I’ve never flown on a plane before, not for a desire or a lack of desire. I’m sure I’d enjoy flying on a plane (well, maybe not dealing with TSA), but I’ve just never had the opportunity to ride the friendly skies. Part of it is probably because I’m scared. When you think really deep about it, planes are very scary things. I couldn’t imagine working in that industry. It is dreadfully boring, and the cost of making one mistake is that you and hundreds of people die, and your name will be remembered with dishonor and shame for generations. According to developer and publisher Sonic Powered, that makes a great concept for a videogame.
As I am an Air Traffic Controller – AIRPORT HERO HANEDA’s filibuster of a name implies, you are put in the role of an Air Traffic Controller, tasked with making sure planes land safely and don’t crash into one another. If the game´s store page is to believed, this is a series that its native Japanese fanbase can´t get enough of, but one that´s had little if any presence in the west until now.
I’m usually not interested in simulator games, so I tried to look at this game from a slightly different perspective, from the eyes of someone who can’t get enough of this sort of game. I tried to think carefully about what people who are interested in this sort of game would want. I’m sure there’s some plane fanatic out there for whom this game might be their Game of the Year, maybe even Game of the Decade, but there’s a lot that makes me struggle to recommend this for a more general audience.
There´s really not much to the gameplay. As an air traffic controller, your mission is to guide incoming and outgoing aircraft through all steps of the takeoff and landing process. You have to micromanage every little thing. Deciding which runway to use, deciding which routes to get there, giving aircraft approval to take off and land, and anything else they might need. It´s not a glamorous or flashy job, but it’s one that is very necessary. Once you get into the rhythm of things, it does get kind of fun, but the early stages of the game are maddeningly boring when you have so little to do.
The game in general moves at a very slow pace. Each level takes upwards of half an hour, with no option for a fast forward function. I personally think the gameplay isn´t necessarily bad but being forced to play in massive chunks like this absolutely does it no favors. Especially because there´s a heavy focus on ranking, with high ranks being mandatory for unlocking all of the game´s content, and I don´t think ranks fit well into this game´s structure. Fulfilling all the bonus missions is required for getting an S-rank in a stage, and it can be difficult to plan around them, because the planes move so slowly that it´s easy to plan out a route to complete a mission, only for the planes to move so slowly that the stage ends before you can actually fulfill the mission.
If there’s a word out there that could describe Air Traffic Controller – AIRPORT HERO HANEDA, it would be the word ¨Dry.¨ I don´t necessarily want to say that its boring, just that it´s starved for personality. The game´s goal is to faithfully recreate the life of an air traffic controller, as tedious and mind-numbing as that may be. I commend it for its sense of realism. There´s clearly a lot of effort put into making things look realistic. I don´t know the first thing when it comes to aircraft, but it´s clear that they´re the main thing that was focused on when it comes to the presentation.
I don´t quite know how to word this, but I think the game would have done well with more plane fanservice, if that makes any sense. Not like, making the planes sexy or anything. But it is obvious that the game wants to make the planes the major focus, so I wouldn´t have minded the opportunity to learn more about them. To dive deep into their guts, to learn their technical statistics, and maybe some fancy plane footage. I think it would have been a nice way to get into the role of an air traffic controller, to get really into that sort of mindset.
The soundscape in general is fairly solid. The music is surprisingly upbeat and catchy, definitely something I was pleasantly surprised to see. There´s also a surprising amount of voice acting. Every command you make is accompanied by someone responding to it in a realistic fashion, usually in Japanese. It´s all very technical stuff, but it does a great job when it comes to immersing me into the world of an air traffic controller.
It´s good that the soundscape is well executed, because I´m not too keen on the game´s visual style in general. I often hear the phrase ¨Dreamcast-era¨ or ¨PS2-era¨ thrown around like an insult, one I usually dislike. I personally think games of that era look beautiful. But here, I think it´s actually somewhat relevant. Outside of the planes, the visual presentation is not very appealing. The airport environment looks incredibly bland, and the area outside of it is one endless, low resolution flat texture periodically dotted with metal cylinders. From all the cinematic camera angles that you can get when switching between active planes, I think the team wanted to make the game look appealing in this regard, and I don´t think they really succeed.
Air Traffic Controller – AIRPORT HERO HANEDA is technically sound at the very least. I encountered no bugs of any kind over the course of my playtime. Which just serves to make the game more surreal. The game is well built, it’s just exceptionally dry, and something I struggle to recommend. There have been better simulation games made, and ones that managed to be legitimately interesting. I´m sure people obsessed with Japanese planes will love this, but I question how many of those are out there in the world.
Score: 6/10
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Related: Reviews by Devon Williams
"Videogames have been a massive part of my life since I was three. With a bottomless appreciation for games both modern and retro, I'm always happy to experience something new and wacky. I hope to become a writer someday, to craft wonderful worlds like the ones in my favorite videogames."
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