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iPad, iPod touch, & iPhone app reviews from our editors—and you!
Filed Under:
Developer:
Firemint Pty Ltd
Age rating: 4+
Compatibility: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.
Requires iOS 2.0 or later
Flight ControlCurrent Version: 1.9.2 (iOS 4.0 Tested)
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Flight Control is a must-have App Store classic. It's the incredibly simple, yet insanely addictive worldwide #1 game from Firemint that invented the "line drawing" genre. Over 3,000,000 copies sold – don’t miss out, play all five unique maps in the original and best today!
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✈ Macworld awarded Flight Control an extremely rare 5 out of 5 mice: "The unique gameplay is perfectly suited to the device, and I am hopelessly addicted."
✈ Pocket Gamer: “Flight Control is one of those essential games that you'll continually return to and will remain on your iPhone forever”
✈ Touch Arcade: “the winning balance of easy pick-up gameplay, ramping difficulty and tickling the need to try ‘just one more time’”
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Air traffic control is the world's most stressful job, but not for you. You don't need heading angles, flight rules or meteorological reports, you're a natural! A prodigy! A born controller!
✔ Incredibly easy to learn! Just touch and drag the aircraft to their landing zones and avoid collisions.
✔ Insanely addictive – it only takes a minute to get started, but it’s impossible to stop!
✔NEW - Fly solo, or share landing duties with a friend - online via Game Center on iOS4.2, over local Wi-Fi network or Bluetooth
✔ NEW - Turn on the voice chat option to talk with the other controller when in online multiplayer mode (off by default)
✔Aim for a new personal best or compete against other Flight Controllers in online leaderboards
✔ Earn achievements when you complete challenges
✔ Visit all 5 airfields including Beach, Original, Windy, Australian Outback and Aircraft Carrier, each with unique characteristics and challenges!
✔ Featuring 10 aircraft types including jets, helicopters and seaplanes!
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So welcome aboard, please sit back, fasten your seatbelt and enjoy the mayhem – treat yourself and buy Flight Control now, or surprise a friend and Gift This App!
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ⓘ For the latest inside info from Firemint, join us on our site, Facebook or Twitter! Please report bugs on our support site so we can assist you - visit www.firemint.com for links and details.
Flight Control Review
Unique gameplay is perfectly suited to the iPhone and iPod touch
Flight Control, a $1 app from Firemint, wouldn’t exist without the iPhone. The unique gameplay is perfectly suited to the device, and I am hopelessly addicted. When I have a spare minute or two, Flight Control is the game I play. Go spend the buck and start playing—you can read my review later while nodding vigorously in agreement.
In Flight Control, you assume the role of air traffic controller. As an ever-increasing number of planes approach the runways, your job is to guide them all in for safe landings—ensuring that they stay out of each other’s way. Planes travel at different speeds, and each is color-coded to match the runway it must land on. You tap on approaching planes and drag a flight path for them to follow for landing. That flight path remains visible, and the plane turns white to indicate that you’ve successfully drawn a path to its runway.
Maverick, Goose—Look Out: A recent update to Flight Control added a particularly challenging aircraft carrier level to the game that puts you in the role of an air traffic controller.
But careful! More planes keep on coming. And helicopters—oh, those painfully slow-traveling helicopters—keep on coming, too. As more aircraft begin filling up the screen, you need to remain hyper-vigilant to make sure that they don’t collide. Luckily, you’re allowed to re-re-route planes as many times as you need, which you’ll find yourself doing repeatedly to avoid airborne pile-ups just shy of the runway. As you progress, this process gets increasingly manic… and not surprisingly, it’s tons of fun, too.
After a recent update, Flight Control now sports three levels (or “airfields”)—the original simple airstrip, a beachside resort with water landings, and the most hellish of all, an aircraft carrier. The military planes that show up on that last level fly faster than other aircraft in the game, and there’s not a lot of room to maneuver everybody onto the relatively tight ship. And when the tides cause the carrier to move a bit—good luck adjusting all those landing approaches in time! The other two levels can start out a bit slow. Flight Control wisely includes a fast-forward button that speeds up the action, which you can toggle at any time as you play.
Each time you successfully land a plane, Flight Control displays a cheery victory message, catered to the airfield you’re playing (“Commendable!” or “Outstanding” on the aircraft carrier; “Aloha” or “Bienvenue” at the resort; or “Good show!” and “Splendid!” on the original level. These assorted messages, and the deliciously retro menu and Game Over screens (complete with polite, congratulatory flight attendants), add a nice dose of personality to the game.
Of course, Flight Control saves your high scores (which translate to the number of planes you’ve successfully landed) on each level, and you can see how you measure up with online scoreboards. And since the game smartly saves your progress when you’re interrupted, you can achieve your insane high scores over the course of a few days, with breaks to eat and sleep.
My sole complaint is that Flight Control prompts me about whether I’d rather hear its soundtrack or listen to my own music each time I launch the game; I’d prefer a setting I could set and forget.
The game takes seconds to learn, and mere minutes to play. That makes it even more impressive that I’ve spent hours guiding planes in Flight Control and can’t wait to go play again.
Flight Control is compatible with any iPhone or iPod touch running the iPhone 2.x software update.
[Lex Friedman is a frequent Macworld.com contributor.]
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