One of the best tycoons related to airlines is on steam at last . It is kinda strange to see the first game release after the second game. So going to divide my Review on the game into 3 simple parts
A) The game Airline tycoon
This game was released during 1998,deluxe[2003] during the time there was thirst for tycoon games so this made out pretty good , Breaking down everything complex . This is a tycoon game where you are one of the owners of a airline company , you get to choose one among 4 companies and do missions where the airport manager sets a specific task as the mission goal.
Unlike most tycoon games that tend to get serious with max info and mechanics AT1 takes a simple humorous approach.
- Initial missions are setup so that you can learn the various aspects of the game
- There is more than one way to win a mission, if you want you can take down your competitors and become sole survivor.
- From reading newspaper in the airport to sabotage it has everything you can imagine.
- Sweet music
Overall its a fun tycoon game that can satisfy anyone playing it there is also the freeform mode where you can play without any goals, multiplayer if you can get it work. The graphics presentation hides the complexity of the game so its easier for new players to play the game
B) Airline Tycoon Deluxe VS Airline Tycoon 2 Gold
Now on the steam store you will find there are two game with the name airline tycoon , The second is the sequel to the first game released by kalypso. It makes me extremely sad to talk about this sequel because it is a terrible experience, Instead of Improving the first game this sequel got everything wrong and made it worst and terrible. Needless to say airline tycoon deluxe is the final iteration of the game vs airline tycoon 2 gold which is the final version of the sequel.
I have ripped upon the second game more than once but will post why the first game is better
- AT 1 has a better presentation and ui compared to the jumbled basic terrible stuff AT2 has.
- The planes used in AT1 have real names aka Boeing , airbus etc so you know what is good and what is bad. AT2 features computer generated random names 486 dx 2 is a plane name////
- AT 1 Despite being released in 1998 looks nice and plays better (if compatibility is set properly) AT2 runs like garbage on any system and looks terrible.
- AT deluxe has a lot of features content wise , AT 2 gold just added the features in AT 1 as dlc.
So yeah Airline Tycoon 2 was a disaster of a sequel none of us AT 1 fans wanted to see but at least we have the first game back.

C. Game compatibility with modern systems

-Unfortunately No doubt that Airline Tycoon deluxe is a awesome game but , The game is over 10 years old so no doubt there will be issues with it running on modern systems and newer os.
Sadly The game engine itself has a certain limits of the time as in it runs in around 20-30fps an can slowdown when there is too much on screen. Aka a lot people in the airport etc.
-Also Frequent multiple saving is recommended the game itself will save at the end of each day but sometimes the game will crash for no reason , The instances where i have seen it happen are a)music change b) sometimes the game will crash no matter what you do it could be due to a specific even but event if you restore save it will crash again at the same time aka lets say game crashed at Monday 16.20 , if you restore again it will crash at the same time. hence multiple saves is recommended.
- The game original developers are long gone so fixes and patches are hard to come by.

If you can get this game to work , Its one of cult classic tycoon games that will kill time quickly.
Click on the Fire Extinguisher when you see it for some fun

Fun and different style of managemnt game

This game does not take itself seriously which is a good thing. From the sterotypical characterisation of the tycoons around nationality (The Russian guy wears red and has caviar in his office) to the 'Shady' PetrolAir backroom, this game focuses on what alot of people seem to be missing form games - HAVING FUN

Do not get me wrong, there is some fairly good airline simulation here from aircraft types ranging in distances, seats and fuel consumption - to the managing of the fuel market and personel. Its not massivly involved, but more than enough to keep you interested.

As mentioned the graphics are not current standard - because this game was released in 1998. Its fairly cartoony but it has a very distinct style to it which - personally - I really like. Again, take any graphics reviews with a pinch of salt, this is an old game.

Overall I would really recomend this game. There is alot to keep you interested in the airline management but nothing hugely daunting with a very nice tutorial to guide you. A game with alot of charm and style

I remember playing this when I was young and it was impossible for me to make any profit because I didn't understand the game but I had fun anyway. Now many years later I felt nostalgic and bought the game and suprisingly it's very good and I enjoy it a lot. The game seems quite polished although it does have the occasional stutter. The difficulty is extremely low, the only way i ever went bankrupt was because I didn't know how the game mechanic worked. Overall it's definitely worth several hours of play.

The game is good, as I played it a few times over the years on other PCs.

But I am getting the same problem as many others. There is no text showing in the speech bubbles making it unplayable, and this is on Win 7 with a AMD graphics card. There is a "fan fix" on the forum but it did not work for me, causing the game to immediately crash.

As this was first reported back in December 2015 and its now July 2017 it does not look like the devs are going to create a proper fix for this. What a shame. I've refunded it.

I really wish I could say it was awesome to play this game again, but the game lags to an unplayable pace while your charater is in the main hall. The devs have acknowledge the issue but have not provided any support to fix it. Other users have suggested fixes, I have not had any luck with these fixes. Some say they have it working just fine while many continue having lag issues.

It's the same great game you fell in love with long ago, it just has trouble running on many users' current setups. I bought this game the day it was released here on Steam and still have not been able to enjoy it.

I would not recommend buying this game until they fix the game's lag/compatibility issues.

I can't count the time I invested in this game. I owned it as a CD-Rom back in the late 90s, when the original game came out. Back when PetrolAir was called ArabAir and some voices were different. Airline Tycoon is by far no game for everyone. It can be repetetive and get boring to most people. But I love this game so much. Back in the days I sat at my PC as a young boy with my grandpa and we would play night after night until we owned every route with a couple of hundred aircrafts. It was a blast and even now, almost 30 years after its original release, Airline Tycoon is just fun and enjoyable.

A great classic, now available to grab not only for Windows, but also for Mac and Linux! This game was basically my childhood and for the whole primary school was teaching me maths and geography in a very entertaining way - managing my own airline! This is not any boring, usual tycoon because it is not limited in any way to reading tons of reports, here you have to walk around the airport by yourself and iteract with NPCs to take care of your business, taking part in funny dialogues and other forms of first class humour! In contrary to other reviewers I think the graphics did not get old at all because Airline Tycoon was all drawn in kind of comic book/caricature style. The music, originally composed for midi format is kinda pleasant as well (but for non-nostalgy driven oldboys like me it might start to annoy after some time). Overall, if you wonder if you should get it - trust me, you should!

The game itself is good(I've played it years ago), but the lag in the main hall is unbearable. Until that is fixed, no one should be buying this game.

Beneath the cartoonish atmosphere lies a relatively complex business management simulation. I lived in Germany at the time so I played the original German version when this game first came out in 1998. I was only 12 years old and this was my first tycoon game - I loved it. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2984265679 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1228451408 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1400243426

Game has been open sourced and pretty much most bugs and multiplayer has been fixed.

To download join the discord - https://discord.gg/cXrKBRmfzk

or view the github here: https://github.com/WizzardMaker/AirlineTycoon/releases/