title: Columbus, Georgia

text: Through the late 1960s and early 1970s, large residential neighborhoods were built to accommodate the soldiers coming back from the Vietnam War and for those associated with Fort Benning. These range from Wesley Woods to Leesburg to Brittney and Willowbrook and the high-end Sears Woods and Windsor Park. Large tracts of blighted areas were cleaned up. A modern Columbus Consolidated Government Center was constructed in the city center. A significant period of urban renewal and revitalization followed in the mid- to late 1990s.


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: With these improvements, the city has attracted residents and businesses to formerly blighted areas. Municipal projects have included construction of a softball complex, which hosted the 1996 Olympic softball competition; the Chattahoochee RiverWalk; the National Civil War Naval Museum at Port Columbus; and the Coca-Cola Space Science Center. Other notable projects were the expansion of the Columbus Museum and road improvements to include a new downtown bridge crossing the Chattahoochee River and into Phenix City. During the late 1990s, commercial activity expanded north of downtown along the I-185 corridor.


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: During the 2000s, the city began a major initiative to revitalize the downtown area. The project began with the South Commons, an area south of downtown containing the softball complex, A. J. McClung Memorial Stadium, Golden Park, the Columbus Civic Center, and the Jonathan Hatcher Skateboard Park. The National Infantry Museum was constructed in South Columbus, located outside the Fort Benning main gate.


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: In 2002, Columbus State University, which previously faced expansion limits due to existing residential and commercial districts surrounding it, began a second campus downtown, starting by moving the music department into the newly-opened RiverCenter for the Performing Arts. The university's art, drama, and nursing departments also moved to downtown locations. Such initiatives have provided Columbus with a cultural niche; downtown features modern architecture mixed among older brick facades.


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: The Ready to Raft 2012 project created an estimated 700 new jobs and is projected to bring in $42 million annually to the Columbus area. Demolishing an up-river dam allowed the project to construct the longest urban whitewater rafting course in the world. According to the Columbus Convention and Visitors Bureau, this initiative, in addition to other outdoor and indoor tourist attractions, led to around 1.8 million visitors coming to Columbus during the city's 2015 fiscal year.


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: The city predicts that an additional 30,000 soldiers will be trained annually at Fort Benning in upcoming years due to base realignment and closure of other facilities. As a result, Columbus is expected to experience a major population increase.


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: Columbus is one of Georgia's three Fall Line Cities, along with Augusta and Macon. The Fall Line is where the hilly lands of the Piedmont plateau meet the flat terrain of the coastal plain. As such, Columbus has a varied landscape of rolling hills on the north side and flat plains on the south. The fall line causes rivers in the area to decline rapidly towards sea level. Textile mills were established here in the 19th and early 20th centuries to take advantage of the water power from the falls.


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: Interstate 185 runs north-south through the middle of the city, with nine exits within Muscogee County. I-185 runs north about from its beginning to a junction with I-85 just east of LaGrange and about southwest of Atlanta. U.S. Route 27, U.S. Route 280, and Georgia State Route 520 (known as South Georgia Parkway) all meet in the interior of the city. U.S. Route 80 runs through the northern part of the city, locally known as J.R. Allen Parkway; Alternate U.S. Route 27 and Georgia State Route 85 run northeast from the city, locally known as Manchester Expressway.


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: According to the US Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which are land and (2.14%) are covered by water.


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: Columbus has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen "Cfa"). Daytime summer temperatures often reach highs in the mid-90°Fs, and low temperatures in the winter average in the upper 30s. Columbus is often considered a dividing line or "natural snowline" of the southeastern United States with areas north of the city receiving snowfall annually, with areas to the south typically not receiving snowfall every year or at all. Columbus is within USDA hardiness zone 8b in the city center and zone 8a in the suburbs.


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: The Columbus Metropolitan Area includes four counties in Georgia, and one in Alabama. The Columbus-Auburn-Opelika, GA-AL Combined Statistical Area includes two additional counties in Alabama. A 2013 Census estimate showed 316,554 in the metro area, with 501,649 in the combined statistical area.


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: At the 2020 United States census, there were 206,922 people, 73,134 households, and 45,689 families residing in the city.


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: At the 2010 U.S. Census, Columbus had a total population of 189,885, up from 186,291 in the 2000 Census. The 2010 Census reported 189,885 people, 72,124 households, and 47,686 families residing in the city. The population density was . The 82,690 housing units had an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 46.3% White, 45.5% African American, 2.2% Asian, 0.2% Native American, 0.14% Pacific Islander, and 1.90% from other races. Hispanics or Latinos of any race were 6.4% of the population.


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: Of the 69,819 households, 34.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 44.7% were married couples living together, 19.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 31.7% were notfamilies; 26.7% of all households were made up of individuals, and 9.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.54 and the average family size was 3.08.


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: In the city, the population was distributed as 25.6% under the age of 18, 11.9% from 18 to 24, 29.8% from 25 to 44, 19.7% from 45 to 64, and 11.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 33 years. For every 100 females, there were 94.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.6 males.


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: The median income for a household in the city was $41,331, and for a family was 41,244. Males had a median income of $30,238 versus $24,336 for females. The per capita income for the city was $22,514. About 12.8% of families and 15.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 22.0% of those under age 18 and 12.1% of those age 65 or over.


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: Columbus has roughly 200 Christian churches, with the Southern Baptist Convention being the largest denomination by number of churches. Columbus is also home to three Kingdom Halls for Jehovah's Witnesses, and one Greek Orthodox Church. Other religions are represented by two synagogues, two Seventh-day Adventist churches, three mosques, a Hindu temple (the latter two reflecting an increasing number of immigrants in the region from Asia), and a Unitarian Universalist congregation.


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: Companies headquartered in Columbus include Aflac, TSYS, Realtree, Synovus, and the W. C. Bradley Co.


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: According to Columbus' 2017 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top employers in the city are:


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: Columbus is served by one major indoor shopping mall, Peachtree Mall, which is anchored by major department stores Dillard's, Macy's, and J.C. Penney. The total retail floor area is 821,000 ft (76,300 m). Major strip malls include Columbus Park Crossing, which opened in 2003, and The Landings, which opened in 2005. Columbus is also served by The Shoppes at Bradley Park, a lifestyle center.


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: MidTown contains two of the city's early suburban shopping centers (the Village on 13th and St. Elmo), both recently renovated and offering local shops, restaurants, and services.


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: Columbus is home to nine historic districts, all listed in the National Register of Historic Places listings in Muscogee County, Georgia. They are:


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: Columbus is home to upwards of 50 parks, four recreation centers, four senior centers and parks, and Standing Boy Creek Wildlife Management Area.


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: The Chattahoochee River whitewater opened in 2012. After both the Eagle & Phenix Dam and the City Mills Dams were breached, river flow was restored to natural conditions, allowing the course to be created. The course is the longest urban whitewater rafting and kayaking in the world, and has been ranked the world's best manmade whitewater course by "USA Today". It also features the Blue Heron Adventure, a zip-line course connecting users from the Georgia side of the river to the Alabama side on an interstate zip-line over the Chattahoochee River. The course continues with several zip-lines and a ropes course on the Alabama side and completes with another zip-line back to Georgia.


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: It has become a hub for whitewater kayakers, with outstanding standing waves year-round. In mid-winter it is referred to as the "Wintering Grounds" for big wave surfing athletes and enthusiasts.


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: The city council of Columbus, known as the Columbus Council, is composed of ten elected council members, eight of whom serve individual districts and two of whom serve the city at large.


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: The Muscogee County School District holds preschool to grade 12, and consists of 35 elementary schools, 12 middle schools, and nine high schools. The district has over 2,000 full-time teachers and over 31,899 students.


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: The Columbus Airport is the metro area's primary airport and the fourth-busiest airport in Georgia. It is located just off I-185, exit 8. It is served by Endeavor Air’s Delta Connection service, offering several daily flights to Atlanta.


title: Columbus, Georgia

text: Through the 1960s, passenger trains of the Central of Georgia Railway made stops at Columbus Union Station, including the north-south Chicago-Florida trains, the Illinois Central Railroad's "City of Miami", and "Seminole." Other trains included local Central of Georgia trains to Atlanta, Albany and Macon. The final trains in 1971 were the "City of Miami" and the "Man O' War" to Atlanta.


title: Richie Kotzen

text: Richard Dale Kotzen Jr. (born February 3, 1970) is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. As a solo artist, Kotzen has back catalogue of more than 20 album releases. He was a member of glam metal band Poison from 1991 to 1993, Mr. Big from 1999 to 2002, and since 2012, has been the frontman of the band The Winery Dogs. Kotzen was signed to California-based Shrapnel Records from 1988 to 1991, and again from 1995 to 1997.


title: Richie Kotzen

text: Kotzen began playing piano at the age of five. At the age of seven, he was inspired to learn the electric guitar, by the band Kiss. He started his career in a band named Arthur's Museum. Kotzen was eventually discovered by Shrapnel Records' Mike Varney, and he recorded his first solo album by the age of 19, the first of two instrumental records, simply entitled "Richie Kotzen". He created the video "Rock Chops" for REH video in 1989, highlighting many of his formative techniques, including using wide-intervals and fluid sweeping. One year later, a second solo album called "Fever Dream" was released, which was the first one to also feature his lead vocals. Since then, Kotzen has released a long series of more than twenty albums with musical influences ranging from rock, hard rock, pop, blues, blue-eyed-soul, R&B and funk to jazz fusion.


title: Richie Kotzen

text: In 1991, at age 21, Kotzen joined glam metal band Poison, co-writing and performing on the album "Native Tongue". This album produced two top-twenty singles which Kotzen co-wrote, Stand and Until You Suffer Some (Fire and Ice). In late-1993 he left Poison.


