If you’re looking for a cheap ($.99), quick, and easy to learn game Flight Control may just be the title you’ve been looking for.  Flight Control is about as basic as you can get, yet, the developers over at FireMint Games certainly know exactly how to keep you hooked.  The entire premise behind Flight Control is to take on the role of an air traffic controller. There are three landing zones on the map one for your larger passenger planes, one for smaller propeller planes, and lastly one for helicopters. The more planes you are able to land safely, the faster others appear, with gameplay quickly becoming a hectic battle of quick finger strokes, timing, and a bit of strategy. Tapping and holding on any plane will allow you to draw a dotted line anywhere on the screen which the selected plane will then follow, and the game does a nice job of automatically drawing the line into the runway if you near the correct landing zone, making route-drawing quick and painless. From there, it’s all about watching the paths of dozens of planes as they approach, trying to judge the speeds and approach pattern of each, and making sure they don’t crash into each other. That’s about it.

The real appeal here is just how fluid everything seems to be, from the nostalgic 1950’s flight attendant pin-up girl that greets you on the main screen, to the colorful yet cartoon-y landing strips and planes you are tasked with guiding.  Flight control lets you feel like you’re back in the golden age of consumer aviation (well before you had to pay extra in order to bring a suitcase with you… ).  It’s simplicity is one of its main buying factors as you can easily pick up and play a quick game whenever you have two or three minutes to spare, but, can also be a drawback as there is only one level, one music track (if you don’t include playing your own iPod music), and 4 different kinds of planes (there are two variations to the passenger plane).

However, there’s no denying that a $.99 price tag, easily accessible gameplay, and having spent over a month on the “Top Apps” list on the app store makes this a budget title that’s hard to resist. I just wish they had included several different layouts for the airport or at least a level system to put a slight break in the action.

*UPDATE*

Flight Control was recently updated to version 1.1 (I had reviewed version 1.0), which has added many new features such as a quick resume for phone calls and other interruptions as well as an incredibly deep online scoreboard and ranking system (work your way up to gain status titles from passenger to cabin crew,  and ultimately astronaut just to name a few), and also some cool new google maps and twitter functionality through their own “cloudcell” technology on their website found here: http://flightcontrol.cloudcell.com

If that wasn’t enough I’ve recently caught wind of FireMint Games submitting the 1.2 update to apple which will include two brand new airfields, one of which is a beachside airport and the other an aircraft carrier. Props go to FireMint Games for listening to their audiance. It’s great to see developers actively working on upgrading their Apps for further longevity in order to keep us hooked for a long while to come.

Pros:

• Easy to learn difficult to master gameplay mechanics
• Great time killer when waiting for a subway or bus ride
• Vibrant 2D visuals
• Global scoreboard

Cons:

• Almost complete lack of variety
• The single song sound track will get repetitive

Flight Control starts off easy...

..But quickly becomes quite frantic