Airplane Mode – Review
Airplane Mode is somewhat the go-to mode when you wish to break contact with the world around you. This neat little option on your phone makes it so you are unreachable to those who want to contact you via phone, be it through the internet or the good old-fashioned way of texting and calling. Some may do this to zone out, relax or just have some quality time for themselves, or their loved ones. We reckon this is something the following game wanted to do by somewhat mimicking the experience of a commercial flight in second class, where you’re stuck to enjoy the view, use the somewhat dated online entertainment and be forced to just relax and zone out.
Story
There’s no story to be found in this game. You board a plane and you go from taxiing to your actual flight and the landing. You will get slightly different variations every time, but it’s not like there’s a deeper narrative to be found in this game.
Graphics
Graphically the game is not really that much to look at. Sure, there are a few nice views to behold, the onboard movies are actual movies or clips, but the rest is a bit simplistically handled. The other flight passengers look a bit cheap, even though they have proper textures. You’ll notice that certain areas aren’t smoothened out and also certain clipping issues occur. Other than that there’s just simply not much to ‘behold’ during your trip, which is somewhat to be expected on an airplane. There could have been a bit more variety when it comes to certain items in our opinion. We heavily disliked the looping animations of the other passengers, crew members or even the entertainment others are watching. This somewhat snaps you out of the simulation experience.
Sound
The sound design is actually quite impressive. Things go from the in-flight announcements, the safety clip, the onboard entertainment, your podcasts, music, etc. Everything has that proper vibe, and when not using your in-game Bluetooth headset, you will the constant humming of the airplane and other noises around you. Overall things have been well taken care of and actually have a proper ‘simulation’ vibe.
Gameplay
Airplane Mode is a supposed simulator game that lets you experience the somewhat dull experience of a commercial flight in second class. From start to finish you’ll be glued to your seat, having to make do with the simple entertainment around you. This means browsing through pictures on your phone, listening to podcasts, watching onboard entertainment, reading books or magazines, playing games or just doodling in a sketchbook. If things get really bad you can throw some paper towels on the floor of the toilet, but it doesn’t get any more exciting than that. Sure, every flight is a (slightly) different experience, but even so, things stay quite mundane, as was probably intended.
While the above doesn’t sound that exciting, we reckon that is the actual point of the game. This concept could actually be quite relaxing, as well as agitating when having to wait for a certain action to happen. Nonetheless, it’s the actual controls that start dragging down the oddly zen-experience. More than often you’ll end up clicking on the wrong item, accidentally place items back, not trigger the desired effect, don’t understand how certain things work, etc. This starts to get somewhat annoying after a while when certain things don’t ‘respond’ to your commands. The game sometimes feels a bit buggy because of this.
Conclusion
Airplane Mode is a very niche game and will only entice a small audience into playing the game. Whether or not that limited audience will like the experience is completely up to them. For the time being, the game feels very limited, and while that might be the point, it sometimes feels too limited. The controls are quite clunky and this will make the otherwise relaxing experience a bit less entertaining, as sometimes you don’t properly feel in control when playing the game. Nonetheless, this can be a relaxing replacement for having to skip several trips this year.
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