title: Richie Kotzen

text: Kotzen then focused on his solo career, regularly releasing song oriented, R&B/soul/blues and funk influenced melodic rock albums. He also made guest appearances on several albums by artists like Glenn Hughes, Stevie Salas and T.M. Stevens. In 1995 and 1997 he collaborated with Greg Howe on two jazz rock fusion albums.


title: Richie Kotzen

text: In 1999, Kotzen replaced Paul Gilbert as guitarist in the mainstream hard rock band Mr. Big, performing on their album "Get Over It." He also contributed guitars and songwriting to their subsequent release "Actual Size". The record included the Kotzen song "Shine".


title: Richie Kotzen

text: In 2001, while still in Mr. Big, Kotzen recorded and released another solo album called "Slow", which contains a mix of bluesy rock for which a music video was filmed. On some of the songs on "Slow" Kotzen experimented with the use of a drum computer, while on others he played drums. After Mr. Big disbanded, Kotzen continued his solo career. He released his next solo album "Change", in 2003.


title: Richie Kotzen

text: In 2002, Kotzen established a recording studio and production company. He has since produced his own albums and collaborated with various figures in rock (e.g. Gene Simmons), jazz and fusion, including jazz legend Stanley Clarke, with whom he realized the project Vertú.


title: Richie Kotzen

text: The 2004, follow-up-album to "Change", "Get Up" featured a more edgy, aggressive rock sound. It was more hard rock oriented than any of his previous solo outputs since "Fever Dream" and contains the ballad "Remember".


title: Richie Kotzen

text: In 2005, Kotzen teamed up with three Japanese punk rockers to form the short-lived Forty Deuce-Project, which only lasted long enough to record and release one album.


title: Richie Kotzen

text: Later in the same year, Kotzen collaborated with Funk Rock Fusion guitarist Steve Saluto on his album "Rough Beat."


title: Richie Kotzen

text: During the year 2006, Kotzen produced and released two solo studio albums, first "Ai Senshi Z×R", an album on which he played several English sung rock covers of theme songs from the Japanese "Gundam" anime franchise, and only nine months later "Into the Black", containing ten self-penned rock songs


title: Richie Kotzen

text: In 2007, "Go Faster" was released, which alternatively was named "Return of the Mother Head's Family Reunion" in Europe and Japan. It includes the eight-minute-song "Fooled Again", and the soft pop ballad "Chase It", for which a music video clip was filmed in Venice.


title: Richie Kotzen

text: In 2008, Kotzen's first live album, simply entitled "Live in São Paulo" was released, followed by the acclaimed "Peace Sign" album in 2009, for which Kotzen played and recorded all instruments.


title: Richie Kotzen

text: In 2009, Kotzen also teamed up with songwriter/producer Richie Zito for a short-lived project they called Wilson Hawk. Wilson Hawk produced one album called "The Road", on which they celebrate some R&B and soul influenced pop music in the style of the late 60s and 70s and many soulful pop ballads.


title: Richie Kotzen

text: In 2011, Kotzen released a full-length Solo album titled "24 Hours." The release was followed by another tour.


title: Richie Kotzen

text: In 2012, he joined forces with Mike Portnoy and Billy Sheehan to form the rock supergroup The Winery Dogs who released their self-titled debut album on May 15, 2013, in Japan, with a worldwide release on July 23 of the same year. A world tour followed.


title: Richie Kotzen

text: After that, Kotzen went on an acoustic solo tour and started working on his 20th solo effort, which became the "Cannibals" album, that was released on January, 5th, 2015. "Cannibals" features a more relaxed, and often R&B influenced rock/pop sound. Kotzen's wife, bassist/vocalist Julia Lage, added some background vocals and also appears in the music video for the song "In An Instant". On the song "I'm All In" Kotzen shares the vocals with Doug Pinnick of King's X and Kotzen's daughter August Eve is featured on the ballad "You", playing the piano. A music video for "You" was also recorded.


title: Richie Kotzen

text: Only nine months later, on October 2, 2015, The Winery Dogs released their second album "Hot Streak", followed by another world tour.


title: Richie Kotzen

text: By the end of 2016, The Winery Dogs went on hiatus and Kotzen focused on his next solo record "Salting Earth", which came out on April 14, 2017. The album incorporates a mix of blues rock and laid back pop/rock songs. From August until late September Kotzen completed a European tour.


title: Richie Kotzen

text: On January 25, 2018, Kotzen released a video for his new single called "The Damned", a heavy blues rocker, via YouTube, which was filmed at Paramount Ranch in Agoura, California by director Vicente Cordero. On June 5, 2018, a second video single called "Riot" was released via YouTube, which was again directed by Vicente Cordero. On December 11, 2018, Kotzen announced a Winery Dogs Tour through the US for May 2019, via his official Facebook page, which they completed successfully then.


title: Richie Kotzen

text: On June 11, 2019, another solo single titled "Venom" was published, in the style of The Winery Dogs, accompanied by a music video.


title: Richie Kotzen

text: For his 50th birthday in 2020, Kotzen wanted to offer his fans something special. This resulted in the 50-track triple-album titled "50 for 50". For the song "Devil's Hand", a video clip was filmed by the seaside, which was again directed by Vicente Cordero, and also includes scenes with Kotzen's wife, Julia Lage. Another music video for the song "As You Are" was shot by Kotzen himself, dancing and playing in his kitchen wearing a pajama, while he was in quarantine with COVID-19.


title: Richie Kotzen

text: In the second half of 2020, Kotzen began working on a project called Smith/Kotzen with Iron Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith. Nine songs were created and appear on the eponymous album. The album was released on March 26, 2021, and was produced by Smith and Kotzen and mixed by Kevin Shirley.


title: Richie Kotzen

text: In January 2022, they went on a club tour through California (US), with a UK tour following in February and March. Kotzen's wife, Julia Lage, took over on bass guitar.


title: Richie Kotzen

text: Kotzen has described his style as a mix of rock, blues, heavy metal, jazz, fusion, and soul music. Kotzen utilizes a heavy amount of legato and sweeping in his playing. As his main influences, he lists Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eddie Van Halen, Jason Becker (who produced his first album), Allan Holdsworth, and many other jazz and fusion players. Kotzen, since around 2007, has opted to stop using guitar picks and been playing exclusively with his fingers ever since.


title: Richie Kotzen

text: Kotzen has used Fender electric guitars for most of his career, most notably his signature model Telecasters and Stratocasters, as well as other custom-made models. Currently, there are two Richie Kotzen signature models made by Fender Japan – a Stratocaster (STR-145RK) and a Telecaster (TLR-155RK). Both guitars feature ash bodies with laminated flame maple caps, maple necks and one piece maple fretboards with abalone dot inlays and 22 super jumbo frets. The Telecaster model features a DiMarzio Chopper T pickup in the bridge position (single-spaced humbucker) and a DiMarzio Twang King in the neck position. The Stratocaster is fitted with three custom made DiMarzio single coil pickups.


title: Richie Kotzen

text: At the beginning of his career, Kotzen used Ibanez guitars and Laney amplifiers before switching to Fender guitars and Marshall amplifiers in the early 1990s. He used Marshall Super Lead, JCM800 and JCM900 models as well as Yamaha DG Series amps in the late 1990s. Yamaha DG1000 preamp with Marshall EL34 100/100 power amp, and Yamaha DG130H, Yamaha DG100 combo etc.


title: Richie Kotzen

text: In 2005, Cornford Amplification issued a Richie Kotzen signature model – RK100, a single channel tube amp head developed and designed in collaboration with Kotzen to suit his expansive playing style. Cornford ceased production of all amplifiers, including the RK100, in 2013. There were also matching signature model speaker cabinets, equipped with one or four Celestion Vintage 30 12" speakers. Both the amplifier head and the speaker cabinets were the only Cornford models generally supplied with Kotzen-spec black Tolex covering. The 4 x 12" cabinet also includes a special locking jack socket on the rear.


title: Richie Kotzen

text: Kotzen prefers not to use many pedals (or effects, in general) when playing live. However, over the years, he has been using several versions of Sobbat Drivebraker and Glowvibe pedals on top of Marshall amps when not playing with the Cornford. He also uses reverb and delay effects of his signature series Zoom G2R effects processor, which is connected in the effects loop of the amplifier. In 2014, Tech 21 started selling the Richie Kotzen Signature RK5 Fly Rig, which was developed in close collaboration with Richie, who used the final prototype for the bulk of his 2014 tour with the Winery Dogs.


title: New York Undercover

text: New York Undercover is an American police drama that aired on the Fox television network from September 8, 1994, to February 11, 1999. The series starred Malik Yoba as Detective J.C. Williams and Michael DeLorenzo as Detective Eddie Torres, two undercover detectives in New York City's Fourth Precinct who were assigned to investigate various crimes and gang-related cases. The cast also included Patti D'Arbanville-Quinn as their superior, Lt. Virginia Cooper, and Lauren Vélez, who joined the cast in the second season as Nina Moreno, fellow detective and love interest to Torres. "New York Undercover" was co-created and produced by Dick Wolf, and its storyline takes place in the same fictional universe as Wolf's NBC series "Law & Order", its spin-offs, the "Chicago" and "FBI" series, and "".


title: New York Undercover

text: "New York Undercover" (whose working title during development was "Uptown Undercover", named after the record label, Uptown Records, whose founder and CEO, Andre Harrell, was also the executive producer of the series) is notable for being the first police drama on American television to feature two people of color in the starring roles. In contrast to the popularity of NBC's "Must See TV" on Thursday nights in the 1990s, many African-American viewers flocked to Fox's Thursday-night line-up of "Martin", "Living Single", and "New York Undercover".


