The Tourist Bus Simulator suffers from the same problems as does the Fernbus Simulator, although it brings a whole lot of changes to the table. But at least the publisher is not using the word “real” or “realistic” anywhere, because this game is as far away as possible from being realistic!
Life is a highway
The main quest of the game is brought to you in the tutorial. After it, you’ll get no quests apart from the normal tours to keep your business running. So the quests of this game are very straight forward as there are just three types:
- Trips
- Trips are literally “go to point A, then to point B and finally to point C”.
- Shuttle Service
- Go from point A to point B. This was the most anticipated point of the game for me, sadly you unlock them at a later point in the game when you unlocked enough hotels, cafes or bars. Until then you are forced to take trips.
- Sightseeing-Tour
- Drive from one sight to another. The last kind of tour to unlock. For this type of drive, you need to hire a guide.
The premise of the game, however, to start your own Bus-Company on an Island that is known to be a popular tourist magnet, is refreshingly new and actually gives the player a sense of why they drive apart from the sake of driving, compared to other bus-simulators in which you just drive for either a company or take over the cities public transportation. The fact that you play a bus driver on an island comparable to Mallorca, is the most motivating factor in the game.
Gameplay
translate: Guten Tag! – Dialogue
The only dialogue you ever hear are the greetings from entering passengers. And these greetings are not well done with proper voice actors but apparently recorded from the Google Translator! Yet at least they come in a few different languages. Nice detail, sadly it is very badly done.
Working where others go on holidays – Exploration
The exploration system is quite nice, beginning with the new and unused setting on the island Fuerteventura.
To unlock specific new tour-givers you just drive up to the premise and interact with a little circle in front of said hotel, casino, bar or similar establishment, it is unlocked and can order you or one of the drivers to drive a tour for them.
This actually is quite nice, although I find it highly appalling to stop the bus during a tour, just to walk out of the bus and unlocking a new cafe. “So just take the car and don’t do it on a tour” one might say now. Yes, but who is going to bring money in? The near to incompetent drivers I had to hire? I don’t believe so. Although I am a completionist, I am not a friend of the idea to drive all across the island with my Jeep. Using the bus and actually driving a tour seems to be a better way of doing it. These lousy passengers shall wait in the bus! But why not let me use the internet (they surely have a website and means to contact them?) and unlock them with another mechanic, like driving a tour free of charge and if the tour was satisfactory in the end, they might hire you and pay for future tours.
Apparently, you are also the only provider of busses on the island because there are literally no other busses in traffic. The traffic, in general, is dominated by cars, which do not abide by any traffic laws! And it just lacks diversity, with just about 5 different models of cars.
Da Baws! – Supporting Systems
Being the boss is this games supporting system. You’ll spend a lot of time in the different menus, running from computer to computer, to hire drivers, buy new busses, buy insurances for the busses in case the drivers crash them (which happens even when they leave the garage!) and finally you’ll buy spare parts to repair the busses after said crashes.
After that you will buy new tours, snacks and a flat rate of onboard Wi-fi, so the passengers can eat and browse the internet, free of charge of course. Oh, what a utopian world they live in!
This economy system is actually a tad more than what established games in this genre have to offer. Yes, looking for employees is something they all offer, but to provide accommodation for my drivers is something quite new to me. Also, it is quite unrealistic. I am paying for their flats and still need to pay THEM!?
The mechanics would be so much better if I would be able to find the accommodation, to unlock it not by walking there and clicking a big, ugly circle in the world but by just driving by and spotting it and later being able to recommend the found object to them later on. Let them pay the rent by themselves! Lazy pack!
Now that your drivers can live in a flat, you, as CEO (of course) have to put some furniture in. Who wants to live in a flat without a big TV and a kingsize bed? Your drivers certainly not!
Ok, so flat and furniture is finally done? Wonderful, because as their source of income, you, of all people, apparently promised them to find suitable hobbies. So get in your car and start exploring! And maybe you might check the contract you offer them!
