I played this game along with the old Microsoft Flight Simulator. Nothing is better than dogfights. You have the duty of an air traffic controller. Your job is to basically designated routes for planes to fly in so that nothing major happens. The coolest thing is that many airports around the world were built in so you can direct traffic around Sydney and other places. This game I hear was actually used as the training sim for all the new air traffic controllers, so why not go to the source for a good game? It is a really fun diversion when you are tired of flying the planes and would like someone else to do it for you while you just stand back and give orders.
I played this game along with the old Microsoft Flight Simulator. Nothing is better than dogfights. You have the duty of an air traffic controller. Your job is to basically designated routes for planes to fly in so that nothing major happens. The coolest thing is that many airports around the world were built in so you can direct traffic around Sydney and other places. This game I hear was actually used as the training sim for all the new air traffic controllers, so why not go to the source for a good game? It is a really fun diversion when you are tired of flying the planes and would like someone else to do it for you while you just stand back and give
orders. Different hazards and emergencies come up that make you have to react quickly and make key decisions about where to route planes when things go wrong (storms, in-flight emergencies, etc).
The main screen is simply a console with a live radar feed with all the information of each plane in the air (flight number, speed, elevation, heading, etc) and while not very in depth, this is all you really need to play this game. You basically select the aircraft you want to adjust the flight plan for and then key in the new information and, pending competent pilots (and not drunk ones), the flight plan changes accordingly.
As with many old 80’s games the graphics aren’t amazing by any means, but the gameplay is what sells the game. While currently there are other downloadable ATC sims which are newer and have better graphics, Tracon seems to be the one that started it all and in my opinion you can’t beat a classic. Some of the other ATC games like RADCON (military version of Tracon) are pretty cool as well and if you catch on to this game you should definitely try the other games. Yes, it may be repetitive and the same process, but the increased graphics are cool, plus with directing military planes you get an aspect of field general control as with many of the Command and Conquer games of the early 90's (which also need to be put on this site ASAP).
I really did enjoy this game and recommend it to anyone who has any sort of interest in aviation or air traffic controlling.