title: New York Undercover

text: In addition to the main storylines in each episode, subplots explored the private lives of the show's characters. For example, Det. Williams struggled to raise his young son, Gregory (George O. Gore II), while Torres was shown to be fighting family and other related problems, including having to cope with his father (Mike Torres, played by Jose Perez), whose drug addiction and HIV-positive status causes recurring issues, and a childhood-friend turned organized-crime boss.


title: New York Undercover

text: At the beginning of the third season, a new detective, Tommy McNamara (Jonathan LaPaglia), was introduced as a principal character. In the third-season finale in May 1997, Torres and Moreno are married. However, in that same episode, Torres and McNamara are both killed by a gang of bank robbers.


title: New York Undercover

text: The series returned with a new cast for its fourth and final season in January 1998. Williams and Moreno were assigned to a new unit, resulting in Cooper being dropped from the cast. Joining the detectives were Lt. Malcolm Barker (played by Tommy Ford), Det. Nell Delaney (Marisa Ryan), and Det. Alec Stone (Josh Hopkins). The new unit eventually captured the last bank robber responsible for the deaths of Torres and McNamara.


title: New York Undercover

text: On July 23, 1996, the day shooting was supposed to begin on the third season, lead actors Malik Yoba and Michael DeLorenzo didn’t show up, presenting a list of demands to Dick Wolf. Both actors wanted more creative input with DeLorenzo in particular wanting to direct a few episodes. They also wanted a gym, trailers for the stars and better food to be provided on set. Michael DeLorenzo stated that the duo were making $40,000 per episode and wanted their pay increased to $100,000.


title: New York Undercover

text: After hearing their demands Dick Wolf declined, and said that New York Undercover was not Friends (during this time the stars of Friends wanted their salary to be increased to $1M per episode.) Wolf was irate, calling the demands “a virus” to the entertainment industry and also threatened to write both Yoba and DeLorenzo out of the show.


title: New York Undercover

text: A day after the holdout, Universal Television, which was the production company of the show, filed a $1.2M lawsuit against Yoba and DeLorenzo, claiming that the two had breached their contract and claimed that they were costing the show $60,000 each day they didn’t show up to set.


title: New York Undercover

text: After three days the holdout ended and the two actors returned back to set under the terms of their original contract agreements.


title: New York Undercover

text: Numerous actors made appearances in two or more episodes portraying different characters. Before joining the cast in Season 2 as Nina Moreno, Lauren Vélez appeared in the first-season episode "Olde Tyme Religion" as a believer in Santería. Additionally, J.K. Simmons guest starred as Sgt. Treadway in the Season 2 episode "Unis," returning in Season 4's "Mob Street" as "Law & Order" police psychiatrist Emil Skoda. Michelle Hurd played a recurring role in Seasons 1 and 2 as A.D.A. Reynolds, but returned as a criminal in Season 3's "No Place Like Hell." Joe Lisi appeared in the second-season episode "Bad Blood" before assuming a recurring role as the Chief of Detectives in Season 4. Both Jesse L. Martin and Ice-T portrayed criminals on this series before ultimately landing their iconic roles as detectives on "Law & Order" and "", respectively.


title: New York Undercover

text: A soundtrack containing hip hop and R&B music was released on September 19, 1995 by Uptown Records and MCA Records. It features songs from the series, such as a cover of "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" performed by Mary J. Blige, "I Miss You (Come Back Home)" by Monifah, "Jeeps, Lex Coups, Bimaz & Benz" by Lost Boyz, and the theme to New York Undercover, composed by James Mtume. The soundtrack album is executive produced by Andre Harrell, the executive producer of the series, and it was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Album.


title: New York Undercover

text: A second soundtrack album for the series containing contemporary R&B music, New York Undercover: A Night At Natalie's, was released on January 13, 1998 by MCA Records. The album features R&B songs performed by some of the various musical acts at Natalie's, the nightclub which appears in virtually every episode of the series' first three seasons, such as 112, Mary J. Blige, Xscape, Chaka Khan, Teena Marie, K-Ci & JoJo, Brownstone, Gerald Levert, B.B. King, Tito Nieves, and The Barrio Boyzz. The album also contains a song performed by Michael DeLorenzo, who plays Detective Eddie Torres, titled "Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight."


title: New York Undercover

text: On December 5, 2018, Deadline reported that series creator Dick Wolf and ABC were in talks to reboot the series. Six days later, ABC officially committed the reboot to a pilot.


title: New York Undercover

text: On January 31, 2019, ABC officially ordered the reboot to pilot, also revealing that it would officially be a revival of the original series, featuring both old characters and a new cast. In February 2019, both Malik Yoba and Lauren Veléz were confirmed to reprise their respective roles as J.C. Williams and Nina Moreno, with Williams now being the overseeing officer of the new young detectives, and Moreno being retired, but retaining ties to her old unit. On March 12, 2019, ABC cast Toby Sandeman and Otmara Marrero as the revival's two lead detectives Nat Gilmore and Melissa Ortiz, as well as Anna Enger and Octavio Pisano as supporting detectives Lisa Kim and Moses Hernandez, and MC Lyte as Lieutenant April Freeman, the unit's new boss.


title: New York Undercover

text: On May 10, 2019, it was announced that the revival would not move forward on ABC, but would be shopped to other networks and streaming services. As of January 2020, it is still being shopped around. In July 2020, Deadline reported that the revival might come to fruition on NBCUniversal's new streaming service, Peacock.


title: Jharkhand Legislative Assembly

text: The Jharkhand Vidhan Sabha or the Jharkhand Legislative Assembly is the unicameral state legislature of Jharkhand.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Helsinki-Vantaa Airport (; , ), or simply Helsinki Airport, is the main international airport of the city of Helsinki, its surrounding metropolitan area, and the Uusimaa region. The airport is located in the neighbouring city of Vantaa, about west of Tikkurila, the administrative centre of Vantaa and north of Helsinki's city centre. The airport is operated by state-owned Finavia.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: The airport is by far the busiest in Finland (with 20 times the traffic of the next-busiest, Oulu) and the fourth busiest in the Nordic countries in terms of passenger numbers. About 90% of Finland's international air traffic passes through Helsinki Airport. The airport handled 21.8 million passengers in 2019, including 18.9 million international passengers and 2.9 million domestic passengers. On average, the airport handles around 350 departures a day.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: The airport is the main hub for Finnair, the flag carrier of Finland, and its subsidiary Nordic Regional Airlines. It is also a hub for CityJet (on behalf of SAS) and an operating base for Jet Time, Norwegian Air Shuttle, SunClass Airlines and TUI fly Nordic. Helsinki Airport has around 50 regularly-operating airlines. The airport has around 80 scheduled destinations to other parts of Europe and 21 direct long-haul routes to Asia, the Middle East, and North America. There are also 35 charter destinations including numerous long-haul charter destinations.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Originally built for the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, the airport today provides jobs for 25,000 people and there are 1,500 companies that operate at this airport.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Finavia aims to strengthen the position of Helsinki Airport in transit passenger traffic between Europe and Asia, and to increase the number of direct connections to Europe. Helsinki Airport's minimum transit time of 35 minutes is among the shortest in Europe. According to Finavia's survey, as many as one in every three passengers select their flight route based on the transit airport.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: The planning of a new airport for Helsinki began in the 1940s, when it became obvious that the Helsinki-Malmi Airport could not handle the increasing number of passengers or the new, heavier aircraft. A new site was found some from Helsinki city centre, in an area that today belongs to the city of Vantaa (until 1971 Vantaa was called "Helsingin maalaiskunta"). Some of the construction work was done by prison laborers. The airport opened temporarily in July 1952 for that year's Summer Olympics, held in Helsinki.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: The first two Aero Oy DC-3 aircraft, OH-LCC "Tiira" with its captain Olli Puhakka and first officer Pertti Uuksulainen, and OH-LCD "Lokki", landed in Vantaa on 26 June 1952, and the first scheduled international airplane to land on the airport was the DC-6 B "Torgil Viking" of Scandinavian Airlines on 26 October 1952. While Aero (now Finnair) used Helsinki-Malmi Airport, charter flights were directed to the new airport on 26 October 1952. The airport originally had a single runway, the second runway being built four years later in 1956, and the first airplane hangar was also built in the same year. The airport also received its first radar in the same year. Regular jet flight operations began in 1959.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: A new passenger terminal opened in 1969, while the first transatlantic service to New York was inaugurated on 15 May 1969. A contiguous fence around the entire airport area was built in spring 1973.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: During this time period, the airport was also called "Seutula Airport" after the nearby village Seutula.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: The year 1973 saw the first security checks being carried out for international flights. The name Helsinki-Vantaa Airport was used from 1977, with the airport being known as the Helsinki Airport before this. The postal code of the airport was "01530 Helsinki-Lento" until 1974, "01530 Helsinki-Vantaa-Lento" from 1974 to 1983 and "01530 Vantaa" from 1983 onwards.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: The Finnish Defence Forces surrounded the airport in late autumn 1977, in order to protect the airport from a possible terrorist strike by the Red Army Faction.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: In 1983, the airport began offering the first non-stop service from Western Europe to Japan as Finnair commenced regular service between Helsinki and Tokyo with a single McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30ER. In the 1970s, Pan Am operated flights from Helsinki to the US. The passenger terminal was expanded for the first time in 1983 and five years later, in 1988, the airport handled over six million passengers annually.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: In 1991, Delta Air Lines began its operations at the airport. A new terminal was constructed for domestic flights in 1993. In 1996 the international terminal was expanded and merged with the domestic terminal. At the same time, the new control tower was completed. In 1997 a new VIP President terminal was opened for official international state visits. In November 1999, the international terminal was further expanded and the lobby for arriving and departing passengers was built.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: A historical event in 2000 was that the annual number of visitors to the Helsinki-Vantaa Airport surpassed 10 million. Approach traffic control moved from the so-called "cave" into its new overground premises.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: New border controls of the Schengen Agreement were taken into use in 2001. The third runway was inaugurated on 28 November 2002 and the first user was Finnair's McDonnell Douglas MD-11 en route to New York. In 2004, the international terminal was again expanded and a new shopping area was opened for long-haul passengers. A new air cargo service was opened for passengers with overweight luggage. 24 new automatic check-in terminals were taken into use in 2006.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: On 13 August 2007 a new Hilton hotel, Hilton Helsinki-Vantaa Airport was opened near the airport, with 330 rooms. Independent use of parallel runways started in November 2007.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: In autumn 2009, the airport saw a great deal of industrial action, as Finavia outsourced check-in security controls. The security controls were moved over to the cleaning and building service concern SOL. The labour agreements also changed. SOL started co-operation negotiations for 80 employees in January 2010. Outsourcing the security services had a positive impact on Finavia's economy, as this allowed the company to reach significant cost savings during the first half of 2010 compared to the second half of the previous year. This was largely because of the outsourcing of the security services at the Helsinki Airport. In late 2012, the Labour Court of Finland gave a statement that the security services at the airport were under the labour agreement of the security guard industry. After this, SOL terminated its contract, to end at the end of 2014 in the middle of its contract period.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Finnair outsourced its baggage handling services from its daughter company Northport to Barona Handling in November to December 2009, after which the baggage handling employees went on an illegal strike for four days. During New Year from 2009 to 2010 thousands of bags lay untouched at the airport, inaccessible to their owners. According to the employees, there were one tenth less people handling the loading of the baggage than before. The Aviation Union accused Barona of neglecting safety regulations when unloading the accumulated pile of baggage during the industrial action. In January 2010 the Finnish News Agency wrote that some of the employees had sent baggage to the wrong destination on purpose. In 2009, the airport dropped out of the list of the Airport Service Quality research.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: In 2009, the latest expansion of Terminal 2 was completed. The total floor area was . The same year witnessed the opening of a new shopping area and spa for passengers on long-haul flights, the removal of a terminal-specific division between domestic and international flights in favour a division by airline, and the renovation of Terminal 1 for international flights. In the same year, TAP Air Portugal commenced service between Helsinki and Lisbon.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Five new passenger bridges for wide-body aircraft were opened in 2009. The spa was closed down in 2012 because of lack of use. In 2011 the annual number of passengers at the airport grew by 15.5% to 14.9 million passengers. About 25% of passengers were transferring to a connecting flight at the airport. 12.2 million passengers were on international flights and 2.7 million on domestic flights. A total of 1.63 million passengers were on flights to Asia.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: During the 2010s, Helsinki Airport has experienced large increases in the number of annual passengers. In 2010, the airport handled 12,883,399 passengers, an increase of 2.2 percent compared to 2009. Air freight increased by 29.4 percent.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: In April 2010, Norwegian Air Shuttle opened its first routes to Oslo and Stockholm using Boeing 737 jets. Now the airline is one of the largest operators at the airport with almost 40 destinations in Europe, Asia, and Africa. In 2011, Helsinki Airport saw its biggest growth in a single year in the number of passengers. The number of annual passengers was increased by 2 million passengers and the airport reached the milestone of 14 million passengers. However, easyJet canceled three routes, from Helsinki to Manchester, London–Gatwick, and Paris–Charles de Gaulle, citing weak demand at Helsinki.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: In November 2011, Austrian Airlines canceled its Vienna–Helsinki operations. In the same year, Czech Airlines ceased its Helsinki operations due to low demand. A year after, LOT Polish Airlines canceled its service to Helsinki. In 2014, a number of airlines such as Aer Lingus, Germanwings, S7 Airlines, and Wizz Air canceled services to Helsinki.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: In the 2010s, the airport has seen a huge growth of long-haul flights in terms of weekly flights (see Long-haul traffic below).


