My personal favorite quote is, "Training of trial version, scene of some no control instruction will be fast forward. We appreciate your understanding."
That is literally within the first minute of the demo.
Played the demo and while I had fun with it, it's not a game I would buy. There easy mode wasn't too hard but still, there's a lot going on and my planes almost always had a crash warning because I couldn't tell which runways they were crossing or taking off from sometimes because of the camera. After playing through it a few times I realized it was crucial to look at the flight times, especially for the departing flights since it takes them quite awhile to get to the actual runway.
This game is super fantastic. It has several layers of strategy, and isn't for everyone, but if you can get into its groove, you'll find a wonderful, engaging puzzle/simulation. It's a game in the long-running I Am An Air Traffic Controller! series, which started on PC in Japan and has had entries on GBA, DS, PSP, and now 3DS.
I really like the presentation in this version--it's more like the PC games with the 3D view of the planes and airport. The GBA and DS versions worked with abstractions, which were fine for gameplay purposes, but I prefer the simulation feel of this approach. The graphics could have used some FSAA, but given the framerate (the entire island and surrounding miles of ocean need to be held in memory, not to mention everything going on, paths, radio, tower, etc), I can forgive it. Views look better with 3D on, sometimes even heartrending or breathtaking when a plane finally lands during a tight and troubled stormy schedule. You have full camera control as well as a degree of zoom in/out. The airport looks different at different times of day, and sometimes it's really beautiful in its simplicity and utility. The music is nice, and unlike stated above, not only can you turn the music off, but you can adjust the volumes of music, SFX, and radio dialogue. The large variety of planes and their differing airport needs are well-rendered and appreciated. Plenty of low-resolution textures in the environments (even in the high-res promo bullshot art, LOL!), but it doesn't distract from the utilitarian purpose.
The gameplay is going to be where some people have a hard time. As the title implies, you are an air traffic controller. You actually handle Arrival, Tower, Ground, Delivery, and Departure radios. Each can only communicate with one plane at a time, so you have to wait for one transmission cycle to finish before giving another plane an order or clearance on the same channel. As such, you'll need to synthesize the situation and prioritize accordingly. Easy missions don't require a lot of sacrifice and consideration to win or even S-rank, but once you get to Normal and Hard, expect to be making hard decisions and failing often. It can seem like a perfect run, you're surviving in bad weather, with lots of arrivals trying to come at the same time and departures needing their routes and runways as well, and you're just fielding everything along like a pro. However, you'd forgotten that you'd assigned two planes takeoff and landing very near one another, and by the time you realizing they're going to collide in midair, it's too late. Decisions made minutes ago can tank you, and you need to learn why you failed and how to circumvent it to succeed. The feeling of success is incredibly satisfying, and getting S-ranks in later missions takes some ingenuity and patience.
The controls work fine--you can use the stylus to select planes and give orders, but I prefer using the buttons, as you'll also be changing cameras and checking your radar often. There are some good extras included--there are four Extend missions you can unlock, as well as Camera Mode, which gives you an incredible amount of replay value. You take a picture, it uses the data as a seed to generate a mission, including details like time of day, duration, score goal, and arrival/departure schedule/content/etc. You can save the stages you like (up to 18, I believe), or want to challenge again in an attempt to beat your previous score.
Compared to previous games in the series, Airport Hero Hawaii has only one airport instead of several, though it carries a similar number of missions. However, the Camera Mode, which gives you an infinite number of unique missions at the airport, expands the life of this airport greatly and gives you far more opportunities for unique situations and strategies than the GBA and DS versions. I should also mention that at $20, this game is a steal. It retails for $50 in Japan. Kind of weirded out that no one's reviewing it, it's a great game in a long-running hardcore series. Hope this helps some folk!
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Topic: I am an Air Traffic Controller Airport Hero Hawaii
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