Customer Reviews

Airport Tycoon 3

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

I bought this game for my 11 year old son because he loves roller coaster tycoon, ski resort tycoon, and zoo tycoon. This tycoon game had nice graphics and music (when we found a computer that had an adequately equipped video card) but that was about it for positive qualities. The manual is horrible, the online tutorial is useless, and gameplay is not intuitive when it comes to figuring out what the player should be doing as far as building and the business end of running an airport. The money runs out way too fast and the contracts come in way too slow - not a lot of action or fun. One of my biggest pet peeves about this program is that there are spelling and grammar errors throughout the program. It is almost like the person who wrote it doesn't speak English as his/her first language. Not a good example for kids unless you want to teach them how NOT to check their work...This is one tycoon game I would suggest avoiding.

This "game" is probably one of the most frustrating, buggy, and annoying money pits you will ever have the displeasure of playing. I made the mistake of seeing this in the discount bin and picking it up; I could've used the $10 on something more enjoyable, like an enema.

The list of missteps here is long and entertaining:

1) There is no way to learn how to play the game without trial and error. The "tutorial" is a series of blurry screenshots that offers nothing of value. Things like: You need most buildings to face an apron to be functional. You need to place a taxiway adjacent to the runway, and then a planestand adjacent to the taxiway.

2) The scenarios, all 2 of them, are so ridiculously easy a blind monkey could figure them out in a couple tries.

3) There is no way to improve the passenger experience except to place plants everywhere inside the terminal. It doesn't matter if they can't move in there, as long as it's green.

4) The contracts come in slowly. I'm not kidding. You will go weeks in the game (5-10 minutes real time) before you're offered a contract. And you'd might as well accept it without any changes because the changes you ask won't matter. The economic system would make a third world Communist country look like a global superpower. In other words, there is no economic system. It's completely inept. What do I mean? You can't borrow money, but you spend up to negative $5 million with no repercussions. After that, you will earn maybe $10,000 a month with 50 contracts in place. Do the math - you will never make money in this game. It's so completely out of whack it's amazing - and appalling that this is a "professional" release.

5) The sounds become immediately grating. For instance, when a contract comes in, you're alerted by a buzzer and a red flashing light. Of course, if your sound is off because of the annoying Euro-trash techno music, then you'll probably miss the red light because it's literally the size of a pinprick and the "news alert" box doesn't scroll down, it just writes over itself. If you zoom in, you'll get a couple vehicle-appropriate sounds, but it just loops over and over like a bad Groundhog Day scene.

5) Someone with a 3rd grade English education proofread the game. Seriously. It's atrocious. Granted, I'm no Hemingway, but if I'm asking people to buy my product, I should have someone read it, right? It begs the question: Did anyone actually play this game before packing it up and shipping it off?

I could go on, but suffice it to say, no matter what you do, do not buy this game. Look in the same discount bin this game is probably located and pick up any old school Sid Meier, Maxis or PopTop game and you will have infinitely more fun. When/If Airport Tycoon 4 comes out, I'd cast a wary eye on these guys, because I simply would not trust any company that saw fit to release this turkey way before it's time.

I am a big fan of simulation games - especially those which end in 'Tycoon'!

I guess I should have paid more attention to the other folks who wrote reviews for this game because I went ahead and purchased Airline Tycoon 3, thinking naively "2 should be better than 1, and 3 should be better than 2". I can't comment on 1 and 2 because I don't own copies of them, (and unless someone reassures me that they are much better than 3), and don't intend to own them, or anything from Global Star.

Let me tell you what I found annoying/ disappointing in this game:

1) Other games have simulations that run as tutorials, here you just get the privilege of reading the manual in an electronic form!

2) The English needs work - "Plain" Maintenance for heaven's sake! Other examples which I can't recall right now. Someone needs to actually LOOK at what is being displayed to give the game in my view, a 'finished' look.

3) Once you place a terminal building there is no way of removing it.

4) Ditto for the runway. Except of course when you try to delete a runway you are told you cannot delete it. We can still see it after the deleted attempt, but the game has decided that the runway has been deleted, and we are stuck with the message that the airport cannot be operated without a runway!