title: Helsinki Airport

text: In the beginning of 2015, the renovation and construction work related to the development of Helsinki Airport started. For example, the Baggage Claim Hall 2B and Arrival Hall 2A were renovated and in July 2015, train operation on the Ring Rail Line and connection to Helsinki Central Railway Station were opened. In March 2015, Swiss International Air Lines started operations to Helsinki but canceled it a year later. In late 2015, Blue1 ceased all operations from Helsinki which was the airline's only base. The airline flew to 28 destinations in Europe. Scandinavian Airlines sold Blue1 to CityJet, which continues to operate the company on behalf of SAS as part of a larger relationship. In 2015, the airport handled up to 16 million passengers for the first time. In March 2016, Czech Airlines resumed flights from Prague to Helsinki using Airbus A319 aircraft. On 10 October 2016, the first Gulf carrier Qatar Airways began operations at the airport and now operates to Helsinki by Boeing 787 Dreamliner. The carrier was initially planning to launch the service as early as in 2012. Finavia expects that the airport will handle over 18,5 million passengers in 2017 and around 20 million in 2018, in 2019 at the latest. Also in 2017, the airport has experienced huge growth in numbers of passengers flying intercontinental.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Life in HEL (#lifeinhel) was a Finavia marketing campaign which took place from 10 October to 9 November 2017 at Helsinki Airport. The campaign mixed TV, game shows, and social media. Ryan Zhu, a Chinese actor and TV personality, lived in a little cabin inside Helsinki Airport for 30 days. Helsinki Airport was awarded the title of best airport in the world by Travellink; by the campaign, Finavia wanted to prove this claim.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: A new terminal expansion was opened in 2012. The terminals 1 and 2 were combined on 21 June 2022 so that all flights are now operated from a single terminal.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: In spring 2010 a new baggage handling centre utilising the latest technology was taken into use at the airport, concentrating all handling of departing and transferring baggage. Handling of arriving baggage remains at its current handling facility.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: The parts of the airport that were completed in 1969 and 1983 were thoroughly renovated. Basic repairs were completed in 2012.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Runway 3 (22R/04L) was repaired from April to June 2012, during which time the runway was out of use. After this the taxiway next to runway 2 (15/33) was repaired, during which time runway 2 served as a temporary taxiway. The repairs were completed in September 2012.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: The Helsinki Airport station was opened on 10 July 2015. The Ring Rail Line connects the Helsinki–Riihimäki railway in the north with the Vantaankoski railway in the west. The trip from the airport to the Helsinki Central station takes about half an hour, and the trip to Tikkurila railway station takes about ten minutes. The Helsinki Airport station was built underground between the parking garages P3A and P1/P2. The station has a walking connection to the connecting corridor between terminals 1 and 2.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Expansion of the terminals started in early 2016 from the southern wing of the long-distance flight area, which was completed in summer 2017. After this, construction of the western wing was started, which was completed in autumn 2019. Expansion of terminal 1 was also started in 2017, giving the terminal an additional 3,500 square metres of floor area. Terminal 1 was lengthened by 230 metres and gained seven new departure gates.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: As part of the development program, a new parking garage was also opened, with a connection to the terminal. The new parking garage is equipped with solar panels, and it has an area for recharging 200 electric cars. The development program also included about 2000 new parking places.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Expansion of the terminal is undergoing to the north of the terminal building, including expansion of the number of commercial services, gates and docks for airplanes. The expansion also includes improvement of passenger connections to the terminal. The expansion was taken into use in late 2021.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: The undergoing development program is scheduled to be completed in 2023. Before this, new lobbies for departing and arriving passengers and a connecting travel centre were taken into use. Also the old departure lobby of Terminal 2 will be changed into part of the Schengen gate area, expanding the size of the area considerably.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: During New Year 2020 to 2021 a three-year repair project of the station level was completed, not included in the development program. The purpose of the repair project, which cost 32 million euro, is to ensure the safety of taxiing and parking the airplanes and to improve the capacity and effectiveness of air traffic. The infrastructure of the station level will be modernised, allowing a further decrease of environmental impacts of air traffic.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: A two-part "Avia Pilot" building with 13 floors was built within walking distance of the terminal, with Finavia as its main tenant. In early 2018 a new Scandic Hotels hotel with 148 rooms was opened in the building. This is the third hotel in the immediate vicinity of the airport.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: The airport has one terminal. The terminal capacity of the airport is approximately 16–17 million passengers per year.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Domestic flights, as well as flights to European Schengen countries, are operated from gates 11–31. Long-haul and European non-Schengen flights are operated from gates 31–38.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: In 2014, Helsinki Airport introduced the world's first passenger tracking system, which automatically monitors crowd congestion and prevents bottlenecks at the airport.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Terminal 1 opened in 1952 and was the first terminal at the airport. The terminal was used for domestic flights but as of 2009, it was also used for international flights. As part of Helsinki Airport's 10-year development programme, Terminal 1 was closed on 21 June 2022 and all flights have been concentrated in a single terminal.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Terminal 2 (gates 16–55) opened in 1969 for international operations and, at present, also serves domestic flights. It is the larger of the two passenger terminals at the airport. All intercontinental flights operate from Terminal 2. The non-Schengen area of Terminal 2 has been enlarged in 2009 enabling the airport to accommodate eight wide-body aircraft at gates simultaneously while a new shopping area and a spa were opened for passengers on long-distance flights and the division between domestic and international flights was removed. Terminal 2 has many restaurants, bars and shopping areas. The terminal is equipped with 26 aircraft parking stands with passenger bridges. The terminal has a train connection to Helsinki Central railway station.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Terminal 2 passenger facilities include: numerous tax-free shops, Avis, Europcar and Hertz-car rentals, free wireless Internet access, power sockets, lockers, sleeping pods and transfer service desks. Currency exchange, cash machines (ATM), tourist information, an Alepa grocery store and pharmacy are also available. For children, there are also several playrooms. Dining facilities include Burger King and O'Learys Sports Bar as well as numerous other restaurants and cafés. Terminal 2 also includes two Finnair lounges: Finnair Lounge in the Schengen-area and Finnair Premium Lounge in the non-Schengen area.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: As a part of Helsinki Airport's expansion plan, the new South Pier was inaugurated in June 2017 and Aukio in February 2019. The new pier features moving walkways and dual boarding jet bridges to enable handling larger aircraft more efficiently. In November 2019, the West Pier opened and it is able to accommodate the Airbus A380 superjumbo. Five of the gates are able to accommodate two regional jets, such as Boeing 737s or Airbus A320s, simultaneously at a single gate. Passengers arriving and departing are divided into two floors: one for arriving passengers, the other for departures. In June 2016, the new bus terminal for remote aircraft stand operations was opened to increase the airport's capacity with gates 50A-M.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Terminal 2 is used by member airlines of Oneworld and Skyteam airline alliances and most of the non-aligned airlines. Turkish Airlines makes an exception among Star Alliance airlines by using Terminal 2. Almost all charter flights are handled at Terminal 2 (which also handles scheduled services). The current airlines using Terminal 2 are Aeroflot, Air France, Belavia, Blue Air, British Airways, Corendon Airlines, Czech Airlines, Finnair, Nordic Regional Airlines, Freebird Airlines, Jet Time, Japan Airlines, KLM, Norwegian Air Shuttle, Nouvelair Tunisie, Qatar Airways, Royal Jordanian, Sunclass Airlines, Tibet Airlines, TUI fly Nordic, TUI Airways, Turkish Airlines and Ukraine International Airlines.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: There are several airport hotels and office buildings on the grounds of the airport. The Aviapolis is a new international business park adjacent to the Helsinki airport area, already hosting the operations of numerous companies around the airport. In 2013, Finnair opened its new head office, known as House of Travel and Transportation, or "HOTT". The construction of HOTT began in July 2011 and finished on time in June 2013.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Helsinki Airport has three runways. The runways can handle take-offs and landings of the heaviest aircraft in use today such as the Airbus A380. The use of three runways allows two runways to be kept in operation when clearing of snow and ice is needed (if one runway is being cleared at a time).


