AutoTrafego: High Quality Artwork, Perfect Sound and Satisfying Game Play

AutoTrafego [rating: 4/5]

You’ve landed planes in FlightControl, you’ve directed ships in Harbor Master and routed taxis in Taxi Jam, so what could be next for you to play God, (or which ever higher power you believe in, if any) with? Well in the form of AutoTrafego you can take control of multiple city streets by becoming a traffic controller.

AutoTrafego iPhone Sim

AutoTrafego is the first game from a couple of developers who have a great pedigree in their involvement in games like Full Metal Alchemist and they’ve brought their polished skills here which you can see from the moment you launch the app. The aim of the game is to successfully control the lights at multiple intersections to keep the traffic flowing but as with all of these types of games while the theory sounds easy in practice it can be a difficulty balancing act between growing queues of cars and angry frustrated drivers. Keep the queues short though and the drivers happy and you’ll go far.

Each city map is beautifully drawn and is very similar in style to the busy city streets of Sim City. There are 7 cities in total and 14 levels with the levels changing between Classic and Survival modes. In Classic mode you have a set amount of time to clear as many cars as possible while Survival Mode twists it slightly by taking away the time limit but limiting the number of drivers you can make unhappy.

Managing the intersections is as simple as tapping the screen where the lights are located to change the direction of the lights and let the cars go through. On the early levels this is a relatively simple task but as you progress and the cars, trucks and buses start coming thicker and faster things get much trickier. It’s all so simple though and watching the little cars drive though the intersections at your behest is a real pleasure. Things do get out of hand at times especially when cars from one set of lights are waiting on traffic from another set of lights to move out of the way before they can move and sometimes there will be gridlock. However, unlike real life there is a solution to this and they are Vortex’s. Anytime you have gridlock on any of the intersections you can simply drag a Vortex over the offending cars and they will magically disappear.

Each level is scored on the number of cars moved but beware while you gain points for the number of cars moved you’ll have points deducted for the number of complaints, number of times you changed the lights and the number of vortex’s used giving you either an overall ranking for Fail, Pass, Good or Excellent. What is nice though is that you don’t need to complete the lower levels to gain access to the more intense ones, so for those of you who are glutens for punishment you can dive straight in to the later levels for some blood pressure raising action.

While the extra intersections and increased traffic do make things more interesting it would be nice to see things spiced up every now and again maybe in the form of having to clear a path for an emergency vehicle or maybe even a natural disaster a la Sim City.

There’s no multi-player mode, which is always a disappointment, there are plenty of ways to boast about your high scores. Not only can you upload them to online scored board but Twitter and Facebook integration is also built in. In addition you can also challenge friends and family to beat your high score via email too, it’s like they’ve thought of everything!

From the quality of the artwork and pitch perfect sound to the satisfying game play and social integration AutoTrafego is a great little app.

official-app-store-badge_touch_4

Price: Free [Limited Time Only]

The Good

  • Beautiful graphics
  • Simple controls
  • Social integration

The Not So Good

  • No multi-player options
  • No variety

Reviewed By: Craig Willis

AutoTrafego for iPhone/iPod touch: Gameplay

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8 Comments on “AutoTrafego: High Quality Artwork, Perfect Sound and Satisfying Game Play”

  1. Ju Pont

    I give a 10 to AutoTrafego!! It´s creative, interesting and very accessible even to the ones ( like me!) who are not good on playing games! “What is nice though is that you don’t need to complete the lower levels to gain access to the more intense ones, so for those of you who are glutens for punishment you can dive straight in to the later levels for some blood pressure raising action.” I like it!

  2. Ju Pont

    I give a 10 to AutoTrafego!! It´s creative, interesting and very accessible even to the ones ( like me!) who are not good on playing games! “What is nice though is that you don’t need to complete the lower levels to gain access to the more intense ones, so for those of you who are glutens for punishment you can dive straight in to the later levels for some blood pressure raising action.” I like it!

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