Airlines 2

And how! After a nightmare installation (thank goodness I have a Windows ME machine, it wouldn't work on XP), I finally got 'er going. The game is more like an interactive spreadsheet, but hey, I like the numbers games it gives you.

Then, as previously mentioned in another (and quite well-written) review, the planes start falling from the sky. The whole point of a simulation is an aspect of realism, which this game lacks. Realism is replaced with frustration, which really kills the whole experience.

I hope the designers create a fix/patch to correct this. For now, the game is one of those that you throw up your hands and say, "man, that was SO close. I was very nearly entertained."


Could have been better   January 26, 2003
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

Airlines 2 is great because it deals with building an airline empire. However, it falls short of being really entertaining. The fun factor is just to small. It cannot compare to any of the simulation games such as Railroad Tycoon or Ports of Call. Also, the developers changed the brand names of airplanes.


A good start...   December 26, 2002
 21 out of 21 found this review helpful

I really wanted to like Airlines 2. It is basically an updated and improved Air Bucks (if you remember that one). I really like Air Bucks, but since it was a DOS game... I hadn't played it for years.

I had to try five different computers before I found one that would run Airlines 2. Luckily I have the variety of choices to try. You must have Windows Me, a 3D graphics card and at least 128MB of RAM. Your display driver has to be up to date, and a newer CD-ROM drive. It was rediculously hard to get it working.

Now for the bad news . Things work fine for a couple of years and then planes start crashing left and right. After about 10 years, even if you replace your airplanes with newer ones, you will have multiple airplane crashes EACH MONTH. If there were this many crashes in real life no one would ever fly.

The most important plane is the Boeing (called Boodwing) 707. Stock up on these because they get discontinued about a year before the 747 shows up (at a far higher cost) and many routes only are economical to fly with 707s. Huge cities must have large planes flying to them, so when you lose a 707 most times you have to shut down the route. DC-10's can take some routes, but not most.

The rule "book" is a joke. There are many important rules that you have to figure out by trial and error. For instace, the rule book says that planes "must be the right size" for a route. What does that mean? Huge cities must be served by large planes. Tiny cities by small planes. So, if you Large city being served by 737s (for instance) grows to a Huge city, all of those routes suddenly stop working until the planes are replaced by 707s, DC-10s or the like. In many cases the routes have to be abondoned.

Want to fly a hub and spoke network? Forget it. A city can have, at most five routes in and out of it (depending on the size).

Don't even get me started on the total lack of responce from their technical support people.

This game could have been very good, but it fails miserably.


problems   December 24, 2002
 2 out of 9 found this review helpful

you people that are having problems get the latest driver for your graphics card and it could be that graphics card that is causing the problem and not your processor