Bus Simulator 27 Reviews
Bus Simulator 27 offers a way to let you customize how you experience the game, giving you the choice between realistic and difficult. While the game has a solid foundation, its current state is flawed in a way that makes it feel like an early access title.
The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round...
Bus Simulator 27 is the best bus simulation experience that we have right now, and it does a lot of things right.
All that said, I have mixed feelings about Bus Simulator 27. Its audiovisual presentation is solid, and the sheer amount of content is impressive, particularly the satisfying selection of buses. However, that currently feels like its only real advantage over the competition. On a technical level, there’s still plenty of room for improvement. Overall, I found Bus Bound somewhat more accessible, even if it wasn’t exactly flawless on the technical front either.
Bus Simulator 27 feels stagnant and lacking in innovation and iteration. Something like this might be forgivable in an annual series, but with six years since the last game, that can’t be pardoned. Simteract burdens new and returning players alike with an overwhelming, poorly designed wall of onboarding tasks up-front, and plenty of bugs to demonstrate that this wasn’t ready for release. If you are a bus simulation enthusiast who wants to drive licensed coach buses through an interesting map with friends, you might find some enjoyment here down the road. But for anyone expecting a true evolution of the franchise, this isn’t it. Now, a bus simulator actually worth playing is the far superior Bus Bound – made by the previous developers, stillalive studios.
In its current state, it’s going to be hard to recommend Bus Simulator. At its core, it’s an incredible Simulation experience with so many different mechanics to master, and I had genuine fun listening to passengers talking about aliens and pyramid schemes, screaming at obnoxious passengers listening to loud music, and navigating political corruption. However, with all the optimisation and performance issues, it turns what has the potential to be a great game into just OK.
Bus Simulator 27 is an interesting one to score because there are two very different stories surrounding it. One is the launch version, which had more technical and gameplay problems than it really should have. The other is the game sitting on Xbox after numerous hotfixes, where many of those frustrations have already been addressed and the underlying experience is much easier to appreciate. And it is that second version that matters to me. What remains is a sizeable, ambitious and surprisingly enjoyable bus simulator with a great selection of licensed vehicles, a varied open world, meaningful company management, multiple game modes, plenty of customisation and an excellent co-op option. It doesn’t reinvent the simulator genre, but it doesn’t need to. What it does is provide a convincing virtual bus-driving experience that can be as relaxing or as demanding as you want it to be. There are still rough edges. The AI can occasionally make you wonder what planet its drivers are from, the penalty system can still be a little too eager to punish mistakes and the occasional technical or visual oddity remains. But the important thing is that those issues no longer completely overshadow the experience. Bus Simulator 27 is at its best when you stop worrying about reaching the destination as quickly as possible and simply settle into the journey. Pick your bus, plan your route, watch the weather roll in, collect your passengers and become part of the rhythm of Felicia Bay. It might have taken a few trips around the block to get there, but Bus Simulator 27 is finally starting to feel like the bus simulator it always wanted to be. Final Thought Bus Simulator 27 has had a bumpy beginning, but the road ahead is looking considerably smoother. It isn’t perfect, and there are still areas that need refinement, but the combination of a huge world, excellent bus variety, enjoyable driving and surprisingly deep management makes this an easy recommendation for simulation fans. With the developers continuing to iron out the remaining problems, there is every reason to believe this is a game that will only get better with time.
While they certainly have produced a solid entry here, certain systems and menus leave a bit to be desired. While it certainly is a deeper game than Bus Bound, and that may serve its audience, I simply found Bus Simulator 27 to not always deliver where I wanted from it the most; the driving. And with a few bugs to iron out, the current experience is a tad buggy, to say the least. However, despite my few issues here, Bus Simulator 27 does punch its ticket with deep and rewarding simulation systems that will keep you just as busy in the bus as outside of one.
So, as of today, Bus Simulator 27 has all the goods on paper, and if developer Simteract manage to iterate on it via regular updates and tweaks, it has all the chances of becoming another hit, just like Bus Simulator 21 before it. Few games feature the depth and variety of the latest entry in the series, now it’s a matter of fixing a series of issues that currently limit its potential. I plan to revisit the game in the future, and hopefully it will live up to its incredible potential with time.
Rather than being a satisfying driving experience, Bus Simulator 27 instead chooses to bombard you with non-essential systems and details in a bland and buggy world.
"Bus Simulator 27" is aimed at a very specific audience – and for that audience, the title is certainly quite good.
Review in German | Read full review
Bus Simulator 27 is probably the installment in the series that most gave me the feeling of running a real transportation company rather than just driving buses. Creating routes, managing employees, handling different vehicles, and adding coaches all add much more depth to the experience, while the map offers enough variety to keep the many trips from becoming repetitive right away. Unfortunately, some of the progression systems could benefit from much clearer explanations. Not to mention that seeing vehicles stop for no reason and cause a traffic jam that puts you behind schedule quickly becomes frustrating. That said, the developers have already planned content for the coming year, and the game should continue to improve over time.
Review in French | Read full review