Technical Aspects
MY EYES! – Graphics
The graphics are, again compared to newer games, quite bad. The dashboard is not readable in the slightest, everything in the distance looks like it has been painted with water-colour, but I have to admit that the island itself is quite beautiful. It does remind me of holidays spent in Spain (as this is the furthest I have been on this side of the world), driving with a bus from the airport to the hotel. So the game does a rather good job at immersing you as a bus driver in Fuerteventura. Sadly the need to always look at the sat nav with all the necessary information the game gives you, which is just an overlay, breaks this immersion again.
All the details look a bit washed out, once you start driving. Signs are not really readable, the mirror has a weird soft effect on it (but you can make out the dots that should be the cars, so it kind of does the job) and don’t let me go at the dash again…
On the basis of textures used in the game, you can easily spot that this game is the twin brother of the Fernbus Simulator. I thought Fuerteventura is a Spanish island? Why then, are there trashcans with German on it. “Restmüll” or “Biomüll” instead of either a Spanish one or just a plain trashcan.
So all in all, the graphics do the job, although it is not very nice to look at the game.
The passengers (or pedestrians in general) look quite ugly, cloned and are horribly animated! Pair that with the terrible voices for the passengers and you have the recipe for a disaster!
Sound/Music
This is a point I did not even realise that much. There are such generic sounds for the engine, it might as well be real. The second worst sin of this game is the asynchronous blinker-sound. You see the blinker going and hear the sound too late or too early. Unbearable!
The radio plays a lot of house-ish tracks as well as a lot of (not necessarily all, but still a lot of) bad cover-tracks. In my opinion, the music is one of the good points of this game. And I think that is only the case because there is so little of it. I am also not sure if the radio is a recording that starts anew every time you turn the volume off and on again.
Annoyance over annoyance! – Controls
The driving is, compared to state-of-the-art games like Euro Truck Simulator 2 or American Truck Simulator, weak. There is no feeling for the weight of the bus or your car, the only difference between the car and a bus is the turn-radius and the amount you have to turn the wheel to make a turn. The bus itself feels quite wiggly, the brake sensitivity is way too hard and you are not able to lower it. Come to think of it, there are not many choices the game actually gives the player.
The choices the player gets to make, like programming the basic controls are horrendous. For example: You set the button to start the engine to one button in your wheel. You go to your bus, sit down, press said button and…nothing happens. So, you check back to see if the button is properly set up, which it is. But sadly it is set up for your car, not any bus. And I say any bus because one has to set up every kind of bus individually, which is just tiresome!
When driving a bus at 100 km/h you don’t feel like driving said bus anymore, but more like sitting in a military fighter plane. The wind wafts around you, the sound of the motor is drowned by said air noises and all of that stops abruptly upon braking.
Recommendation:
Completionist
This game was astonishingly easy and quick to “complete” because the only part you get achievements for, is the tutorial, which took me about 2 hours. After that, it is (technically) completed. I know many games that take ages to complete, this one was even a bit too easy. Sadly there are just those 6 achievements.
Expectations
Honestly, I did not expect a copy and pasted version of the Fernbus Simulator! Trashcans with german signs on it, typos in the tutorial messages, the disappearing pedestrians or the translator voices of your passengers. I played for not even an hour when I asked myself over and over if there was any quality testing whatsoever! Another big problem, why it will never be as good as any state-of-the-art game is the missing readable dashboard. Whatever setting I tried, whatever stream or video I watched, the dash was not readable. And that is simply not good enough! This point, the unreadable dashboard is the number one game-killer for me. How can I drive properly, not like in GTA, when I cannot read the dash? When I don’t even know how fast I am really going?
Buyer’s Advice
I would not advise you to buy this game. If you want to drive a bus that badly, buy the Bus Simulator 18. It is cheaper and made with more quality! At least with a readable dashboard… (Yes, that annoys me!)
The whole argument that TML and Aerosoft serve not the hardcore-simulation-player but the casual-after-work-player is nonsense in my opinion! Nobody can tell me that an unreadable dashboard, a painted shelf or anything else in this game is fun for anyone!
Rating: 25/100
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