Review: Bus Simulator 21
| Author: | Brian Powell Jr |
| Date: | May 29, 2022 10:51:00 pm EDT |
| Last Updated: | June 1, 2024 9:01:59 pm EDT |
| Read Time: | 4 min read |
| Tags: |
Game Details
| Genre | Developer | Publisher | Release Date | Reviewer's Sentiments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simulation | Stillalive Studios | Astragon Entertainment | 2021-09-07 | Recommended |
If you’ve ever wanted to experience what it’s like to drive a city bus without having to go through the effort of acquiring a special license, then Bus Simulator is the game for you. Bus Simulator from astragon Entertainment and stillalive Studios puts you in control of your own public transit company. In this newest edition, players have 2 locations they can drive along with dynamic weather and changing time of day.
Gameplay and Impressions
The overall driving experience wasn’t too different from Bus Simulator 18. I found the character creation menu to be rather comical. Regardless of the choices, you looked like you were wearing skin tight clothing and/or skinny jeans. This even applied to some of the huskier passengers who get on your bus. I also couldn’t help but also see a slight resemblance to the titan faces in Attack on Titan while creating the character. The last comical bit to me was watching the player character run. One of the newer features added to Bus Simulator 21 is the ability to free roam the map or ride your bus routes as your character.
Driving the buses was pretty easy even with a keyboard and mouse. A steering wheel would add to the immersion and smoothness of the steering, but using the keyboard to turn isn’t a disadvantage. I was pleased to see the AI respond to me using the turn signals to indicate I was making turns or stopping at the bus stop. Though, the AI wasn’t without its flaws (see later).
Artificial Intelligence, Or the Lack Of
At the time of writing this review, the AI needs a good bit of work to make the game more immersive. One of the biggest issues, is that sometimes the pedestrian AI will freak out when you are pulling into a bus stop. This may be a response to me getting “too close” to the sidewalk, but the AI runs out in front of the bus and I, more times than not, ran them over (and paid the insurance penalty).
Earlier, I mentioned how the AI responded to turn signals and followed traffic signals. Well, in some cases, the lanes that had right-of-way would incorrectly yield to other AI vehicles making a left turn. This would also lead to some unexpected bus accidents where I’d crash into the back of a car. At times I also encountered the AI making illegal turning maneuvers (pass me and then make the turn) while I had my turn signal on sitting in traffic at a light. I am wondering if this has something to do with applying United Kingdom driving rules to a United States of America themed map, in which case the rules are different.
Buses Galore and A Transit Story
There were no shortage of buses in the game. There are 3 fuel types of buses: fuel/diesel, CNG, and electric. My personal favorite were the electric buses with the high power and torque outputs. A few in world challenges to unlock paint schemes/wraps and story missions require the use of a specific type of bus, but you can otherwise use whatever bus you want on your route.
There are also buses of different lengths, but in my experiences with the game I didn’t find much use for the longer buses. When you are driving the route, you barely have any passengers ride the bus. When you have the AI drivers run the routes, though, they seem to always have a full bus.
Bus Simulator 21 has a story revolving around reviving a transit system. The game assigns various quests for the player to perform that progress the story and unlock more bus stops. These quests involve having specific stops, driving certain buses, transporting a certain number of passengers, or leveling up an area. The maps are broken up into districts and each district has a level associated with it. That level is the average level of all the bus stops in that district. Quest objectives requiring me to raise the district level were always a pain as you had to keep driving routes for a couple of hours to get the stops up.
Management
In the previous Bus Simulator 18, you had more of an impactful role as the CEO of your transit company. You had to hire and fire drivers and assign them to routes. Here, drivers are automatically hired and managed. One area I think Bus Simulator can improve on is having the management aspect of the game be more involved. The management here is essentially just purchasing, customizing, and assigning buses. What would make the management side of things more interesting would be if you had to upgrade the bus depots to allow for a larger fleet capacity. This would accomplish a couple of things. One is to give more use to larger buses outside of just wanting to drive them, and the other is have an additional use for the in-game currency.
Final Thoughts
I enjoyed playing the game even though it was a subpar quality game (this is even after the game had been released for about 6 months). Something about doing the mundane task of driving in circles picking up passengers and dropping them off was entertaining. The AI needs a significant amount of work to make the game more immersive. There is barely any management to the game outside of creating a bus route to your liking. The game would be more engaging if you were just a simple bus driver and more pressure was put on the player to stay on schedule.
The dynamic weather and time of day were great additions, but Bus Simulator 21 feels functionally like a step backwards from Bus Simulator 18 which was odd given the amount of recycled material. It didn’t help that we have the ability to free roam the map or ride the bus as our character.