title: Helsinki Airport

text: There are about twenty different runway combinations in use. The primary runway for landings is Runway 2 (15) from the northwest, i.e. from the direction of Nurmijärvi, or Runway 1 (22L) from the northeast, i.e. from the direction of Kerava, while the primary runway for take-offs is Runway 3 (22R) towards the southwest, in the direction of Western Vantaa and Espoo. Aircraft with low noise can take off from Runway 1 (22L) towards the south at the same time. When the wind is from the north or east, Runway 3 (04L) or Runway 1 (04R) are usually used for landings, i.e. for approaches from the southwest, the direction of Western Vantaa and Espoo, while take-offs are made from Runway 1 (04R) towards the northeast in the direction of Kerava.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: During the night time, landings are primarily made using Runway 2 (15) from the northwest, i.e. from the direction of Nurmijärvi, and take-offs using Runway 3 (22R) towards the southwest, in the direction of Espoo. Jet plane landings to Runway 2 (33) from the southeast and take-offs from Runway 2 (15) towards the southeast are avoided due to dense population in the affected areas. During night time, propeller plane operations towards the southeast are also prohibited unless otherwise dictated by air traffic safety. Air traffic safety is the main reason for not always being able to choose the optimal runway for noise control.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: In October 2012, Finavia implemented Airport CDM (Collaborative Decision Making) at Helsinki Airport. It is a procedure by Eurocontrol, the European Organization for Safety of Air Navigation, that develops airport operation by increasing co-operation between partners at the airport. Airport CDM aims to reduce costs, achieve lower emissions, improve punctuality of operations and increase customer satisfaction at the airport. Helsinki Airport was the seventh European and first Northern European airport to adopt the program.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Helsinki Airport is connected to over 140 destinations worldwide and over 50 countries by passenger services. Helsinki Airport has around 50 airlines operating regularly. In addition, there are numerous charter airlines operating at the airport. The airport is the main hub for Finnair, that operates over 1100 flights weekly to Europe, Asia, and North America. The airport is also used as an operating base for Norwegian Air Shuttle and the low-cost airline operates over 230 flight weekly to elsewhere in Europe as well as the United Arab Emirates and Morocco.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Passenger numbers have been growing rapidly since 2010, but especially since 2014. In 2017, Helsinki Airport experienced the third highest growth rate and the second biggest increase in passenger numbers in the last 20 years. On 13 December 2017, the airport reached the milestone of 18 million passengers for the first time ever.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Helsinki Airport has been one of the largest airports among the Nordic countries by freight handled. In 2012, the airport handled 192,204 tonnes cargo making the airport the largest one in the Nordics in tonnes of cargo handled that year.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Helsinki Airport has extensive cargo flight activity. There is a cargo area with cargo terminals and cargo transit facilities in the Southeastern part of the airport area. ASL Airlines Belgium (formerly TNT Airways) and DHL have their own cargo terminals at the airport. Currently scheduled cargo operating airlines are AirBridgeCargo Airlines operated with Boeing 747 cargo aircraft, ASL Airlines Belgium, DHL Aviation (operated by EAT Leipzig and DHL Air UK), FedEx, UPS Airlines, and Turkish Airlines that operates cargo services to HEL from Istanbul, Oslo, and Stockholm with Airbus A310F and A330F aircraft. In addition to scheduled cargo operations, many other cargo airlines have random operations at Helsinki Airport.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: The construction of a new freight terminal () began in March 2015 and was inaugurated on 8 January 2018. The capacity of the terminal is 350,000 tonnes but the theoretical capacity is up to 450,000 tonnes. The freight capacity of the airport is being expanded to accommodate the growing freight capacity that will be provided by Finnair's Airbus A350 XWB fleet. Finnair's freight operations continued in the previous location until relocation to the new freight terminal in December 2017. The name of the new terminal is Cool Nordic Cargo Hub, but is branded COOL for its modern technology and capacity to handle high volumes of temperature-controlled cargo. A new operations monitoring and tracking platform, "Cargo Eye", is used in the new freight terminal. That gives the new Cargo Control Center a live view of what is happening across the cargo network and where everything is located. The terminal has 29 stands for truck transports.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: The airport saw its first long-haul route on 15 May 1969 when Finnair commenced flights to New York City via Copenhagen and Amsterdam. The first non-stop route to East Asia was commenced in 1983 with Finnair's flight to Tokyo, with Beijing following five years later.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Today 36 intercontinental routes to North America, Asia, and the Middle East operate from Helsinki Airport. Long-haul traffic is a major part of the airport's traffic much of it supported by Finnair, the largest carrier at the airport. Helsinki Airport is an important transfer airport between Europe and Asia. In 2018, Helsinki Airport handled approximately 3.7 million transfer passengers, which is 21.0% more than in 2017. At the beginning of 2018, over 140 weekly flights were flown directly from Helsinki to Asia.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Asia is the largest long-haul market in both number of destinations and weekly frequencies. Finnair and Japan Airlines had long been the only carriers flying to Asia from Helsinki, but in 2019, Tibet Airlines, Juneyao Airlines and Sichuan Airlines launched non-stop flights from Jinan, Shanghai and Chengdu respectively. As of November 2019, the airport has direct connections to 7 destinations (8 airports) in China, namely Beijing (Capital and Daxing), Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Nanjing, Jinan, and Xi'an. Finnair also operates 14 weekly flights to Hong Kong. In addition to China, Japan is a notable market for the airport to which there are flights to five destinations as of December 2019 and in March 2020, flights to Tokyo Haneda commence. India has been connected to the airport since 2006 by direct flights to Delhi. Recently, more flights have been added to traffic between the Middle East and Helsinki. In 2016, Qatar Airways launched daily flights from Doha and now operates 14 weekly flights to Helsinki. In 2018, flydubai began flights from Dubai.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: North America has usually been a much smaller market than Asia for Helsinki Airport. However, during the decade, the market has grown and route launches to destinations such as Chicago, Miami, San Francisco, and Los Angeles have been made. American Airlines opened a connection to Chicago in 2011. In 2015, Finnair discontinued its seasonal route to Toronto–Pearson, but commenced flights to Chicago, followed by San Francisco two years later. As of March 2019, Helsinki Airport is connected to 5 destinations in the US and 3 destinations in Latin America.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Helsinki Airport offers non-stop flights to 162 destinations in over 50 countries around the world operated by 50 airlines. These include more than 100 cities in Europe and the Middle East, over 20 in Asia, and 8 in North America. The following airlines offer flights at Helsinki Airport:


