Bus Simulator 18
Whether in the industrial or harbour zone, downtown, in the surrounding villages or the business park, in Bus Simulator 18, you experience up-close the exciting everyday life of a bus driver in a vast and freely drivable urban area. Get behind the wheel of your 8 original licensed city buses from the great brands of Mercedes-Benz, Setra, MAN, and IVECO and transport your passengers safely and punctually to their destinations, either solo in single player mode, or with friends in real-time multiplayer mode. As a bus driver in the 12 different districts, you’ll face the challenges of the traffic in a big city and everything that entails. Don’t be deterred by freak weather conditions, potholes, traffic jams, fare evaders, accidents, construction sites, night driving and specific passenger requests. On the contrary, take full control of your bus, earn money, gain a good reputation owing to your safe and punctual driving style and enjoy almost limitless driving pleasure in the authentic urban locations. Use the thousands of miles of virtual roads and streets to gain new districts, new buses and new customisation options.
Game Discussion
Steam User 3
A solid casual bus simulator game with a really realistic driving system.
It includes a really light company/human resource management system, decent but really limited.
The traffic/driving IA is overall outstanding but the passengers IA is decent tho a bit buggy (for ex the way the passengers always walk to the back side of your bus and then walk to the front)
The game comes with a story mode which is fine but many of those missions, especially the latest ones, are kinda boring and are meant to artificially increase the game's lengh ("create 10 routes that use 90% of your network, drive each route in loop mode, assign 5 ACE drivers to each route")
The worst missions are the time limited ones ("complete that route in less than xx minutes"), you basically have to use the smallest bus available, disable the ticket machine, run couple of red lights and drive like a GTA maniac in order to achieve them. Not a huge problem but expect the game to get repetitive and quite frustrating after a while.
but the worst thing in this game are the passengers: they are mostly old people rambling about the weather and other stuffs, which gets boring after couple hours, thankfully you can turn the dialog sound off.
time to complete the story: 25-40 hours.
I overall recommend it, for its realistic driving.
Just make sure you turn the dialog sound off!
Steam User 3
Overall, it's a good simulator, BUT:
- The AI drives strangely and often stops at intersections.
- The city center is chaotic... Cars driving in circles and causing traffic jams.
- The AI often ignores traffic regulations.
- Penalties seem inconsistent. Brush against a curb? 40k fine. Full collision with a car? 1200€?
- Map design issues: flying objects, mountains blocking roads, poorly designed curves.
- The UI for assigning employees and buses is terrible, especially with long lists requiring endless scrolling.
But aside from these issues, it's okay-ish.
Steam User 3
You can pick this up really cheap, I would recommend the newer game (21) but this is a lot of fun, so much depth.
The map is massive, you can throw together as many routes as you like and own your own bus company
One of my favourites
Steam User 9
As a real life bus driver, I love the game BUT I hate the paying system. Where I live, us bus drivers don't have to take any payments, it's all digital.
I would've loved if there were any Dutch, Belgian or Spanish bus brands to drive with as I'm more familiar with them. Glad there is an Iveco Crossway, though.
Steam User 1
Good initiative but need more improvements.
We do the same thing over and over and over again... I guess that's the way the bus drivers are. While the mechanics are friendly and approachable, the buses feel almost flimsy, lacking a sense of durability. However, the atmosphere gives you the feeling of driving a bus in a really crowded city compared to other bus simulator games.
Steam User 1
This is a very fun game for those of you that love to see if you can do Sim driving realistically. It's also fun to sometimes get in a bus and drive like a bat outta hell.
Steam User 0
"Bus Simulator 18" is a simulation game that allows you to play the role of a city bus driver. The player's task is to operate daily routes, manage a fleet of buses and deal with various challenges related to public transport. The game is a continuation of the popular series of bus simulators, which has gained recognition among fans of realistic simulation games.
Graphically, "Bus Simulator 18" looks very decent. The bus models have been reproduced in detail, and each of them differs in appearance and interior. The city is alive, and various sceneries (city center, suburbs, industrial districts) add realism to the game. Even though the textures can seem a bit dated in places.
Defects
Despite many advantages, "Bus Simulator 18" also has its weaknesses. Some game elements, such as interactions with passengers, could be more developed. Sometimes it also happens that the game has technical problems, such as minor graphical errors or occasional performance drops. Moreover, the game has a very strange system of awarding achievements and they do not always include an example achievement (Frequent Flier).