European Bus S(t)imulator 2012

Being games editor is a new job for me. Part of my expectations before agreeing to this role was that I would get games given to me to review. I didn’t mind which games, but thought it would be nice to not have to pay for every game I review. I accepted the role and on my first trip to the Felix office found the pile of free games that could be reviewed. To my surprise, I had not heard of even one of these games, but this is probably because I have never played a Simulator game before. I didn’t know that there was a demand for games such as Chemical Spillage Simulator, Stone Quarry Simulator or Truck Simulator. Keen to dive in to this new world of Simulator games, I picked up European Bus Simulator 2012 and began my educational journey. The premise of European Bus Simulator is that you are a bus driver in a large German town. This game succeeds at being a Simulator as everything to do with the bus is very realistic. You’ll be required to walk over to it in the garage, type in your driver codes and passwords, select a route and which direction you will drive it in, partake in the complex setup of turning on the engine and on board circuitry, take the parking breaks off, change gear and drive off… Sadly this is where I met my first difficulties. For half an hour I sat, refusing to open the detailed 30 page pdf that comes with the game. Why wouldn’t my bus drive off? After all, I had completed the in-game instructions, which currently told me to accelerate. I had a look around my bus and eventually realised the door was open. OK, I say, all I need to do is close the door, that’s num pad 1, which my laptop does not have. So I change the binding to left click as there seems no other key that isn’t bound to a control in the bus. Only later would I realise that whenever I clicked on a button in my bus the doors would open. Nevertheless, doors closed, I drive my bus away, which I have chosen to be a school bus. After driving around the German town I run into more difficulties. I can’t seem to find any children or anyone in the game that will in fact get on my bus. This problem took a significant amount of time to fix; however, 2 hours into the game, and no longer a school bus, I was ready for my first route as a bus driver. As you might be able to tell, every detail to do with the bus can be controlled, down to the air conditioning which needs careful control so the windows don’t fog up. I didn’t know much about bus driving before this game but I’ve come away feeling educated. Driving around my route and picking up passengers while wearing my pyjamas (in real life), gives me a sense of achievement. European Bus Simulator is a relaxing game once you get the hang of it, but is not without some pretty major faults. The first glaring mistake for me is that you can choose your name, your age and your gender, but once the game starts my character really doesn’t strike me as a 1 year old girl called Frank Schmidt. In fact I look like a 40 year old man. While driving the bus I got points off for being early, and also points off later on for being delayed, but I didn’t get points off for running over my passengers, driving on the wrong side of the road, flipping over a car in a pretty severe car crash, charging my passengers the wrong amount or giving no change from 20 Euros. I would have thought a game which relies on accurate simulation would have payed close attention to these details. Also it’s a German town and so all the console controls are in German, but all the passengers speak perfect English to me. Since when did German people say “Good Evening Sir”? Since when were bus customers so polite? Overall all I can say is, it’s been an experience.