By John Walker on October 12th, 2011 at 4:35 pm.
It’s never been my dream to run an airline. But then again it’s never been my dream to shoot thousands of aliens in the face with an improbably large gun, and I do that in games all the time. You can now find out if simulating the running of plane-o-businesses is your sort of thing with the demo for Airline Tycoon 2. It offers three campaigns from the game’s single player mode, allowing you to plan routes around the world, meddle with four of the game’s planes, and, er, manage the finances. See, I never have to do the accounts when I play Mans-Shooter VII: Shoot Them In The Necks. You can get the demo from here and here. If you’ve ever run an airline, tell us how realistic it is below.
12/10/2011 at 16:38 zytos says:
… but is it as good as Aerobiz?
12/10/2011 at 16:43 The JG Man says:
Why are there two red barrels next to that plane? That’s GOT to be a breach of health and safety. What happens if an intrepid adventurer fires at it? Honestly…
12/10/2011 at 16:51 Untruth says:
Do barrels contribute to the crate count or is there a multiplier?
12/10/2011 at 21:40 Sagan says:
The multiplier is the volume in liters divided by ten. Huge crate used to dictate the level layout: large multiplier. Tiny crate on a shelf: Small multiplier. (but there are often many of those, so they add up)
Barrels tend to have a smaller volume than crates, so their multiplier is smaller.
But: clearly all of those barrels have a volume of way more than ten liters, so their multiplier is bigger than 1, so yes, they count as a full crate.
12/10/2011 at 16:46 Khann says:
Genuinely enjoyed the first one.
12/10/2011 at 17:06 mageta says:
Like me.
And I think this looks actually worse than the first one.
12/10/2011 at 22:12 Acorino says:
The first one was a weird mix between the simulation and adventure genre. Truly two genres you would never think of putting together. And it didn’t really work, just like you would expect. But it was…interesting.
13/10/2011 at 06:13 sidhellfire says:
It worked for me.
I mean, game had terrible gameplay concept, but on the other hand I loved it. To some point at least.
Just like Monopoly is awful board game, yet I still had great experience playing it.
12/10/2011 at 16:51 step21 says:
so, what’s the difference to the first one? Looks almost exactly the same …
12/10/2011 at 16:51 thegooseking says:
Took me a while to notice that the livery on that plane wasn’t actually anything to do with planes. Clever.
12/10/2011 at 17:47 LionsPhil says:
A mighty landmark processor if ever there was one.
Actually, combined with the Theme Park-esque plastic raytraced people, I thought I’d fallen through a vortex into the mid-’90s. Alas not.
12/10/2011 at 16:52 Mitchk says:
When I saw that picture for the first time it wasn’t the plane that caught my attention, it was that chap’s monstrous chin…
12/10/2011 at 16:56 simoroth says:
That’s some PLANE nasty character art.
12/10/2011 at 17:10 Dozer says:
That’s not his chin. Those are his…
nevermind.
12/10/2011 at 17:13 Windward says:
http://www.listoid.com/image/26/thumbs/list_2_26_20101214_091656_680_th.jpg
This.
12/10/2011 at 17:30 Mitchk says:
Yeah that’s exactly what I thought of, definite Ball-Chinnian or whatever it was called.
And sorry simoroth, that one flew right over my head…
12/10/2011 at 20:29 caddyB says:
Is that Einstein on the background near the plane?
12/10/2011 at 20:55 scorcher24 says:
No, Doc Brown :D
@Topic Will it come to steam? Would love to have it there :).
12/10/2011 at 22:37 manveruppd says:
Here’s how you run an airline:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/09/30/140954343/the-friday-podcast-how-money-got-weird
According to that guy, it’s all to do with buying hedges in oil futures and then shorting your bet (or vice versa, I’m not in finance). The accounting department in that airline was generating more profits than the actual flying-people-about business!
Does this game model that? :p
12/10/2011 at 22:56 Dozer says:
That’s slightly depressing.
12/10/2011 at 23:27 schurem says:
is the 486DX2 66 end-game content?
13/10/2011 at 07:45 Wahngrok says:
I noticed that too since the 486 DX2-66 was my second PC. So let’s hope it goes at least up to (my current) i5-2500K. ;)
13/10/2011 at 00:12 crazydane says:
Loved the first one so much, started playing it when I was pretty young (maybe aged 10 or 11, can’t remember) best thing was when me and my brother got some LAN set up and that made the game so good! I really liked how strange and quirky it was as well.
I am very much looking forward to this. Although I fear that it will not live up to my wonderful memories of the first one.
13/10/2011 at 00:41 buzzmong says:
Is it as good as Airbucks though?
(Yes, that’s an oldie isn’t it? Same people who made Detroit iirc)