During summers of my late teenage years, I used to work in one of the busiest airports in the world: Chicago’s O’hare Airport. It was one of the most enlightening experiences I’ve had and something I’m grateful to have been a part of. In a sense, it was the world packed into a relatively small space; it was truly a microcosm of this world we live in. Some days would be dull (very few) and others -especially rainy ones- would be just over-the-head hectic. On those rainy days, passengers would get restless, tempers erupted, the airport would have very little walking space, and the smokers would most certainly show up to ask for the exit so they can get their nicotine fix. But, to me the most fascinating aspect of those hectic days would be to see an assortment of planes lining up on the runway to take off (plane traffic jam!). This always made me ask myself how stressful it must be for those poor souls directing the planes on a rainy day (granted, it’s not a walk in the park directing planes on a normal day)!

Plane frenzy!

Some years and an N97 later, the answer seems to come in the form of Airport Touch by Offscreen Technology. Airport Touch is one of the simplest and most intuitive games you will find on Ovi. The basis is you’ll be given two landing strips and two planes. One plane is a jumbo jet and the other is a small private plane. The price of the game is 3 Euros as of now.  The player has to land the plane into it’s specific strip by outlining a route, for example the jumbo jet will only land on the bigger runway. As the game begins, the interval of planes arriving is very big. But, as some time passes by, planes arrive very frequently and it is the player’s responsibility to create safe routes so that there are no mid-air collisions (yikes!). When planes arrive, there is a small blinking bar from the general direction they are coming from. As the tempo picks up, the player must respond very quickly and it’s these hectic moments that will create casualties and put a huge question mark on your Air Traffic Controller title!

For the most part, this game is smooth and easy to learn. However, I have some gripes that are very apparent. Firstly, there are many times when the game becomes sluggish; it mostly happens towards the end, when there are a lot of lines being made and a lot of planes are being routed. It totally ruins the spontaneity of the game and shows the glaring absence of a gpu on the N97. Secondly, the counter on the bottom of the screen comes in betwen the players’ view of incoming planes. So, there were many instances where a plane would suddenly pop-up from under the counter and create a collision. I also think that there should have been more weather conditions than the always sunny weather. It’s these little nooks that prevent this game from being a must-have.

Keeping that in mind:

Rating: 3.5/5

Price: 3 Euros

Ciao,

Salman