Hey everyone hows it going? Today I wanna talk to you about Bus Bound an amazing bus sim that ive been hooked on but first a massive massive thank you to Saber Interactive for sending me the code its greatly appreciated so let’s dive in.

First off im a huge sim fan i have over 80 hours in games like American truck sim as well as Euro truck sim I also tried out a different bus sim but it didnt go over so well but driving games I love so when saber gave me the chance to try out bus bound I knew I had to really dive in.

So for my first bus sim game I went in open minded no expectations just straight raw experience and boy was I floored and blown away everything from the driving nailing the way a bus feels on a turn to the visuals of the city as you drive by to the traffic hell even the pedestrians everything just came together and felt alive at times I forgot I was playing a game the immersion was unreal and so well done I had a hard time putting my controller down.
Now I played on the PS5 I havent tried my wheel with it yet but from what ive seen on discord some wheels are hit or miss on recognition. The game is available on all major systems and also has a season pass that will add 3 content expansions the moment they become available so definitely grab that if your able to. So again I played on PS5 and the controls were fantastic on the lower left side of the screen there’s a control legend telling you what buttons do what which it all gets introduced to you during the short but detailed tutorial and during every run thats there so you dont forget it which is a huge win cause that way even if you forget something just look over and boom your set very well done and absolutely doesn’t break immersion.

Now I talk about immersion cause thats what you want in certain games you wanna feel like your in it and bus bound does an amazing job of that from the passengers getting upset to complimenting you as you drive theres never a dull moment.

So the city your driving in is Emberville a beautiful city broken down into 7 districts that you work on growing and changing as you progress the story, each route is a benefit to the city and each stop is a hot spot to the route you see this games major focus is on progression and evolution as people are dropped off at a stop they give you points get enough points and a stop levels up if you level up enough stops the district grows and evolves and this is my favorite part of the game your taking a city thats become to focused on corporate life with parking lots and roads filled with cars you change that with every district you upgrade slowly more bus stops open up new sites to explore special bus only areas appear and thats just the start the people notice they get excited and more people start using the bus giving you more passengers in return.

Every stop unlocks its own bonus some give you new buses and others give you multipliers which help you upgrade an area faster everything works together to better not only you the player but the world around you as well.

The buses there’s a total of 19 buses the game starts you off with 5 buses each different in its own way some are diesel powered while others are electric and there’s one thats hydrogen powered they each support a different amount of passengers each bus has a stat block that shows up as your picking them as well as a bit of info on the bus your about to use each bus is also customizable you can change there colors or add a livery to them, there’s small 20 passenger bus then there’s my favorite the giant 60 foot long buses there’s even a double decker bus you unlock later on in the game, the buses also have a mastery system the more you use them the more mastery points you earn so even though you may have your favorite bus maybe try to master them all they each play different as well the diesel ones coast better which require you to use the break on them while the electric and hydrogen ones slow down faster and dont have any coast ability at all which is beneficial in some roads.
Your points multiplier is at the mercy of your driving ability and how well you do, you see from stop to stop its a test did you slow down to harshly you lose points did you make that stop sign just right you earn some as well but drive to fast or run a red light and passengers will let you know how disappointed in you they are and take a hit to your multiplier so make sure you follow the rules even though you wanna drive fast and get there dont rush enjoy the drive and scenery trust me its worth it plus the more points you earn the faster you upgrade and unlock stuff.

Now the game does have multiplayer sadly only the host gets progression I hope they change this down the line but im sure its more of a stability issue to keep the game running smoothly, I played a bit with my buddy Matt we drove around did some runs and it was fun. Your able to see each other’s buses the lobby limit is 4 players yes you can crash into each other but passengers will get mad at you, you can do the same routes but my advice would be just do different routes so your not picking up a small amount of passengers I feel multiplayer is better played later on in the game when you have most of it unlocked so that way you have a good amount of stuff to do and it feels more worth while my buddy Matt just started today and yeah it wasnt much fun when you dont have a lot unlocked.

For my first bus sim game ive had a blast playing it ive put in over 13 hours in 3 days I know compared to others my numbers are low but I dont wanna stop playing im looking forward to what the devs add content wise I wanna see more buses and maybe new areas also maybe some more classic buses if there are any to add I wanna see the game grow I cant wait for the future of this game even though it just released I am having such a fun time with it and I plan on sinking many more hours as I wanna max out everything and unlock the last few buses I have left.

Playing on ps5 I didnt have any issues at all no stutter or crashes its very well done for console and it shows the devs did amazing with it and yes the game does offer compatability with steering wheels which I wanna try it out so bad but I dont have a good set up sadly so down the road hopefully.

Also the bus route system is so easy to learn I was expecting it to be a nightmare on console but I was so wrong you literally hover over a stop click the add button and boom your set move to the next one and repeat until you have the stops you want and finish giving you a new route to play I love that the game acknowledges each route you make while your playing truly top tier work by the devs for that.

All in all Bus Bound has been a dream of a sim game my mind was blown away the beauty of emberville the evolution and growth the changes as you progress the buses and how they handle each one different from the last the passengers praising and thanking you as you drive the positive and negative emotions displayed the random traffic problems that can pop up during your drive everything is so well done and thought out that you could mistake this game for real life the devs have hit a grand slam with this game and I genuinely am looking forward to the future of the game again a massive thank you to Saber Interactive for sending me the game thank you all for stopping by take care and game on.

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