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RETROspectives: Desert Bus
Simulators are flooding the market and ranging hugely from realistic simulators to just plain weird ones like Shower With Your Dad simulator on Steam! The most famous example of a simulator is by far the Sims, the game that allows you to create aliens and plants, turn into a robot or werewolf and live with ghosts! Obviously there is some creative liscense in these games but what about a simulator that means business. A simulation game that's excactly like real life! However, in becoming so realistic it is very far from realism and is seriously vying for the worst game ever made! Desert Bus makes E.T. look like a masterpeice!
Penn and Teller's Smoke and Mirrors was planned to be released for the SEGA CD (the CD attachment for the SEGA Genesis, the PAL Mega Drive version is the Mega CD) and was also later planned to be released on the PC and Panasonic 3DO in 1995. As with almost anything the game found it's way onto the internet and was eventually remade and put onto cartridges to play on the SEGA CD, the company that was developing the game, Absolute, went bust and therefore the only way to play the game waswith these reproductions. The game received a huge amount of coverage when it was supposed to be released, however, it made it onto the cover of SEGA Visions magazine. At the time this game was interesting: Penn and Teller, the magic double act making a game! Who wouldn't want it?
The game came with 6 random minigames which exist for no other reason than they exist. Each one is quirky and weird, except Desert Bus. Desert Bus is the stain on an otherwise wacky and unique title. Desert Bus was later homebrewed onto the Atari 2600 as well! As for story, there's not a lot: You assume the role of a bus driver taking the bus on the 8 hour trip from Tuscan, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada. That's it. Ok then, simple story, how could they mess this up? You know that 8 hours? That's real time! It takes 8 real hours to get from Tuscan to Las Vegas! You have to sit there for 8 real hours holding the "a" button! That's problem 1, problem 2 is probably the biggest: there's no pause button! You cannot pause the game! You have to do 8 hours in one go! Want more problems? We have plenty more!
You can't just hold down the "a" button as the bus veers to the right. You can't leave the bus and you can't just hold "a"! Problem 4, if you drive into the desert too much the bus stops moving and you have to be towed back, and of course this isin real time too! Think about it, you're sitting there after a 7 hour marathon and the bus veers into the desert, you're sleep deprived mind doesn't register this immeadiately and then suddenly you have to be towed 7 real hours back! It's a mess! Problem 5, there is literally no one on the bus, you have no one to interact with. All you can do is drive through this insanity test! Problem 6, the scenery never changes! Sometimes you see a rock or a sign but that's it. Every 5 hours a bug splatters on the window, so that's something I guess.
Finally you've beat the game, you put the 8 hours in and are victorious! You can tick that off your bucket list, right? No! You have to drive back again. Another 8 hours! The game never ends, well it does but I dare anyone to finish the game! After each 8 hours you get 1 point, the maximum amount of points you can get is 99! That's 33 days! 33 days non-stop! You could use that time to go pro on League of Legends or write a best selling novel. You could do anything rather than drive a bus for 8 hours! Penn and Teller made this game as a reaction to the complaints of hyper violent games flooding the market. Would you rather play the latest Grand Theft Auto or would you rather drive a bus for 8 hours straight? They wanted to make a hyper realistic game, and this is where they failed...
Firstly, driving a bus for 8 hours straight is not acceptable, the driver is entitled to a break. The exclusion of the pause button wasn't an oversight. The manual asks the question: does your life come with a pause button? In the workplace the break is your pause button. Secondly, the towing. If you break down in Nevada you won't be taken back to Arizona! You won't be placed back in the middle of the desert after! And finally, the scenery would most definitely change more than a measley bug splat 5 hours in! With that said Penn and Teller made less of a simulator and more of an insanity test!
Is there any gold hidden in this diabolical mess? Yes actually, the game has inspired a charity called Desert Bus for Hope who do marathons of the game and raise alot of money for charity! Even you, sitting at you're computer and reading this excact sentence can play the game, not that you would want to. The game can be played in your web browser but my version of Java isn't compatible, what a shame. Later driving simulators are much improved, jst compare Desert Bus to Euro Truck Simulator! This game, treated as an independent title, is one of the worst games ever made! But we have much worse games to look at, worse than this insanity test!
