Maker - 45XLV    Catalogue No. - T-35402M

Type - Bus Driving Simulation

The Japanese sure know how to make odd simulations using vehicles that you'd never think of using.  They've done a Train Sim, a mechanical digger sim and now a bus sim.  Driving a bus around Tokyo sounds like a really boring idea for a game and in reality it is.  But wait, Tokyo Bus Guide is actually very good !!!  The physics of the bus are so life like and not only do you have to drive the bus but also control the doors and announcements.  The game engine is also very good with many cars, trucks, taxies and what have you also on the roads as well as many pedestrians walking around.  Everything has it's own AI too which makes the game even more realistic.  Sometimes if lucky you can wittiness a car crash.  Once I was waiting at the traffic lights when a truck crashed into another car at the junction, blocking my way past, so I had to drive around.  There are 3 main routs for the bus.  Rout 1 takes you from Hanada airport over Rainbow bridge to Tokyo Bay.  Rout 2 takes you through Aioyama, Shinjuku and on to err, I forgot now DOH !  and the final rout has you driving through the thin roads of Japan's seanic areas.  The level of detail used for the map layout is unbelievably close to the real places.  While driving through Aioyama Ichi Chome I could easily notice the building were I used to work (^v^)  The layout of the controls to the Dreamcast pad are pretty good also.  Tokyo Bus Guide is also available on the PS2 but like most PS2 games it flickers like hell.  There is also an arcade version which has a full size bus wheel to control the movements.  Very nice in deed.