SimAirport Review (SickRamen)
Sim Mehrport
Playing this game feels just like a trip via your favorite airport, there's some excitement to be had, but you can't help yourself get overcome with boredom in the process, and of course there is always something that goes wrong along the way.
The excitement:
Watching passengers follow the paths in droves, using your facilities for cash, adding flights to your schedule and watch them land and takeoff, building a new wing for your airport, all feel satisfying in some shape or form.
The boredom:
Problem is the game is both very easy - once you get in a profit pattern you can't stop winning.
And very slow - it takes ages to grind money and building costs a lot.
Combined with the lack of end goal, the lack of surprise mechanics like I dunno, drunk passengers or terrorists, and the somewhat limited map size, this makes for some pretty dull and grindy gameplay. Everytime I pick up this game I end up getting fed up after a few hours: there is no pizzaz to keep the engagement factor going.
The wrong:
In addition the game contains a fair amount of:
-Incomplete and/or underutilised features: the game left Early Access a bit too early and it shows. For example there's an entire staff shift times micromanagement interface...... that doesn't seem to do anything.
-Clunky mechanics: unable to build objects in certain ways. Obtuse requirements to fulfil. Passengers who use your construction sites as a pathway to evade security and brick everything; the game is full of these little annoyances that can be worked around in some way but dent your fun in the process.
-Bugs: none of the bugs are game breaking but there's quite a few. The most annoying with the game is that you're never sure if you can't build X object because of a bug.... or because of an obscure mechanic that hasn't properly been explained. Most of the time it could be either.....
Ladies and Gentlemen, we have arrived at our destination
After hearing me dissing this game for the last 3 paragraphs, you'd be surprised at the thumbs up.
Truth is this is closest to a "meeh" recommendation as it gets, but none of the bugs or annoyances encountered were truly game breaking, and in the end I had a good 20-30hrs of gameplay, part of which was afk grinding, but part of which at least was quite fun.
It feels the game could have been something bigger, something more polished, something exciting. Instead it's just your typical endless queue for Security at JFK airport. Slow and tedious, but at least you are going somewhere!