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Helsinki Airport is the fourth-busiest airport in the Nordics, serving over 20.8 million passengers in 2018. Nonetheless, Helsinki has the largest number of Asian destinations of all Nordic airports and in 2015, the airport was the fifth busiest airport in Europe in terms of flights to Asia. As of 2018, Helsinki Airport is connected to Asia with over 140 weekly flights. When ranked by connectivity, the airport is the best-connected airport in Northern Europe with around 10,000 connections worldwide, 85% more than in Copenhagen which is the 2nd best-connected airport in the Nordics. The number of connections from Helsinki Airport has grown by 96% in a decade. In Europe, the airport is the 12th best-connected airport. According to Airports Council International (ACI), Helsinki Airport is one of the fastest growing airports in Europe.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: In 2016, passengers from Japan, China, South Korea and United States made up the four largest groups of non-European travelers at Helsinki Airport. The airport handled around 386,000 Japanese passengers, 321,000 Chinese passengers, 136,000 Korean passengers and 98,000 US citizens. Other major nationalities were Singapore, Thailand, Turkey, Malaysia, Ukraine, Vietnam, Taiwan, Israel and Indonesia.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Over the last few years, the number of passengers going through Helsinki Airport has grown significantly. In 2010, the airport handled 12,900,000 passengers while by 2018, the number of annual passengers had nearly doubled to over 20,800,000.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: The airport is located in the immediate vicinity of Ring III and Finnish national road 45. The railway running beneath the airport in a tunnel is connected to the Helsinki commuter rail.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: The railway link to the airport opened for traffic in July 2015 and serves local commuter trains running at 10-minute intervals during peak periods. On evenings the train run every 15 minutes and at quieter times every 30 minutes. The railway is trafficked by low-floor Stadler FLIRT trains, operated by the VR Group.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: The westbound commuter line "I" runs to Helsinki Central Station via Huopalahti in just over 30 minutes, while the eastbound commuter line "P" runs to Helsinki Central Station via Tikkurila in just under 30 minutes. Eastbound trains stop at Tikkurila (8 minutes away) where passengers can transfer to long-distance trains going away from Helsinki, in the directions of Tampere and Lahti, including lines to Saint Petersburg and Moscow.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: The last P service downtown leaves nightly at 01:01 (01:31 on Fridays and Saturdays). During the night time service break, bus lines 562N to Tikkurila railway station and 615 to downtown Helsinki provide night service to and from the Airport.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Plans also exist for a direct connection between Helsinki Central, the airport, and the long-distance rail network via Kerava. This line, known as Lentorata, is projected to run in a tunnel for most of its approximately 30 km length.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: A trip from Helsinki city centre to the airport requires a ticket for zones ABC, costing 4.10 euro for adults and 2.10 euro for children from 7 to 17 years. Children under 7 years travel for free.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Taxis leave departing passengers directly in front of the main doors of the terminal, with an entrance to flight check-in. Arriving passengers are served by a taxi station on the arriving flights floor. The taxi station has lanes, of which passengers can choose the taxi that best suits them.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Since 1 January 2022, contracted taxis at the Helsinki Airport are operated by Mankkaan Taksi Oy, Taksi Helsinki Oy and Menevä Oy. Other taxi companies can also provide their services, with the customer negotiating the transport price themselves.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: There is regular bus service by bus line 615 from the airport to Helsinki Central railway station (mainly through the Tuusulanväylä) and to major hotels and railway stations in the Greater Helsinki area that operates 24-hours a day, mostly every half-hour. The chief operator of these services is the Helsinki Regional Transport Authority (HSL). Complete list of local services is available at the HSL-website.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Coach connections, daytime and overnight, to all parts of Finland are provided by Matkahuolto and ExpressBus. They depart from the airport coach terminal.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Depending on the point of time, a trip from the Helsinki city centre to the airport on bus line 600 takes about 40 to 55 minutes. The trunk bus routes 600 and 570 are in traffic 24 hours a day. The Aviapolis railway station near the airport offers connections to several bus lines.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Until 2020 the Finnair City Bus, operated by Pohjolan Liikenne, provided a direct bus connection from the Eliel Square in central Helsinki to the ariport. Tickets bought from Finnair's webshop cost 6.80 euro for adults and 3.40 euro for children from 7 to 17 years. Tickets bought onboard cost ten cents more. As well as the Eliel Square, the bus line stopped at the Hesperia Park and if necessary, at other express bus stops along the way. A trip on the Finnair City Bus from the Eliel Square to the airport took about 30 minutes. In spring 2020 the service was suspended because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and in autumn 2020 Pohjolan Liikenne announced it would discontinue the service permanently. The service operated for the last time on 22 March 2020.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: In August 2016 there were about 13 thousand parking spaces at the Helsinki Airport. Some of the spaces were taken out of use in January 2019 when the parking garage P1/P2 located near the terminal was dismantled to make way for the new entrance to the airport.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: The airport has two parking garages (P3 and P5) as well as two outdoor parking areas (P4A and P4B). The free-of-charge bus service AirPortBus operated by Finavia travels between the parking areas and the terminal.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: There are also companies providing airport parking services near the airport, where passengers can leave their cars in a guarded area and get transport to the airport.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: In October 2013, Finavia received a capital injection of €200,000,000 from the Finnish Government. The investment enabled Finavia to start a development program worth €900,000,000 at Helsinki Airport, aiming at maintaining the strong position of Helsinki Airport in transit traffic between Europe and Asia. The program started in January 2014 and is planned to last until February 2020. It is expected to generate about 14,000 person-years of employment. Helsinki Airport was expected to serve 20 million passengers per year by 2020 and create about 5,000 new jobs at the airport. However, the airport served almost 21 million passengers in 2018; two years before the target. The expansion will increase capacity at the airport to 30 million passengers. In order to achieve this, the airport will expand both of its terminals and open a new entrance in place of the current parking and public transport area.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: The Suomi-rata project, started in 2019, aims to build a new railway connection to the airport. It would create a new, twice as fast connection from the airport to the Helsinki Central railway station as well as a connection to the Finnish Main Line, allowing direct rail access to the airport also from elsewhere in Finland.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Helsinki Airport has capacity for about 17 million passengers annually, although this number was passed in 2016. Finavia decided to expand the current terminal building to respond to the expected passenger growth within the following years.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Part of the plan was to build a satellite terminal next to Terminal 2, but the plan was cancelled in favour of expansion under a single terminal building. In September 2014, Finavia revealed more detailed plans for the future expansion that will take place between 2014 and 2020. According to the plan Terminals 1 and 2 will be combined and expanded under one roof. This expansion work is one of Finland's largest construction projects. The expansion was designed by the Finnish architects' office PES-Architects. The same office designed the previous Helsinki Airport expansions completed in 1996 and 1999, as well as the circular parking buildings in front of the terminal. The surface area will increase by 45%, luggage handling capacity will increase by 50%. The entire surface area of the terminal in 2020 will be approximately .


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Finavia plans to expand Terminal 1, which is used for flights within the Schengen area. The construction is scheduled to be started in November 2017. Terminal 1 will be expanded by four separate departure gate buildings which will be connected by walking corridors. Each building will have one departure gate excluding one, which will have three gates. Gates (5–11) will not be equipped with jet bridges. Buildings will have two floors.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Terminal 2 will have new gates (8 additional gates to Terminal 2) and aircraft stands on the apron. All gates for long-haul flights will have double jet bridges (such as the ones at Incheon International Airport) to enable handling larger aircraft more efficiently. Finavia has signed a contract with Thyssen Krupp Airport Systems for 16 widebody aircraft stands with up to 33 new jet bridges. New jet bridges were installed to gates 38 and 39 (now 53 and 54). Gate 48 can accommodate the Airbus A380 superjumbo and there are new aircraft stands on the apron accommodating the A380. Five of the gates will be able to accommodate two regional jets, such as Boeing 737s or Airbus A320s, simultaneously at a single gate. Two of these gates are located at West Pier.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: In June 2016, the new bus terminal for remote aircraft stand operations was opened to increase the airport's capacity with gates 50A-M.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: The new South Pier of Terminal 2 was inaugurated on 10 July 2017. The first scheduled flight from the new pier, AY006 departed from Gate 54 to New York City. The new pier covers . In addition to the new terminal building, new dual boarding gates S54 and S55 as well as aircraft stands 171 and 172 were opened. Construction of the southern wing of Terminal 2 started on 4 January 2016. The construction took around 18 months. There are two floors: one for arriving passengers, the other for departures and gates 52 to 55. All the gates have dual boarding jet bridges. The new wing also features the first moving walkway at any airport in Finland.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: On 20 September 2016, the construction on the West Pier began, even though it was expected to start in summer 2017. The first part of the west wing is expected to be finished in April 2019 while the entire pier was completed in October 2019. The west wing represents some €300,000,000 of Finavia's substantial total investment of €900,000,000. The first part of the west wing built is the large central plaza, "Aukio", which was opened in February 2019. It brings of new passenger and baggage facilities to the airport. The pier is equipped with nine gates for widebody jets. Gate 48 is able to accommodate the Airbus A380.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: The Helsinki Airport development program also includes plans to expand Terminal 2 to the area currently used for parking and public transport. This would provide more space for check-in, security control and baggage operations, allowing the airport to concentrate all departure and arrival services in a single terminal. On December 1, 2021, a new multimodal travel center will be opened in connection with Terminal 2, among other things, to streamline access to the airport from the train station and bus terminal.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: The construction of a new freight terminal () began in March 2015. The capacity of the terminal is being expanded to accommodate the growing freight capacity that will be provided by Finnair's Airbus A350 XWB fleet. Finnair's freight operations will continue in the current location until relocation to the new freight terminal in Spring 2017.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: Part of the rehaul of Helsinki Airport has included the development of a contextual engine that uses artificial intelligence to digest passenger data in ways that make passing through the airport a more pleasant experience. The benefits come from an array of small improvements; for example, digital signs change language according to the nationalities of those getting off a flight. Passengers are also continuously kept abreast of how long it will take them to reach their gates or pass through security control. Monocle named the contextual engine built by technology firm Reaktor as one of the top transportation innovations of 2018.


