Grab your coffee, your cigarette, and let’s get an ulcer – its time to play air traffic controller. This application will have you frantically picking flight paths for the never ending number of starships entering your space station.
Space Dock draws its inspiration from popular titles like Flight Control, Harbor Master, and Trace. The game revolves around the Chicago O’hare of space stations. Using your fingers you need to trace the appropriate flight path for the incoming space ships. Cause one measly explosion and you lose your job. Apparently, mid-air collisions are frowned upon at this station.
Gameplay:
The game starts out by asking you from the very beginning whether you want to have sound or not. I really appreciate this since I often play these games in places where loud space explosions would not be tolerated. At this point most people will admit thinking naughty thoughts about the girl on the title screen.
Hit play and you are off to tracing flight paths. The game borrows heavily from [cough-cough stolen] Star Trek spaceship designs. You will be guiding an Enterprise and what looks like a Klingon ship. (If I’m wrong do not write me angry letters in Klingon) Trace a flight path to the proper landing strip and the ship will grey out letting you know everything is copasetic.
You will discover things get out of control really pretty quickly. Within minutes I had ships swirling in circles while I desperately tried to avoid multiple collisions. Thankfully, the ships will sound an alarm and flash at you if they are about to slam into each other.
The game mixes it up by making you rescue stranded spacemen with specific ships. This serves as a nice distraction. The space ship is also apparently busy firing weapons and is being upgraded automatically. There are also apparently space aliens who are invading your ship. You will likely be way to busy to notice or care about these side issues that appear to be tacked on.
The game’s finger tracing controls work as expected. I never really had any problems with reaction time. The space ships always did what I told them to do – whether it was a good idea or not.
What We Liked:
+ Fun space traffic management
+ Achievements
+ Online Ranking ability
What We Disliked:
– Only one life per game
– Gets pretty hectic pretty quick
– Has the potential to get repetitive
Final Verdict
If you are a big fan of traffic management this game will make you happy. At the current price point it is a relatively modest investment. Will you play it non-stop for hours? – No. Will you pick it up and play it every once a while to break things up – Yes. This game really doesn’t break new ground therefore it gets a middle of the road score.
[xrrgroup][xrr label="Audio:" rating="3/5" group="s1" ] [xrr label="Video:" rating="3/5" group="s1"] [xrr label="Controls:" rating="3/5" group="s1"] [xrr label="Enjoyment:" rating="3/5" group="s1"] [xrr label="Replay Value:" rating="3/5" group="s1"] [/xrrgroup] |
Great review. Both informative, objective and amusing!
i too like a good line drawing game but i feel like once you have one, none of the rest do anything differently enough to consider a purchase. Seems nice, but i wont be buying.
Please review iSpacePort next… I’d like to see how it compares to this one.
Thanks!
Not so sure about this one. I was wondering when we’d get the space line-drawing game. We’ve seen road, air travel, sea, etc. We’ve finally left the stratosphere. What’s next? Ocean floor???
Anyway, I’ve got plenty of these to keep me busy and there isn’t really anything selling me on this one. I do like the rescuing stranded spacemen thing, which does add another element, but I just don’t think it’s revolutionary enough to make me stop playing Harbor Master and take to space.
I’m a fan of all these line drawing / time management games…though this one sounds rather chaotic. I guess in rerospect they really are chaotic in the end!
I like the space theme though, and achievements are always a good thing.