Not long ago, I had the chance to check out Bus Simulator at PAX East 2019 at the Astragon booth. During that time, I had the chance to talk to Chris Rosario about the upcoming 2019 release of Bus Simulator on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
While talking about the game, I picked up the PS4 controller that they had set up for the hands-on and started up the demo. I was greeted with a friendly passenger who turns out was my guide for the trip. We walked up to the bus that I had picked out before the gameplay started, opened the doors, and climbed on in.
Your guide starts off by telling you the basics, there is this switch there, there is this switch here, turn on this light to get started, etc. This sounds like there’s a lot to do, but it honestly isn’t much at all. I was half paying attention to the game and half paying attention to Chris to make sure I didn’t seem rude, and I still understood all that I was doing in the game. Before long, I had set off on my journey, a left out of the bus terminal, and down the road.
Bus Simulator looks great. The landscapes are fleshed out past the roads, which is a welcome thing to me. In the past, I have played an old version of Train Simulator, which was the last simulation game that I played, and Bus Simulator does a great job of pulling me into current simulation times. The people walking down the sidewalks and waiting at the bus stops bring life to the world. The cars that drive past makes you feel more determined to drive properly and obey the road laws. The sun shines through the trees, the roads are shiny after rain, and your buses lights shine off the cars in front of you.
Bus Simulator lets you run your bus company and earn money, which is affected by multiple things. You can have a bus running your routes, and if they don’t drive safely, your rating and income will go down. If you don’t drive safe yourself, that will also affect things, so avoiding running up on the curbs, hitting potholes and other things comes to the forefront of your mind while playing. While being safe, you also can’t be a slowpoke, as your customers might get upset. Some other features include traffic jams, construction sites, speed bumps, and accidents that you’ll have to navigate around.
As I drove to my first bus stop and pulled up, I had to do a couple of things for my riders to be able to get on, and also do things that are kind of a standard. I had to lower the bus on the loading side, open the two sets of doors, and turn on the cabin lights. Once customers started filling on, a couple of them had to pay their fare, and I had to give them proper change. All of these actions you would normally feel much more at home with a mouse and keyboard. Astragon has made the playing of this game feel natural and easy with a controller. There was only a couple of times where I had to think for a minute of what button I needed to press to do what I wanted.
I personally am a streamer as well, and Bus Simulator is one game that I told Rosario that I was really excited to give a shot. One of the things with Bus Simulator is it includes multiplayer with up to three other people. I’m hoping I have friends that will share the same enthusiasm for this game as I do, as I see it being very relaxing to hop on together and just play for a couple of hours and see what happens. One of the things that I was told while at the booth is that there is some pretty interesting dialogue with the passengers that makes playing Bus Simulator a lot of fun just to hear what they have to say, as there are voice overs as well.
Bus Simulator isn’t just a plain-Jane simulator with generic buses though. Astragon has licensed partners from MAN, Mercedes-Benz, SETRA, and IVECO Bus. Buses included are Mercedes-Benz Citaro K, Mercedes-Benz Citaro G, MAN Lion’s City bus, MAN Lion’s City CNG articulated bus, SETRA S 418 LE business, SETRA S 416 LE business, IVECO BUS Urbanway and the IVECO BUS Urbanway CNG articulated bus, all of which are customizable from the colors to the patterns down to the advertising displayed on your bus.
My experience with this hands-on of Bus Simulator has me definitely excited, and I recommend people to give the game a shot if you are mildly into simulation games.
You can check out more on Bus Simulator at their website here.
