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May 10, 2006

Take flight

When I was growing up in Frankfort, I spent a good amount of time playing video games. I have some very fond memories of great games on my NES, SNES, Genesis, Sega CD and Atari. Yeah, there are the classics, such as the original Zelda, Zelda 3: A Link to the Past, all of the Mario brother games, Madden NFL, SimCity (SNES Version), Final Fantasy and so forth. But, while all of these games hold a special place in my heart, there is only one game that I can honestly say was my favorite. That game is Aerobiz.

My all time favorite video game ... Aerobiz.

Yeah, there are other games that are pretty high on my list, but this game has always been at the top. It was one of the first real, in depth games that I ever played. To this day, I still think of it as one of the greatest simulators ever created. I've yet to find a game that is as in depth as Aerobiz is, yet doesn't take away from the challenge or fun that makes it a good game.

If you've never played Aerobiz, the concept is very simple. You're the CEO of a startup airline. It's your responsibility to choose a home hub (sorta like how Delta has Atlanta) and to branch out from there to other cities. You negotiate spots at terminals around the world so that you can send flights from your hub. As the game progresses, you create smaller hubs so that you can create more flight routes all over the world.

When you create a route, you have a great deal of options available to you. First, you choose a plane model to assign to the route. You have to be careful about the plane you choose, as different models have a different amount of seats, flight distance, and fuel efficiency. Once you choose a plane, you need to select how many flights a week there will be. This is limited by the number of spots that are available at the hub. If you don't have enough spots, you won't be able to increase the amount of flights for that route. After you've chosen your plane model, the number of planes assigned to the route and the number of flights per week, you will need to assign a ticket price for the route. Once you have chosen you options, and assuming that you have enough capital, you can open up a route to your selected city.

Now, in order to create routes, you'll need to have planes. You have four different manufacturers to choose from:

• McDonald Douglass
• Airbus
• Boeing
• Markov

Each plane vendor provided 1 to 4 different models of planes for sale, which would become obsolete over time and be removed and/or replaced during the game process. New or upgraded planes are also introduced throughout the game as well. If you purchased too many planes or your plane needs changed throughout the game, you also have an option of selling back unused units.

Buy and/or sell your airplanes all over the world.

Once you have your planes and routes in place, then you needed to make sure that your equipment stayed in top shape. Not only that, but these planes aren't going to fly themselves either. So, you need to create a budget for maintenance, flight attendants and so on. As your routes grow, the more money that you have to put towards these services to make sure that you stay on top of the game. As the game progresses, the average rates for services changes, so you must continuously monitor them to make sure that your people are happy. If you don't, you may be looking at a strike. If you have a strike, it's reported on the news and your sales go down.

You don't want that.

Okay, so you have your routes, planes and services. You also have the option to build hotels at cities where you have routes open. These hotels, depending on their location, can bring in a nice profit or can sink the ship. Once they're in place, you must monitor your hotels closely and close the ones that are costing you an arm and a leg.

Once you have all of your routes and hotels in place, you need to get the word out so that people will fly your airline and stay at your hotels after their flights. To do this, you have a marketing service (similar to that of maintenance and flight attendants) budget. You can create promotions for two routes at a time. If successful, your promotions will increase traffic on those routes (and others) for 4 quarters.

If you're into the stock market, there's something in here for you as well. There are charter companies that are already established in the game. These charter companies have home hubs, much like your own, and routes open to other cities. You can begin investing in these charter companies to grow your capital. As a charter company becomes successful, their stock prices increase. You have the option to buy or sell stock to make a profit. If you're lucky and acquire 51% of the shares, you have the option to take over the charter company and make it a part of your airline.

How cool is that?

During the game, you're not alone. As your company grows, you will have the advice of four staff members available immediately at any time. Want to know what route to open? They'll give their opinions. Want to know what to do with a route that's loosing money? Maybe you need a smaller plane? They'll let you know for sure. Want to know if there's a price war going on with your compeditors? These are the people to go to. There's a wealth of information available from your staff members.

These people will help you take your company to the next level.

Once you get a handle of how all of the services in the game works, things will start to heat up. There are four total players in the game, with at least one of them being human. You have the option to play against 3 computers or to have your friend take over the controller and play another airline. The only downside to this is that you have to wait for the human players to take their turn. This part of the game can take a while. I personally take at least 15-20 minutes to make all of my decisions during my turn, so having more than 2 people could make this game last a while.

When your turn is over and everyone else has had their chance to make their moves, the game progresses 1 quarter (3 months) and it then becomes your turn again. During this point, you will see how your competition is doing. You can see how much money they're making, how much net profit that they're making, how many people are flying their airline and so forth. You can also see a 3 month report for your airline to get an idea if you've made or lost money in the quarter.

Like I've said before, this is my favorite video game of all time. Sure, there are newer games on the market with great graphics and game play, but nothing has ever quite reached me as much as this game as. Heck, even today I can start a new game and play for hours on end and never get tired of the game. It's just a great combination of planning and spending that really sets this game apart from any game available on the market.

The main screen where all the decisions are made.

Koei, the company that released this game, put out another version shortly after called Aerobiz Supersonic. While I liked the game, it just never had the appeal that the first one did. There were just too many new options available. While the new options were nice, I missed the less complex version that was the first game.

I only wish that someone would make an updated version of this game. I don't really see it being for a console, though. These kinds of games are just too high-brow for console developers these days who're looking to produce a game that can out-do Halo. Instead, if this game were to be updated or re-released with newer airplanes, it should be developed on the PC. After all, graphics wise, this game is pretty tame. All the real work is done by the backend, doing number crunching and such.

I'll admit that this is something that I'm looking for all the time. When I go into a game store or a shopping center (like Wal-Mart), I check the bargan areas for simulator games hoping that I might come across a "Airport Tycoon" kind of game that would be similar to this one.

Oh well, here's to hoping...

~out...

Posted by ed at May 10, 2006 08:06 PM

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Posted by: okaywhateveryeah at November 17, 2007 04:23 AM

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