Due to 3 and 4, I found myself quitting the game again and again in order to correct my mistakes. This got old very quickly and I found myself sailing the CD across the room vowing never to buy anything from Global Star ever again.

A message to the folks at Global Star: TEST your software...your competitors are allegedly doing this!

I LOVED the original Airport Tycoon and got hooked on it. But Airport Tycoon 2 was a total bust. Panda Jet and Orient Air the only airlines serving Tel Aviv? No interior detail in the terminal? COME ON!!!

So I hoped that Airport Tycoon 3 would remedy the flaws and become the souped up Airport Tycoon I was hoping for. It didn't quite make it. The graphics are decent, and a lot of problems with Airport Tycoon 2 (i.e. lack of terminal interiors) were fixed. But some things leave a lot to be desired. For one thing, where are the security areas in the terminal? You can't build your own custom terminals. And China Int'l serving Chicago to Indianapolis????? Hmmm....

I'd pick the original Airport Tycoon before 2 or 3.

It's true that this version improves highly on Airport Tycoon 1 & 2. But there are also many things I think need to be fixed. First, it still has a difficult, confusing interface. Also, it still has too many constraints (for example, if a plane stand is not positioned a certain way, it will not work -- you have to manually rotate it first). I would definitely choose AT3 over AT1 or AT2, but I am waiting expectantly for AT4, hoping that these problems will be addressed.

It is hard to imagine why this game runs so poorly on a modern Pentium 4 computer. Despite its unimpressive and blocky graphics, it can't seem to draw images fast enough to keep up with what very little action exists.

But there's a bigger problem. It's absolutely boring. Too slow moving for a building sim. Too little activity for a business sim. Airport Tycoon 3 is the kind of cheaply made, bottom of the discount bin item that you'll regret hogging up space on your disk drive.

Once you have built your airport, you have a choice of altering the speed of the game between horrifically slow real-time and annoyingly zippy fast mode. But neither of them give you much satisfaction. In fast mode, planes land and take off so quickly you miss them in the blink of an eye. Try to slow it down, and you sit around and wait forever for something -- anything -- to happen.

Ultimately, this is among the least playable of the simulation games.

I have A.T.1 and it is awsome I still play it. I really wanted part 3 and now that I got it, it is really bad. I downloaded a trainer off the web for unlimited money, but after I downloaded the patch for the game from global star the trainer doesn't work. I can not make any money and I always go bankrupt. Who evens knows how to charge airlines to land at your airport? You can't expand your terminal or destory it to build a bigger on. Until Global Star can figure out how to fix all the problems This CD will be a frisbee for my dog!

The game is overall worth buying if you are into the workings of an aiport and always wanted to give it a try in a less drastic way...The game overall is something that can easily be made very enjoyable. A few texture issues and gameplay issues need to be addressed to keep the game more interesting, truely the only way to get through a full game is on fast forward. The music is less then desirable and may drive you nuts after a while. Being an aviation and airport buff I still enjoyed the game. Any news on Airport Tycoon 4? I hope they make another one making these nescessary improvements. I will definately be buying!

Other reviewers have pretty well summed up this game.

Here's my take on it:

+ the game is very well done. The interface, graphics, and sound are all top-notch. The animations and character units are believable and behave accurately enough. The interface is very detailed and allows you as much control as you could
desire from any management game.

- the game requires immense patience. Even after you build all the required items to get your airport running you'll wait a long time before signing airline contracts. Even with the game on the fastest speed you could wait 5-10 minutes of real time just to sign up one airline flight! Sometimes two weeks of gametime will pass before you get an offer from an airline. If you don't mind the waiting then this aspect won't bother you.

In summary I found the game to superbly designed but to be lacking in entertainment content. Waiting for something to happen with no recourse to affect it is often not that amusing. If you value fun over realism then you'll probably have a similiar take on it. If you favor realism then you'll probably love this game.

Take care

Global Star has yet to live up to its original Airport Tycoon...ACT2 was a "bust"....ACT3 graphics improved and some ACT2 fixes, but still seems to be lacking improvements found in other "more" current simulation games...if you have #1 or #2, no need to purchase #3....let's hope #4 lives up to its hype...