Airport Tycoon 3 (PC)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 2.5 stars OK
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 5.0 (2.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Jason Ocampo
• Reviewed on: 01/13/2004
• Released on: 10/30/2003
• Originally published on GameSpot: Airport Tycoon 3 (PC) Review

As its name suggests, Airport Tycoon 3 is the latest build-it-and-planes-will-come airport strategy game from developer InterActive Vision. So after three iterations, it'd be reasonable to expect that the developers would have honed the gameplay in Airport Tycoon 3 to a razor's edge. Unfortunately, this couldn't be further from reality. That's because for whatever progress that the series makes in this third installment, it's undone by lackluster gameplay and poor execution.

Airports are certainly an interesting subject to build a tycoon game around, and they're definitely a change from the glut of zoo/wild park/theme park games on the market. As with most tycoon games, in Airport Tycoon 3 you start off with a big plot of land and a large amount of capital. After building a runway, a terminal, and all the support structures, you open the airport for business. Airlines negotiate master contracts for landing and takeoff rights, as well as for contracts for individual flights. As air traffic grows, you need to upgrade facilities, build new ones, negotiate contracts, and make business deals with hotel and retail chains. There's an amazing amount of depth and detail to explore. In this aspect, Airport Tycoon 3 is certainly well researched, and you can learn volumes about the intricacies and economics of the airport business.

It's just so unfortunate that the execution in the game is so disappointing in virtually every respect. For example, the game touts two gameplay modes: scenario and sandbox. There are, however, a whopping two scenarios in the game, both of which are incredibly easy. It's almost as if the developers had planned for more but called it a day after the first two. The sandbox mode that allows you to build an airport from scratch is, for all intents and purposes, the whole of the game. It has the potential to be fun and interesting, but it's crippled by bad pacing. After you set up your airport, you have to sit around and wait for the contracts to trickle in. Contracts roll in at about one per game month, or in gameplay terms, about one every couple of minutes. There's not much to do while you're waiting, but you can't just leave the game running in the background because a contract offer will expire if you don't act on it promptly. So there are whole stretches of the game where you're doing nothing but waiting for the contract buzzer to sound. And, often times, you spend so much money building and upgrading facilities that it can easily throw you in debt, which means that you'll sit around even longer waiting to run up enough revenue to put you back in the black.

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