By John Walker on April 22nd, 2010 at 11:46 pm.
I can’t imagine an easier job for the last week than air traffic controller. I can’t imagine a harder job the rest of the time. I’m quite easily distracted, but by the nature of my job when this happens it rarely leads to two passenger jets colliding in mid-air, killing all on board, and raining down hot fiery metal on all below. Rarely. More usually it leads to my eating someone else’s bread. Which isn’t quite as bad. Now it’s possible to have a go at being an air traffic controller in Airport Control Simulator, and its demo, where you won’t have to risk ending the lives of anyone lucky enough to fly in the gaps between volcanoes.
Unless perhaps your computer gets struck by lightning when you’re playing, causing some sort of magical Round The Twist-like event to occur when suddenly your version of the demo is in fact controlling the aircraft at your nearest airport. Which would be slightly more of an issue when the demo runs out, and all planes fall out of the sky at once.
Which is a strong argument for not playing the demo at the “Impossible” difficulty setting.
It’s essentially a hardcore version of Flight Control, the super-soaraway smash on the iPhone. But rather than simply pointing aeroplanes at runways, here you have to manage their speed and altitude as well.
Only Bergamo is available at first in the demo, which I’ve just learned is the site of a German commune in Italy, served by Orio al Serio Airport. (I hear they make nice biscuits.) I successfully landed “one airplanes”, as instructed, and received a message that frankly is true:
Which opens up Hamburg airport with two to land. Then Barcelona! With seven. Sadly it was at this point that I decided to find out what happens if you aim three aeroplanes at it each other. It turns out you get fired.
However, that’s your only option for creating disasters. The game is all Mr Spoil Sport about letting you crash a plane at 950km/h into the sea, not allowing you to go under 200m unless above an appropriately designated runway. Pshaw.
The demo is teeny weeny, just 24MB, and can be found here. It really is very indeed an awful lot like Flight Control, except you can’t draw nice curves, but rather have to take far more care of each plane to guide it safely to a place where it can land, pull up to the jetty, and kiss the buildings.
22/04/2010 at 23:57 Cassette Kids says:
Planes.
22/04/2010 at 23:57 Jimbo says:
Worst promotion ever.
22/04/2010 at 23:59 John Walker says:
But you get paid way more stars!
23/04/2010 at 00:40 Rob says:
Let’s just hope my daughter doesn’t overdose on crystal meth, which causes me to send a plane into the flight path of another plane due to depression.
23/04/2010 at 00:47 ulix says:
And lets hope I don’t feel secretly responsible for the death of hundreds because I manufactured the sweet blue meth.
23/04/2010 at 04:12 dethgar says:
Or that my wife wants a divorce and is borking that damned Ted Benneke!
23/04/2010 at 11:29 Christian says:
Hey, did you forget, I’m Q, I can bring them back to life easily!
23/04/2010 at 01:11 Lambchops says:
Have you ever, ever felt like this? Have strange things happen? Are you going round the twist?
A staple of CBBC viewing for me back in the day. Although the only episode that still strongly sticks in my mind is when the kid helps out some sort of water spirit who returns the favour by helping him win a “see who can piss the highest up the urinal” contest. I bet that’s the kind of storyline which would get shot down in the ideas stage nowadays. I also vaugely remember some nudity at some point – which definately would end up being deemed innapriate now!
23/04/2010 at 08:46 John Walker says:
I think it’s more to do with its being Australian, than British acceptance for content having changed much.
The nudity, I imagine, would be the episode in which Pete microwaves his swimming trunks to get them dry, causing them to imbue the wearer with super powers. They eventually start to shrink, leaving him forced to return home naked, covering his pride with a dustbin lid. Meanwhile the trunks get put on Bronson’s frog to help it defeat the horrible Gribble kid’s toad, which it does by leaping in the air, flying around an aeroplane, and then landing on the toad at terminal velocity, splattering it over all watching.
The episode that always stood out for me was the spaghetti eating contest, simply because of seeing someone projectile vomit gallons of spaghetti over a crowd. Or the seagull poo episode.
That was a good show.
23/04/2010 at 09:35 JB says:
I always liked the theme tune.
23/04/2010 at 09:50 Alex Bakke says:
I liked the episode where the boy couldn’t end a sentence without ‘without my pants’ without my pants, leading to hilarity such as ‘I’m walking to school without my pants.’
And they had Round the Twist back in the ’50s? Wowzers.
Oh, and the seagull poo episode. And the one with the cabbage patch baby.
23/04/2010 at 12:56 Cooper says:
I didn’t realise until my younger sister got a couple of books, that the entire series is based upon the work of some authour named Paul jennings.
The TV series is much, much better than the books though.
The one that sticks in my mind is the one where the bones of a dead sailor keep cropping up, and they end up having to go digging and hunting for his whole skeleton. fun for all the family!
23/04/2010 at 14:51 JonFitt says:
Round the Twist was a great show. Bizarre in a way which only Australians can be.
23/04/2010 at 01:48 DaveyJones says:
I’m sorry, but the guys who shoveled out this crap must be on meth to think that this is an example of quality game design. Or fun. What’s next, Customer Support Simulator? Oh no, another disgruntled customer hung up. Game over. Retry? Nah.
23/04/2010 at 01:54 Vinraith says:
This looks interesting. I’ve been wanting to find a decent air traffic control sim ever since that DS one that didn’t quite pan out. This looks like it might fit the bill, certainly it’s worth trying the demo. The world needs more unusual sim games.
