3/5 ★ – sirvalkyerie's review of Bus Simulator 21.

Bus Simulator 21 is an interesting and fun little simulation game. It's competent and more engaging than you'd think. It lacks some polish or some finish that could've made the game even better. Creating routes is just a tad finicky, being a dedicated part of the overworld map. There are no tools to really effectively analyze demand other than creating routes and looking at the estimated income before deleting a route and creating a new one. It feels weird to click around the world map to do this and the routes overview tab is buried in the same menu. It would be a lot easier to navigate if routes were given their own dedicated UI and menu. It is not immediately clear that the AI will drive bus routes you create. It definitely seems like you have to do that. Moreover if you're aboard a bus when you make a route that is assigned to that bus, that bus will not resume the route when you exit. You have to fast travel. It's not clear that this is the behavior, you just sorta figure it out. The management aspect is okay. But you can't fast forward days or advance time. Which means that if you intend on playing it like a company manager or something, which is one of the available game difficulties, you can't really do anything other than stand around. This is also, no doubt, in-part because the management tools just aren't very deep. You buy buses, you create routes, you make money. There aren't any real maintenance decisions or staff management decisions (even if these were literally just numbers in a spreadsheet menu). There's not really new properties to secure. Buses run just sorta indefinitely (which isn't a bad thing but it'd be a QoL feature in a more robust game). What Bus Simulator is good at is driving buses. This is fun. And the most important part of the game. It's a solid experience. Buses are fun, varied, handle well and make wonderful sounds. The passengers are funny and there is something enjoyable about taking tickets and opening the door and stopping at red lights. The entire experience of actually driving the bus really is quite enjoyable, for the most part. Especially if you create an express line that goes from one part of the city to another. Which feels very different to drive when compared to the train station or airport routes with several close by weaving stops. There's a mixed bag here. Because of the nature of city driving and bus stops, this isn't quite the same sort of 'zen game' as truck sim. But it does have a mildly more interesting management mechanic and probably is more fun to actively drive in than truck sim. Now that it's on PS+ or GamePass, it's certainly worth a few evenings of your time. You won't regret paying it. But I wouldn't recommend you pay full price for the privilege.