Kennedy Approach

1989 video games Atari gamesAmiga gamesCommodore 64 gamesAtari ST games

strategy games

Being air traffic controller is the most stressful job in the world, but the same job turned into a game is surprisingly entertaining.

Kennedy Approach was first real air traffic control game, although simplified it created the basic rules that are still in use in the genre of computer games. We take control of one of the areas (Atlanta, Denver, New York, Dallas or Washington) in one of the shifts (from graveyard shift with fewer flights to afternoon shift with heavy traffic). We have to deal with incoming and outgoing traffic, but also the transit flights and even local flights. First of all we have the main routes that link our area to big airfields - the planes will come from them, they will be destination for outgoing or transfer flights that we have just have to send them out in right direction and on the right altitude (4,000 feet).

We can at any point give the directions to the planes in our area to change course or altitude, take off or land, but the real essence of the game is to keep them all apart so there would not be any danger of them colliding. Another thing is time pressure - we can’t keep the airplanes waiting for long time in the air, since they have limited fuel reserve, so we have to find a way to land them all quickly and safely. It is easy while there is not much traffic, but since we are warned about incoming airplanes just a minute or two before they show up in our airspace we pretty quick are put in difficult situations. Another nice touch is the weather - slowly moving heavy clouds that can block the traffic and put us in a tight spot with airplanes piling up (so to speak).

Kennedy Approach is a classic game, still one of the best in the genre - of course it lacks the realism of modern simulators, but it is well balanced between reality and entertainment. We can play a single game or take the career mode, in which we are promoted to more complicated shifts if we did well enough in our last assignment. Another great element was synthesized speech used in the communication with the airplanes - really well made on 8-bit computers.

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Still one of the best games in the genre.
ABC (25-08-2025 09:21:38)

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