics are really nice, but the gameplay is the best thing about Airport Mania, it's absolutely spot on.
The tutorials and hints are very helpful and having played a total of about 4 hours and judgding by the amount of levels still left, the lasting factor is very good. I highly recommend it.
Having said that, I'll definitely try this one as well, as I love this type of game.
…btw, the progression in Airport Mania is like some Gameloft games, you have different cities/airports and you have to complete several levels on each location. Also, you can upgrade several items of your airport…and the best things, it's also €0,79.
While Airport Mania is certainly an excellent game (that I still play very often) and is only a dollar, Flight Control is awesome. This game certainly keeps you coming back for more. It's simple, the graphics are great, the music is good, and most importantly, it's fun and has a sense of nostalgia.
Thanks for the review. I didn't pick up this game at first because the screenshots didn't impress me. The video however won me over
Cool! This is gonna stack up to be one of the best 99 cents I have spent in the App store!
Thanks again!
It should be noted that, technically, while this game is Firemint's ]first self published iTouch/Phone game, it is not the first one they've developed and had released for this platform. That honor goes to Fast and the Furious: Pink Slip (http://www.firemint.com/pinkslip.htm). And since that game is, IMHO, one of the top 3 racers on this platform (behind only Fastlane and Ferrari GT), I expect a high quality experience with Real Racing.
Wasn't interested in this one, but since users of this site are giving it good marks I guess I'll give it a go.
@spiffyone true. updated to reflect that.
arn
Alex,
it wasn't my intent to minimize the excitement around Flight Control. I just wanted to provide my opinion in reply to antonioj. I may have overdone it
Having said that, I have tried Flight Control and really liked it
So we have 2 excellent flight controlling games!
Really good clean fun
Just bought it. Looks very fun. I'll try to post a review on it on Youtube later tonight.
Steve
that game looks so happy and cheerful and makes air traffic control look pleasant and easy.
As an amusing contrast I'd love to see a "Game Over" screen where two planes full of kittens and puppies crash flaming into an orphanage or something.
I'm always amused at games where you cause horrible disasters and it just says "whoops you had an accident, try again"
this game is great… very well polished and incredibly fun!
how about a high score name entry? or more airport maps (different layouts)??
Read review, saw video, bought it, loved it, now cursing it because I only landed a pathetic 44 planes!!!
Now trying again and again and again… Slot more playable and addictive than you would think!
Bought this game on a whim after glancing at the review and absolutely love it.
Nice graphics and simplistic but highly addictive gameplay make for a winning combo. I just hope we get a new map every few months to keep things fresh.
f'ing AWESOME!!!!!!!! give me more airports tho, pls! get this game; so fun!
I've been hooked on ATC 4.0 (http://www.atcgame.com) for quite some time now. Like this game as well but the I'm sticking with ATC 4.0 as the most fun ATC game out at the moment!
This game blows away all other games on the iphone. Simple and highly addictive.
This can have the same impact on gaming as tetris in the 80's.
Excellent game and one of the best $99 yet. I think we can all unanimously agree it just needs more airports and another objective than beating one's highest score. The possibilities for this to grow are huge.
also easy, medium, and hard. and a way you can slow down any aircraft.
I’ve posted some FlightControl tips on my site:
http://timbonicus.com/flightcontrol.html
My high score isn’t tremendous yet, though. Now that 1.1 is out we can see the global high scores – one of which is 3000+!
Yeah – a great little game – but after playing it on my iPod for about 10 days it has suddenly become really difficult …. after I have landed about 20 or so aircraft they come flooding on to the screen and I end up with about 18 aircraft to try to handle at the same time .. what has changed ?
Really great game. I dont wanne loose it.