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Since the 1960s, jet airliners have revolutionised global travel. Much as they are an essential part of the modern world, there are aspects of air travel that leave us all feeling helpless and frustrated. Who is it, for example, that always schedules the Three Amigos as the in-flight movie? Are those mini cans of coke really meant to quench your thirst? And why do you always need to go to the toilet as the duty free passes, and your progress to the back of the plane is made at a funeral pace?

Aerobiz answers none of these searching questions. But it does allow you to set up and expand an airline of your own. Routes, fares, hotels and buying fleet is all your responsibility. The only thing you don't have to choose is chicken or roast beef. Join the Mile-High club.

KOEI are established strategy programmers. Aerobiz is original, but has elements of Risk and Railroad Tycoon.

The game plays in year quarters. In each set up and maintain routes. The end goal is to be the biggest and most profitable of the four airlines.

Aerobiz is for one to four players. There are always four airlines competing, with the computer controlling any vacant slots. Each player selects a home city to start, and begins to create a network from there. At the end of each quarter and the year, a comparative graph shows the performance of each airline. The winner is the player who reaches the goals of profit, passengers and cities first. There are five computer difficulty levels.

The first thing to do is establish a route. For this you need slots. You have three negotiators who travel the world arranging slots at any of 22 cities. Each slot enables one flight to fly from that city. Slots take three to nine months to arrange, and there are a limited amount, depending on the airport's size.

Setting up a route demands several considerations:

1. Planes
   What type of plane to fly. Distance and passenger demand affects this.
2. Flights
   How many flights each week? You need one slot at each airport per flight. Running routes with few flights is unprofitable.
3. Fares
   How much to charge. If you have a monopoly you may charge extortionately, but passengers may still stay away.

A route costs money to open and shows as a black line on the global map. If the line is in competition, it glows yellow. Loss-making routes show up in red.

Eventually, winning means more than running profitable routes - it also involves cutting the opponents' throats. When routes go into competition, a moving graph shows how passengers are moving from one company to another. All sorts of factors (mainly price) influence the shift.

Few games look this cack, but all the memory and programming effort has gone into a complex and realistic simulation that I haven't been able to stop playing. Despite the complex rules, it's incredibly easy to pick up. It might sound a tedious idea, but with multiple players it soon turns into a commercial battle, with all sorts of dirty tricks used to boost profits and put your opponents out of business.

The control system makes play a little slow and laborious at times, but it's clearly set out. There's loads of depth to this simulation, but the most important fact is that it plays in a logical and rewarding way. Only strategy boffins will appreciate the quality of this purely strategic game, but it's a real gem.

Believer it or not, Aerobiz is a pretty good game. Plotting your flight routes, reaping in the cash, raising prices, laughing at your sad opponents as they fail to match your expertise and then suddenly they're using *your* routes and stealing *your* profits.

It really gets your mind racing as you try to think your way out of a situation, advertising flights to the next Olympics or even cutting into the opposition's profits with your own cheap flights.

It's strangely addictive in one-player mode, but the real fun is playing against human opponents and beating them into the ground. Guaranteed to turn you into a power-hungry, devious worm. Definitely one of the better strategy games on the Megadrive.

Presentation 87%
P. Two save games, some pleasant intro shots and a very clear presentation.
N. Playing the game is quite slow, due to unnecessary messages and slow text-typing.

Graphics 43%
P. The global route map looks good when it fills up. Lots of nine little touches and 'funny' graphics.
N. Okay, this game isn't up for any graphics awards, it is very poor.

Sound 40%
N. Some might call it charming and quaint, but the 'lift' music drives you mad after a while.

Playability 85%
P. Setting up is surprisingly quick. No two games ever develop the same.
N. Action-free in the conventional video game sense. Has the 'niche' appeal of simulations.

Lastability 91%
P. Aerobiz is going to be a constantly played part of your collection.
N. You might get frustrated playing against the smart computer opponents.

Overall 90%
A quirky idea, even for a strategy game, but Aerobiz is a total triumph. One of the few board game-like Megadrive games that comes off, Aerobiz is strategy heaven.