Despite some shortcomings in the humor department and somewhat dated graphics, Airline Tycoon 2 is a worthy successor to the original classic. It's strengths are convincing characters and well-chosen voice-over artists.
Airline Tycoon 2 is a nice Game for ones, who love to managing things like that.
You can be creative in things like "How your aircraft look like" and which Peoples you want to use your airlin e. It´s all about the price of a flight, if it is a long or a short flight, or if your aircraft is clean and nice or "Dirty" and boring My opinion is that this game is way to bad rated. This game deserves a better rating, and if the ones who play ego-shooter rate like that, because they are bored of these games, than they shouldnt rate games like that down, just because they like CoD more.
i love this game i play the normal airline tycon before 13 years and i am suprise this game was very nice and the new one airline tycoon 2 was better as every game what i saw in this section
This one really is old-fashioned in all areas. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the controls are and keep the game from being a business simulation that we could recommend.
I made an account here just to write this review, because I don't want people to miss out on this game just because a lot of people don't like it.
It's not the best game in the world, really, it's not. And there are many things that could be improved. But it does do some things well, and for being basically the *only* decent game in the airline/airport tycoon genre, I think it deserves a try.
For starters, the entire game is cartoonish and simplistic, with fantastic voice acting and a fair amount of comedy. It can get repetitive (the same people saying the exact same thing the eighteenth time you visit) but it's not bad. Now, I generally don't like cartoonish games, but this one doesn't take away from the strategy and building aspects of the game.
Unlike most Tycoon games, where you play as though you were God looking down from above, this one actually gives you a character, and to get things done you have to go to different offices. You can also explore your airport (every airport is basically identical, but still). This is a nice change of pace, because it requires you to plan your actions ahead. It can also be incredibly tedious. HOWEVER, this is something most people don't know I think: If you go to the tourist shop and click on the clerk, there're random things you can buy. Buy the airport guide. Then, using a button at the bottom left of the screen, you'll be able to click and display a complete menu of all the places in the airport so you can fast-travel. Without this, the game is so tedious its unplayable. So be sure to do that.
Moving on, the simulation is pretty strong. You have to plan routes, take contracts, and make sure you have planes that can handle those contracts. You build flight plans, schedule maintenance, purchase ad campaigns, and sabotage opponents. This is the part I was looking for, a decent tycoon aspect. And this game does it very well. It's difficult to master, but once you get the hang of it, and you know what you're doing, it can be very addicting and fun.
I wouldn't pay more than about $10 for this game, thanks to clunky controls and limited customization (you can only paint planes six or so different colors, you can't customize anything in your airport, and you can't even change your airline name). But the strategy and gameplay makes up for it. Overall, if you like the strategy building of tycoon games and you really like airports, buy this game. If you're into SimCity-like customization, put this one back.
Airline Tycoon was an entertaining game full of unique features; unfortunately Airline Tycoon 2 feels like it is, at best, an uninspired remake. The gameplay is very similar yet less interesting than the first game, the UI is clunky, and Kalypso requires activation online in another horribly outdated DRM scheme.
The gameplay is decent enough for a five dollar game, if you can grab it on sale it's probably worth it but I would suggest just buying the original and skipping the sequel if you can't.
Sold as a simulation but has practically zero depth and you can easily go around the whole game in a few hours. There are only 4 airlines to choose from, which are rigid and uncustomizable. The aircraft customization options themselves are laughable; only 8 aircraft to choose from regardless of any realism (the Concorde becomes a short haul, high passenger, profitable aircraft) with very limited options. The indoor cabin design is a joke: the developers wouldn't bother to make the different indoor environment for the different aircraft, so the inside of your jumbo jet is the same as that of your small propeller airliner. Furthermore you just choose preset items for the whole aircraft and can't for example have multiple class aircraft, but this doesn't change anything anyway since the price for all tickets is always the same.
Also personnel management is ridiculous: you hire people with the skills they come with and you can't train them further, so your only way to improve your staff is to fire them and get new ones. You can only assign one set of staff to an aircraft, so basically it's the same pilot flying that airplane 24/7 for a whole month. Call the worker's syndicate!!! For those of you who are politically minded it's also nice to notice here that the game is stereotypically sexist: all pilots are males and all flight attendants female.
The main part of the game and where you will spend the most time with is the scheduling; it looks intricate at first, but after a few hours you find out it totally lacks any realism. The amount of passengers only depends on the demand and you can program your flights at basically any time of the day, hello 2AM departures! Basically your success at the game just depends on cramming the biggest number of route and charter flights in the schedule rather than making regular flights (the flight numbering system is automated and wonky).
The user interface is atrocious in the whole game, you have to physically walk to different offices, with loading screens, to get going. While the idea is commendable, it will soon become a chore and you will soon give up booking charter flights just because they require constant walking outside your office (loading screen), to the elevator (loading screen) to the charter office so you can grab a few contracts, and then the same annoying way back so you can schedule them.
The options are so limited and not user friendly at all, the tooltips are inconsistent and unclear over the board. The scheduling board is extremely poorly designed. It's hard to place the flights with precision, the "repeat schedule" option, which is meant to allow you to hold regular flight is the most user unfriendly ever and simply doesn't work. Any flights that take off before midnight and land after midnight will break this feature. Also you are forced to do some makeshift workarounds, like setting the schedule you want to repeat for tomorrow, then waiting a whole day before deciding to repeat it, because the game doesn't let you modify today's schedule, but it only allow you to copy today's schedule, not another days... so user unfriendly it's a crime. And did I mention the annoying "clear flight schedule" button located next to other buttons, which will wipe all the work you did without a confirmation screen?
The game itself is also full of bugs. The schedule locks itself frequently for no reason, the text doesn't match your actual objective, you get teleported back to your office when looking at a competitor's aircraft, the tutorials (which are themselves rather useless) get stuck while in progress, so you have to repeat the same actions twice.
The game does have a cute little design feel to it with some pretty cool airplane models (the airbus 380 with full ringed wings and 8 engines for example, or the cute curvy Concorde), but this doesn't save it from the abysmal depth, or lack of depth, that it sinks into. Most people play simulation games because they enjoy some variety and custom options. In this game:
* You cannot rename anything (airlines, aircraft, staff)
* There is only 1 airport interior, all airports in the world are the same
* There is only 1 aircraft interior
* None of your choices has any real effect on the game anyway.
* Regardless of which mission you are in, or sandbox mode, you start each day at 9AM with a speech from the airport director, the speech is always the same and he repeats it 3 times as well for each of your competitor airlines.
Playing this feels about as fun as groundhog day happening to you...
avoid!
SummaryAirline Tycoon 2 is the next installment in the acclaimed business management series - Airline Tycoon. The game sees the player take the reins of an airline which they must bring to financial success. As well as managing staff, buying new aircraft and opening up new air routes, players must deal with crabby passengers and engage in co...