title: Helsinki Airport

text: In addition to the terminal expansion, Finavia has also contemplated building a third terminal at Helsinki Airport. According to Finavia's tentative plan, the new terminal would be located between runways 04R/22L and 04L/22R, while runway 15/33 would be removed. The terminal would be the principal terminal at the airport but the check-in area would stay in the current terminal building. The decision to build the third terminal has not yet been taken.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: Spore is a 2008 life simulation real-time strategy God game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Designed by Will Wright, it covers many genres including action, real-time strategy, and role-playing games. "Spore" allows a player to control the development of a species from its beginnings as a microscopic organism, through development as an intelligent and social creature, to interstellar exploration as a spacefaring culture. It has drawn wide attention for its massive scope, and its use of open-ended gameplay and procedural generation. Throughout each stage, players are able to use various creators to produce content for their games. These are then automatically uploaded to the online Sporepedia and are accessible by other players for download.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: "Spore" was released after several delays to generally favorable reviews. Praise was given for the fact that the game allowed players to create customized creatures, vehicles, and buildings. However, "Spore" was criticized for its gameplay which was seen as shallow by many reviewers; GameSpot remarked: "Individual gameplay elements are extremely simple". Controversy surrounded "Spore" due to the inclusion of SecuROM, and its digital rights management software, which can potentially open the user's computer to security risks.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: "Spore" allows the player to develop a species from a microscopic organism to its evolution into a complex creature, its emergence as a social, intelligent being, to its mastery of the planet, and then finally to its ascension into space, where it interacts with alien species across the galaxy. Throughout the game, the player's perspective and species change dramatically.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: The game is broken up into distinct "stages". The outcome of one phase affects the initial conditions and leveling facing the player in the next. Each phase exhibits a distinct style of play, and has been described by the developers as ten times more complicated than its preceding phase. Phases often feature optional missions; when the player completes a mission, they are granted a bonus, such as a new ability or money. If all of a player's creations are eliminated at some point, the species will respawn at its nearest colony or the beginning of the phase.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: Unlike many other Maxis games, "Spore" has a primary win condition, which is obtained by reaching a supermassive black hole placed at the center of the galaxy and receiving a "Staff of Life". However, the player may continue to play after any goal has been achieved.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: The first four phases of the game, if the player uses the editors only minimally, will take up to 15 hours to complete, but can take as little as one or two hours. Note that there is no time limit for any stage: the player may stay in a single stage as long as they wish, and progress to the next stage when ready. At the end of each phase, the player's actions cause their creature to be assigned a characteristic, or consequence trait. Each phase has three consequence traits, usually based on how aggressively or peacefully the phase was played. Characteristics determine how the creature will start the next phase and give it abilities that can be used later in the game.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: "Spore" is a game that is separated into stages, each stage presenting a different type of experience with different goals to achieve. The five stages are the Cell Stage, the Creature Stage, the Tribal Stage, the Civilization Stage, and the Space Stage. Once the primary objective is completed, the player has the option to advance to the next stage, or continue playing the current stage.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: The Cell Stage (sometimes referred to as the tide pool, cellular, or microbial stage) is the very first stage in the game, and begins with a cinematic explanation of how the player's cell got onto the planet through the scientific concept of panspermia, with a meteor crashing into the ocean of a planet and breaking apart, revealing a single-celled organism. The player guides this simple microbe around in a 3D environment on a single 2D plane, reminiscent of Flow, where it must deal with fluid dynamics and predators, while eating meat chunks or plants. The player may choose whether the creature is a herbivore or a carnivore prior to starting the stage. The player can find "meteor bits" (apparently from the aforementioned panspermic meteor) or kill other cells to find parts that upgrade their creature by adding abilities such as electricity, poison or other parts. Once the microbe has found a part, the player can call a mate to enter the editor, in which they can modify the shape, abilities and appearance of the microbe by spending "DNA points" earned by eating meat chunks or plants in the stage.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: The cell's eating habits in the Cell Stage directly influence its diet in the Creature Stage, and only mouths appropriate to the diet (Herbivore, Carnivore, or Omnivore) established in the Cell Stage will become available in the Creature Stage. Once the creature "grows" a brain and the player decides to progress to the next stage, the creature editor appears, prompting the user to add legs before the shift to land. The Creature editor differs in that it gives the player the ability to make major changes to the creature's body shape and length, and place parts in three-dimensional space instead of a top-down view as in the Cell editor.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: In the Creature Stage, the player creates their own land creature intended to live on a single continent. If the player attempts to swim to another island, an unidentified monster eats the player, and the player is warned not to come again. The biosphere contains a variety of animal species which carnivorous and omnivorous creatures can hunt for food, and fruit-bearing plants intended for herbivores and omnivores. The player creature's Hunger becomes a measured stat as well as its Health in this stage; depletion of the Hunger meter results in Health depletion and eventual death of the player creature unless food is eaten.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: In the Creature Stage, the player has a home nest where members of their own species are located. The nest is where the player respawns following death, and acts as a recovery point for lost HP. Other species' nests are spread throughout the continent. While interacting with them, the player can choose to be "social" or "aggressive"; how the player interacts with other creatures will affect their opinion of the player's species. For instance, by mimicking their social behaviors (singing, dancing etc.), NPC creatures will eventually consider the player an ally, but if the player harms members of their species, they will flee or become aggressive upon sighting them. The player can heal in allied nests and add allied creatures to their packs. "Epic" creatures, which are rare, aggressive creatures more than twenty times the player's height, feature prominently in the Creature Stage. The player cannot use social interactions with an Epic creature. There are also "Rogue" creatures which may be befriended or attacked. Additionally, spaceships may appear in this stage and abduct a creature.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: Progress in the Creature Stage is determined by the player's decisions on whether to befriend or attack other species. These decisions will affect the abilities of the player's species in subsequent stages of the game. Successful socialization and hunting attempts will give DNA Points, which may be spent on many new body parts. The player will also be rewarded with multiple DNA points for allying with or causing the extinction of a species. Placing new parts in the Creature editor comes at the expense of DNA points; more expensive parts will further upgrade the player creature's abilities for either method of interaction, as well as secondary abilities such as flight, speed or boosted health. After the player is finished editing, a newly evolved generation of creatures will be present in the home nest as the player's creature hatches. As the player's creature befriends or hunts more creatures, its intelligence and size increases until it can form a tribe.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: After the brain of the player's species evolves sufficiently, the species may enter the Tribal Stage. The species' design becomes permanent, and the player sheds control of an individual creature in favor of the entire tribe group, as the game focuses on the birth of division of labor for the species. The player is given a hut, a group of up to 12 fully evolved creatures, as well as two of six possible Consequence Abilities, unlocked depending on the species' behavior in the previous phases. This is only possible if the player played the previous stages; if the player started directly from the "Galaxy Screen", they are locked.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: Gameplay during this stage is styled as an RTS. Rather than controlling one creature, the player now controls an entire tribe and can give them commands such as gathering food, attacking other tribes or simply moving to a certain location. The player may give the tribe tools such as weapons, musical instruments, and healing or food-gathering implements. Food now replaces "DNA points" as the player's currency, and can be spent on structures and additional tribe members, or used to appease other tribes of different species. Tribe members also gain the option to wear clothes, the editing of which replaces the Creature Editor in the 'Tribal Outfitter'.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: Combat can be made more effective with weapons like stone axes, spears, and torches. For socializing, a player can obtain musical instruments: wooden horns, maracas and didgeridoos. Miscellaneous tools can be used for fishing and gathering food and for healing tribe members. All tools, however, require a specialized tool shack, which costs food to build. Tribe members can also gather food, an essential concept. Food can be stolen by wild creatures or by other tribes in the form of raids.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: The diet choice that the player made in prior stages, whether herbivore, omnivore, or carnivore, determines what food the tribe can gather and eat. Animals can be hunted for meat, and fish or seaweed can be speared for food. Fruit is gathered from trees and bushes, and players can also domesticate animals for eggs, which all diet types can eat. Any foreign animals in the player's pack in the Creature Stage are automatically added to the tribe as farm animals. Epic creatures may threaten nests or tribes. Allied tribes will occasionally bring the player gifts of food. Players can steal food from other tribes (though it angers them), and dead tribes may be pillaged for their food.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: There are five other tribes that appear along with the player's tribe. For every tribe befriended or destroyed, a piece of a totem pole is built, which may increase the population limit of the player's tribe or grant access to new tools and clothes. When all five tribes are allied or conquered, the player may move forward to the Civilization Stage.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: The events of Tribal Stage have left the player's tribe the dominant species of the planet, but the species itself has now fragmented into many separate nations. The player retains control of a single nation with one city. The goal in the civilization phase is to gain control of the entire planet, and it is left to the player to decide whether to conquer it using military force, diplomacy, or religious influence. Two new editors (the building and vehicle editors) are used to create city buildings and vehicles. The player can place three types of buildings (House, Factory, and Entertainment) around the City Hall (which can also be customized) and may build up to 3 types of vehicles (sea, land and air) at each city. These vehicles serve military, economic or religious purposes. The main unit of currency is "Sporebucks", which is used to purchase vehicles and buildings. To earn income, players can capture spice geysers and set up spice derricks at their locations, conduct trade, or build factories.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: In constructing vehicles and buildings, as with most real-time strategy games, there is a capacity limit; building houses will increase the cap, and constructing various buildings adjacent to one another will provide a productivity bonus or deficit.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: The presence of other nations requires the player to continue expanding their empire using military force, propaganda, or simply buying out cities. Players can choose their method of global domination depending on the types of cities they own. Military states grow solely by attacking other cities. Nations with a religious trait construct special missionary units that convert other cities via religious propaganda. Likewise, economic states communicate solely by trade and have no weapons (except for defensive Turrets). If the player's nation captures a city of a different type, they can choose to have the city retain its original type if they wish, or convert it to match the type it was captured with. Players of all three ideological paths can eventually use a superweapon, which requires a large number of cities and Sporebucks, but gives the player a significant advantage over rival nations. Aside from enemy nations, Epic creatures may threaten individual cities.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: The Space Stage provides new goals and paths as the player's species begins to spread through the galaxy. The game adopts the principle of mediocrity, as there are numerous forms of life scattered throughout the galaxy.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: The player controls a single spaceship, built at the beginning of the Space Stage. The player can travel by clicking on other planets and moons and stars, though each jump costs energy. Later in the game, the player can purchase a wormhole key which enables them to travel through black holes, offering instant transportation to a sister black hole. There are around 500,000 planets in the game's galaxy orbiting around 100,000 stars (including Earth and its star, Sol).


