Air Control

Not all games are cut from the same cloth and despite a low score, each has its individual potential; even in the most modest of forms. This is not the case for Air Control’s supposed simulation game. At the very least, its entertainment value is dismissible. When stacked against its flagrant insolence towards making an actual game, its nonchalance towards other people’s property or even the disdain for its own users, the one shred of sniggers it could possibly have is quite obviously unintended. It’s beyond barebones in both appearance and content, showing all the signs of random assets just tossed in a pile and calling it a day. Even that would’ve had a redeeming factor, were it not that Air Control is the closest possible to being completely unstable and unusable with questionable content to boot. It’s garbage made game.

What’s to say about its crudely-angled placeholder textures or its inert, low-resolution characters? Its best quality is that most of it was pasted to fit something resembling a plane. As models come straight out of the asset store box, not a lot can go wrong there, but all of them are riddled with edging issues, no solid form whatsoever and there is no shadow anywhere in this universe. Air Control almost feels eerie, it’s so unnatural with its dead faces and twisted models. Audio, whenever it feels like becoming available, is taken off various online platforms and compressed to a crunch on a monotone and endless loop. It’s all noise or nothing at all; there is no in between. Again, this simulation is not one for nuance.

Gameplay follows a similar theme of fully unhinged segments without rhyme or reason, other than to quickly pander users with miniature sections. Most of it can be solved by either walking or performing a total of one repetitive action, before getting yanked to the next part in the loop without context. Almost all of it, however, isn’t just done with the ease of clicking a button. For starters, the screen is almost always plastered with a plethora of useless buttons in the way.

Accessing any content is a puzzle in itself, as mouse movement is simultaneously tied to both the first-person view as well as the independently moving cursor. Therefore, any prompt has to be seen from the corner of the view’s perception, since the screen moves along with the pointer towards the object. Having to complete a task like walking and picking up an item becomes nigh impossible this way, since Air Control’s only plane environment isn’t exactly lenient in freedom of movement to start. There’s one aisle filled with obstructing chairs.

There is variety in Air Control though, if that can be believed. Some sections offer an illogical Flappy Bird clone, with completely similar stolen design and all, but zero payoff. Other parts ask players to solve a simple, never-changing puzzle that consists of typing one code, for no reason. Sometimes it will directly throw in a random area, for the actual purpose of having no purpose. Yes, “just because.”

Flying sections are the best slight alteration in the game’s shoddy design, as they’re fully uncontrollable and make any movement veer wildly towards endlessly repeating texture tiles. It’s so unnecessarily hard to manage; it’s essentially the Dark Souls of its kind. Dying here resets the game, inevitably, because there is no retry or even trying another mode. One death means the death of Air Control as a program. That’s hardcore. Then again, victory means redoing the same one thing again, so it isn’t really a victory either.

That instability though, that might be the biggest sneer towards its users. It’s already hard enough to run through a game with no solid form and a dislodged control scheme. Having to redo an already repetitive area at the whim of the game’s ability to cope with its own design is a step too much. At any time, the game can feel like it has had one error too many and simply freezes or shuts down. In the best case scenario, it will drop to  frame per second, leading to permanent death. Going back to a menu breaks everything. Clicking the wrong button may destroy the game. It’s anybody’s guess. In many ways, playing Air Control is exactly like Russian roulette. Whether or not it achieves its goal, the objective is still the ultimate punishment. Might as well hope it doesn’t work.

It doesn’t even stop there though. Air Control is so bold to freely apply any number of copyrighted materials in its budget title without credit. Even in the landslide odds against it that it acquired a ton of assets legally, such as airline substances and even Nintendo content; it should have to appropriately display that use in its game. It doesn’t, most likely because it can’t. This reeks of dishonesty towards every party the game is addressing. This is where Air Control oversteps its boundaries. A crappy game on its own is one thing to tear down to the bone, but mismanaging other people’s property makes it a liability, to put it lightly. It’s a disgusting and criminal attitude to say it frankly.

"Thanks for the money"

Not only is there no saving Air Control and its nonsensical and fully demented state, its blatant disregard for anyone transforms this vile project into an open insult. Its presentation is torn down to its wireframe. Its gameplay design is as basic and repetitive as the dullest of menial tasks. Its controls and general workability are operable on the lowest possible functionality, when it indeed wants to work at all. Air Control’s clincher, however, is that it spews opportunist contempt in every corner of this broken mess and borders on making itself accusable on a ton of accounts of thievery and misappropriation.

This can’t be considered a game. It’s not a game when it sets a precedent for other for-profit products that seek nefarious ways to cash in. If this is allowed, there’s nothing stopping anyone from doing the same. Without hyperbole, the entire gaming community is worse off with this product being approved and sold. Air Control shouldn’t exist. Air Control needs to not exist.

 

Daav Valentaten, NoobFeed (@Daavpuke)