Most people, while stuck aboard a smelly, late, overcrowded bus have probably had this thought at one time or another: “I bet I could do drive this. I could definitely manage this better. How difficult could it possibly be?” Enter Bus Simulator, a consolized variant of Bus Simulator 18, a title that gives gamers a chance to answer that question for themselves.
Bus Simulator is part driving sim, part management sim. Its primary mode puts players in charge of a mass transit system for a fictional seaside area which features a range of urban, suburban, and agricultural areas. Players start off with a single city bus, no drivers, and a small urban route. From that small seed, however, a transit empire can grow. Expand routes, hire drivers, buy new and bigger buses until all of the game’s area has access to relatively affordable mass transit.
The driving part of the game puts players in the seat of one of their line’s buses and tasks them with completing the chosen route. A myriad of options can fine-tune just how difficult each drive will be. There are day/night options, road hazards, and noisy passengers, just to name a few.
Control every aspect of running a bus, including extending/retracting wheelchair ramps.
Bus Simulator, essentially a console port of Bus Simulator 18, includes all of the DLC from the PC version of the game. Built using the Unreal Engine, the landscape and vehicle graphics are quite nice. Where the graphics fail a bit though are the people, who are all a single varying version of blandly ugly. Granted, people models shouldn’t be the main point of a game like this, but there are lot of Unreal Engine games with prettier looking people.
A standard PlayStation 4 runs the game pretty well. Initially loading into a world seems to take almost a minute, but once in-game, the world doesn’t seem to experience any major slowdown issues. I also didn’t observe any significant draw-in or other graphical issues.
Day/night cycles can be turned on and off for each drive.
One place where the game really shines is in the bus audio. This a game where wearing headphones is strongly recommended. The bus engines sound great. Doors hiss open just the way they should. The change machine clicks nicely. Flipping various bus switches makes great little clicking noises.
Even after completing the main campaign, there’s still plenty of things to do in the world of Bus Simulator. The game can be played in Sandbox Mode to just drive around and check things out. Players are also able to exit their buses and walk around to further explore. There are some special random events that only happen in certain places, and a few achievements for finding certain things that are well off the beaten track.
One issue that the game is sorely lacking is any kind of VR support. While gamepad controls work pretty well, being able to reach out and flip switches or look around the bus without needing to push a thumbstick would have been nice.
Depots can get pretty big when your transit hub gets into full operation.
The game also features a cooperative multiplayer mode for up to four people. With voice support, it’s a chance to team up and drive for a single transit system (or to sabotage your friends by driving a bus like it’s in a demolition derby. Or downtown Seattle but I digress. . .
Much like Euro Truck Sim 2 or Farming Simulator 19, Bus Simulator offers a lot more fun than most people would expect. The surprisingly deep campaign mode is a great hook, and the driving itself is oddly satisfying. There’s just something about perfectly hitting a bunch of stops, remembering to use your blinkers correctly and not hitting every single pothole in the road that makes a good drive far more satisfying than it should be. As a reviewer playing this back-to-back with WRC 8, this became my chill-out review game when the storms, rock walls, and stress of narrow dirt tracks finally got to me.
Sim fans will definitely enjoy this one. As for this reviewer, I’m off to collect a few more speeding tickets as the lead driver for “Better Than Sound Transit.”
A free copy of Bus Simulator on PS4 was provided for this review. Bus Simulator is available for Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation®4 consoles. Bus Simulator 18 is available on Steam and the Epic Game Store. More information can be found on the official website.