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: Players can visit and explore all rocky planets with all their lifeforms and geologic structure. These planets can also be terraformed and colonized. The colonization of new worlds makes the player's civilization more influential and increases its income.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: Players can make contact with other space-faring civilizations, or "empires", which sport many different personalities and worldviews, ranging from diplomatic and polite species willing to ally, to distrustful, fanatical empires more willing to wage war. Completing missions for an empire improves the player's relationship with them, as does trading and assisting in fending off attacks. When the player has become allied with an empire, they can ask certain favors of the empire. If the player becomes enemies with an empire, they will send a small fleet of ships to attack the player's ship as soon as they enter their territory.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: One of the main goals in the Space Stage is for the player to push their way toward a supermassive black hole at the galaxy's center, which introduces the game's final antagonists, the Grox, a unique species of cybernetic aliens with a powerful empire of 2400 systems surrounding the core. Getting to the center of the galaxy and entering starts a cinematic in which the player is introduced to Steve. After the cinematic dialogue with Steve ends the player is shot out of the black hole, and gets rewarded with the Staff of Life.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: Several other stages were mentioned at various points by the developers, including a Molecular Stage, an Aquatic Stage, a City Stage, and a Terraforming Stage. These stages were scrapped.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: If Galactic Adventures is installed, the player may be given missions which involve travelling to planets, beaming down and completing Maxis-created, planetside 'adventures'. With this expansion, the player can also outfit their Captain with weapons and accessories which assist in these adventures. The occupants of allied ships can also take part.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: User-generated content is a major feature of "Spore"; there are eighteen different editors (some unique to a phase). All have the same general UI and controls for positioning, scaling and colouring parts, whether for the creation of a creature, or for a building or vehicle. The Creature editor, for example, allows the player to take what looks like a lump of clay with a spine and mould it into a creature. Once the torso is shaped, the player can add parts such as legs, arms, feet, hands, noses, eyes, and mouths. Many of these parts affect the creature's abilities (speed, strength, diet, etc.), while some parts are purely decorative. Once the creature is formed, it can be painted using a large number of textures, overlays, colours, and patterns, which are procedurally applied depending on the topology of the creature. The only required feature is the mouth. All other parts are optional; for example, creatures without legs will slither on the ground like a slug or an inchworm, and creatures without arms will be unable to pick up objects.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: Although there is not a formal planet editor, in the Space Stage, players can freely terraform all rocky planets in the galaxy, adding mountains, valleys, lakes, etc. Players can also change these planets' biological ecosystems.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: There are two new editors seen in the new expansion Spore Galactic Adventures: these include the captain editor (also called the captain outfitter) and the adventure creator, which enables terraforming and placing objects freely on adventure planets.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: "Spore" user community functionality includes a feature that is part of an agreement with YouTube granting players the ability to upload a YouTube video of their creatures' activity directly from within the game, and EA's creation of "The "Spore" YouTube Channel", which will showcase the most popular videos created this way. In addition, some user-created content will be highlighted by Maxis at the official "Spore" site, and earn badges of recognition. One of "Spore's" most social features is the "Sporecast", an RSS feed that players can use to subscribe to the creations of any specific "Spore" player, allowing them to track their creations. There is a toggle which allows the player to restrict what downloadable content will be allowed; choices include: "no user generated content", "official Maxis-approved content", "downloadable friend content", and "all user-created content". Players can elect to ban content in-game, at any time, and Maxis monitors content for anything deemed inappropriate, issuing bans for infractions of content policy.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: "Spore" has also released an API (application programming interface) to allow developers to access data about player activity, the content they produce and their interactions with each other. The "Spore" API is a collection of RESTful public web services that return data in .XML format. In April 2009, the results of the "Spore" API Contest was concluded with winners building interactive visualizations, games, mobile applications and content navigation tools. The API also includes a Developers forum for people wishing to use all the creations people have made to create applications.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: The game is referred to as a "massively single-player online game" and "asynchronous sharing." Simultaneous multiplayer gaming is not a feature of "Spore". The content that the player can create is uploaded automatically to a central database, cataloged and rated for quality (based on how many users have downloaded the object or creature in question), and then re-distributed to populate other players' games. The data transmitted is very small — only a couple of kilobytes per item transmitted – due to procedural generation of material.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: Via the in-game "MySpore Page", players receive statistics of how their creatures are faring in other players' games, which has been referred to as the "alternate realities of the "Spore" metaverse." The game also reports how many other players have interacted with the player. For example, the game reports how many times other players have allied with the player's species. The personalities of user-created species are dependent on how the user played them.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: Players can share creations, chat, and roleplay in the Sporum, the game's internet forum hosted by Maxis. Multiple sections allow forum users to share creations and tips for the game, as well as roleplay.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: The "Sporepedia" keeps track of nearly every gameplay experience, including the evolution of a creature by graphically displaying a timeline which shows how the creature incrementally changed over the eons; it also keeps track of the creature's achievements, both noteworthy and dubious, as a species. The "Sporepedia" also keeps track of all the creatures, planets, vehicles and other content the player encounters over the course of a game. Players can upload their creations to Spore.com to be viewed by the public at the "Sporepedia" website. As of May 2009, the list of creations has surpassed 100 million items.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: "Spore" uses procedural generation extensively in relation to content pre-made by the developers. Wright mentioned in an interview given at E3 2006 that the information necessary to generate an entire creature would be only a couple of kilobytes, and went on to give the following analogy: "think of it as sharing the DNA template of a creature while the game, like a womb, builds the 'phenotypes' of the animal, which represent a few uploaded and downloaded freely and quickly from the "Sporepedia" online server. This allows users to asynchronously upload their creations and download other players' content, which enriches the experience of the game as more of its players progress in the game."


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: IGN Australia awarded "Spore" a 9.2 out of 10 score, saying, "It ["Spore"] will make you acknowledge just how far we've come, and just how far we have to go, and "Spore" will change the way you think about the universe we live in." "PC Gamer" UK awarded the game a 91%, saying ""Spore"s triumph is painfully ironic. By setting out to instill a sense of wonderment at creation and the majesty of the universe, it's shown us that it's actually a lot more interesting to sit here at our computers and explore the contents of each other's brains." In its 4.5 (of 5) -star review, GameSpy wrote ""Spore" is a technological triumph that introduces a whole new way of tapping into a bottomless well of content."


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: Most of the criticism of "Spore" came from the lack of depth in the first four phases, summarized by Eurogamer's 9 of 10 review, which stated, "for all their mighty purpose, the first four phases of the game don't always play brilliantly, and they're too fleeting." 1UP.com reasoned in its B+ graded review, "It's not a perfect game, but it's definitely one that any serious gamer should try." GameSpot in its 8.0 of 10 review called "Spore" "a legitimately great game that will deliver hours of quality entertainment", but criticized the "individual gameplay elements [that] are extremely simple." Jason Ocampo's IGN 8.8 of 10 review stated, "Maxis has made an impressive product that does so many incredible things" but added, "while "Spore" is an amazing product, it's just not quite an amazing game."


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: "The New York Times "review of "Spore" mostly centered on lack of depth and quality of gameplay in the later phases of the game, stating that "most of the basic core play dynamics in "Spore" are unfortunately rather thin." While a review in "PC Gamer" US stated that "it just isn't right to judge "Spore" in the context of so many of the other games we judge", "Zero Punctuation" was also critical of the game, claiming it did not live up to the legacy of "The Sims": "The chief failing of "Spore" is that it's trying to be five games, each one a shallow and cut down equivalent of another game, with the Civilization Stage even going so far as to be named after the game ["Civilization"] it's bastardizing."


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: Criticism has also emerged surrounding the stability of the game, with "The Daily Telegraph" stating:


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: "The launch of "Spore", the keenly anticipated computer game from the creators of "The Sims", has been blighted by technical problems." In an interview published by MTV, "Spore" designer Will Wright responded to early criticism that the phases of the game had been dumbed-down by explaining "We were very focused, if anything, on making a game for more casual players. "Spore" has more depth than, let’s say, "The Sims" did. But we looked at the Metacritic scores for "Sims 2", which was around ninety, and something like "Half-Life", which was ninety-seven, and we decided — quite a while back — that we would rather have the Metacritic and sales of "Sims 2" than the Metacritic and sales of "Half-Life"".


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: In its first three weeks on sale, the game sold 2 million copies, according to Electronic Arts. It received a "Silver" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 100,000 copies in the United Kingdom.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: "Spore" uses a modified version of the controversial digital rights management (DRM) software SecuROM as copy protection, which requires authentication upon installation and when online access is used. This system was announced after the originally planned system met opposition from the public, as it would have required authentication every ten days. Additionally, EA released the game under a policy by which the product key of an individual copy of the game would only be authenticated on up to three computers; however, some users ran afoul of the limitations as the software would consider even a slight change of hardware to constitute a different computer, resulting in all authorizations being used up by those who often upgrade their computer. In response to customer complaints, this limit was raised to five computers. After the activation limit has been depleted, EA Customer Service will consider further activations on a case-by-case basis. A survey conducted by EA revealed that only 14% have activated on more than 1 PC and less than 1% of users have tried to activate "Spore" on more than 3 PCs.