23/04/2010 at 05:18 RedFred says:
Agreed but depth is also required. This looks very shallow.
23/04/2010 at 08:50 Vinraith says:
@RedFred
Yeah, that’s the sense I’m getting. I’m still going to give the demo a shot, but my hopes are not up.
23/04/2010 at 02:02 blaargh says:
Also worth looking at is http://www.atc-sim.com/
Not very pretty, but I possibly more “realistic.” Quite intense, anyway.
23/04/2010 at 02:21 blaargh says:
grr. edit
23/04/2010 at 02:07 Jinkeez says:
Well that was disappointing. I guess I was expecting something a little more realistic. This is just a fancier version of a game I already have on my iPod called Flight Control. Meh.
23/04/2010 at 02:46 DrGonzo says:
Didn’t read the post then?
23/04/2010 at 08:47 John Walker says:
Sometimes I just want to cry.
23/04/2010 at 10:39 Hmm-Hmm. says:
There, there, John. There are people who read your words.
23/04/2010 at 16:53 westyfield says:
Is this John guy new? I thought it was Jim, Alec and Kieron writing RPS.
23/04/2010 at 17:20 yobock says:
Omg, he’s definitely gonna cry NOW.
23/04/2010 at 17:47 Frankie The Patrician[PF] says:
Wait…what post? I thought this is just a forum…
23/04/2010 at 02:24 Reikon says:
A pretty good game like this is I Am An Air Traffic Controller 3 (http://www.atc3support.com/), which is an English version of a Japanese game. It’s like the DS game Air Traffic Chaos in that you have to handle multiple jobs at once. Except it’s much, much harder than the DS one.
I don’t think there’s a demo though.
23/04/2010 at 02:59 wat says:
Real simmers ATC on Vatsim. Just saying.
23/04/2010 at 03:16 sovere1gn says:
This is a rip off from iPhone app called “airport touch” or something. On the other hand, that game isn’t as serious as this.
23/04/2010 at 04:48 Billzor says:
Why?????????? Why must you tell us things that we already know?????????????? *wails and pounds fists against walls*
23/04/2010 at 08:48 John Walker says:
*cries*
23/04/2010 at 08:27 Jonas says:
There’s also .
23/04/2010 at 08:30 Jonas says:
Ack, damn XHTML. I mean this: http://www.underdog.be/games/volcano.
23/04/2010 at 10:28 Rich says:
Yay, I didn’t die!
23/04/2010 at 09:02 Wayne haworth says:
Don’t look now john, but this looks awfully like flight control on the iPhone! Maybe you should mention this in your article.
23/04/2010 at 09:03 Kieron Gillen says:
This seems just like Flight Control to me. Why didn’t you mention that in the post? For shame, John, for shame.
KG
23/04/2010 at 09:34 Skurmedel says:
Indeed, looks like Flight Control with more realistic graphics. Although I wouldn’t mind a more advanced flight control.
23/04/2010 at 10:30 Rich says:
He’s stopped responding. I think he might be sobbing in a corner somewhere.
23/04/2010 at 09:37 RogB says:
this looks like harbour master on the iphone that looks like flight control on the iphone. OMG John, do some research
(‘put the gun DOWN!’)
23/04/2010 at 09:46 Sobric says:
There was also that episode where Bronson (maybe?) used his penis as a motor to win a swimming contest.
That show was odd.
23/04/2010 at 09:49 Sobric says:
Also, wasn’t there a game on the iPhone called Flight Control or something? This seems a bit like that. I think John is losing his touch.
23/04/2010 at 09:54 Keshu says:
Flight Control.Iphone.Similiar to this.Please Research More.
23/04/2010 at 10:08 Richard Clayton says:
Not a sim but an interesting resource for those interested in Air Traffic
http://www.radarvirtuel.com/
Now with a “Volcano Layer”. This comes a few days late as earlier in the week there were no little planes over the UK. Until Lufthansa and the KLM started to brave it.
Don’t right click the planes and issue them instructions as they are real and it would only serve to confuse.
23/04/2010 at 11:32 oceanclub says:
I have a real adversion to air traffic control simulators ever since expecting the latest cool Spectrum game as a pressie, only for my aunt to buy me this:
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0002270
(Bear in mind I think it was already a 3 year old game when I got it.)
P.
23/04/2010 at 11:35 godwin says:
I remember playing an air traffic control game in the mid 90s and it had the most spectacular cutscenes when accidents happened. I would generate a scenario with the most number of aircraft and send them all flying towards each other. Without a doubt that was more entertaining and rewarding.
23/04/2010 at 11:37 John Walker says:
I should probably mention, by the way, that this is an awful lot like a game for the iPhone called Flight Control.
23/04/2010 at 11:43 CMaster says:
Really John? Why did you not mention such a thing earlier?
23/04/2010 at 12:08 Ffitz says:
Keep up, Walker! This was mentioned in the original article. Don’t you read the damned site?
23/04/2010 at 12:52 Wisq says:
Sadly, the people who post redundant info don’t even read other comments before posting their (now doubly or triply) redundant info. Otherwise at least you could immediately comment on your own article and point out all the info that might otherwise be redundified by redunderheads.
23/04/2010 at 14:52 JonFitt says:
Having only read the headline and looked at the pictures, I feel compelled to point out that this resembles another game I have played.
23/04/2010 at 18:38 Frankie The Patrician[PF] says:
And that’s exactly the point when John puts a paper bag on his head, so we’ll all have to sing that stupid song all over again to calm him down….
Why have you said that?!!!!