Airport Mania: First Flight may look and sound like something off a preschool television program, but its fast-paced gameplay will overwhelm even the most experienced multitasker–a growing iPhone apps genre for games.
This is no iPhone game for the easily stressed. As air traffic controller, first you have to assign the circling planes a clear runway and terminal to unload passengers. Then there’s refueling and repairs and boarding and take-off and more circling planes that will leave to find another airport if you keep their crabby, hungry passengers waiting too long.
The game’s interface is strong, with only a slight need for improvements when the airport gets overcrowded, which it undoubtedly will. Planes get crammed so close together that even if you had a logical plan for navigating them around each other, selecting the aircraft you want to move is a challenge unto itself.
With eight airports to master at five or six levels each, I’ve been playing Airport Mania for the past two days and am little more than halfway through. The game also let’s you pick up where you left off if you have to stop mid-play.
You make money by getting aircraft in the sky on time. At the end of each level, you can spend this cash to make your job easier with upgraded terminals, additional runways and in-flight movies that keep passengers civil while they wait for an open gate.
But with outrageous baggage fees and $5 bags of peanuts, keeping travelers happy these days is way easier said than done.
