Description: City Island: Airport 2, like its predecessor, is a Sim City like game that focuses on creating and running the best holiday destination that you can. The idea behind the game is to build and upgrade the island’s Airport, manage incoming and outgoing flights and create accommodation, landmarks and amusements in order to keep the money coming in and your residents happy. It’s not just about building a fun city though, as you need to keep on top of collecting money, sending out flights, organizing inbound flights and keep an eye on your overall rating. As there are many of these games available on the Play Store, with Sparkling Society themselves offering similar titles, does City Island: Airport 2 offer anything new? Is it any fun?
How it Works: As with other games on Android, you’ll need to download City Island: Airport 2 from the Play Store. It’s a free-to-play title, but unlike others I actually found I could spend a long time playing how I wanted to play without paying for anything. First of all though, is the tutorial.
One of mt biggest gripes with games like these are the tutorials, they take too long and before you even get started you feel like you have to play the way the game tells you to. Thankfully though, this is a really short tutorial that does exactly what it needs to do, tell you how to play and let you get on with things.
Once you’ve finished the tutorial, you’ll find your Island’s city a little bare with not much in it.
However, with some quick additions to your island you’ll have something a little more entertaining to work with. There’s a whole host of different things you can build on the island, and these are split up into three different sectors. There’s Airport sort of stuff like hangars and runways, accommodation and facilities like hotels and cafes and then amusements which are pretty fun. There are amusements and attractions from all over the world like Mount Rushmore and the Sydney Opera House.
After a short while, you’ll have a city you can call your own with some more parks, hotels and landmarks.
One thing I enjoyed about City Island: Airport 2 is that there’s no need to pay up for diamonds much, these will help you speed up the building of airport hangars, hotels and more, which normally take around 10 – 20 minutes. In my experience, the game gives you more than enough of these to quickly build up a sizable city and you can earn them back when leveling up and as your city becomes more prosperous.
Opinion: These sort of games aren’t new, and the first City Island: Airport game is fairly similar to this one however, there are some subtle differences here that make a lot of difference. For one thing, the tutorial is nice and easy to deal with and you can keep on leveling up and creating a solid Island City right from the get go. It doesn’t feel as much of a grind as other games like these do and the overall experience is definitely a positive one. I like having to collect money and send off the planes by touching them, as this makes it feel like you’re in charge of this great city you’ve built. I have to say though, it would be nice to see some higher-resolution assets being used in a future update as the game is well-suited for tablets, but the graphics aren’t.
Ratings
- Speed (4/5) – City Island: Airport 2 is a speedy game and I never had any issues with the pacing of the game either.
- Features (5/5) – This is easily the best City Island game that I’ve played and it’s because it gets the balance of content, gameplay and pacing so right that it’s just a lot of fun to play, without the hassle that other titles often experience.
- Theme (4/5) – The graphics look good and buildings are fairly detailed, with lots of color and some movement with cars and planes buzzing around.
- Overall (4/5) – Another solid city builder game, City Island: Airport 2 is definitely something worth looking at if you’re interested in these types of games but want a break from the hassles that often come with it.
Pros
- Lots of different building and amusements to choose from.
- Easy enough to create a city that genuinely feels like your own.
- Tutorial is quick and simple to get through, and the game moves quite quickly.
- The game doesn’t push you to pay for any of the in-app purchases and furnishes you with a good amount of diamonds.
Cons
- Towns cannot be transferred between devices.
- Does feel quite similar to the previous game, but it is much easier and quicker to get into.
Conclusion: City Island: Airport 2 is a pretty decent city builder game, and if you’re fed up of the hassles that come with other similar titles, then City Island: Airport 2 is definitely worth looking at. There’s no need to spend huge amounts of cash on diamonds or whatever else. A lot of stuff is unlocked through upgrading you buildings and just spending time with the game, which is exactly how it should be.