IS IT WORTH IT?! | A Review of OMSI 2 in About 3 Minutes!
279This is a review of Omsi 2, a realistic bus simulator that feels less like a game and more like something you’d expect to see in the back office of a real life nicotine stained bus driver training depot.
It’s not as polished or user friendly as games like Fernbus or the Bus Simulator series, in fact at times it can be mind blowingly difficult to figure out the slightly unorthodox controls. Basic actions like starting the engine and opening the doors so people can get on can be pretty tricky to figure out, and trying to set the right terminus on the display so passengers know where you’re going is almost worthy of a university degree.
Despite all that though once you’re done with the bug filled, poorly translated tutorial that leaves you with more questions than answers, the actual bus driving feels really satisfying, so whether or not you’ll enjoy it really comes down to just how serious you are about buses, and your tolerance for the overly complicated and unintuitive design of the game.
There’s only about 4 buses in the base game and each bus only has a few different built-in skins to choose from. They all sound pretty fantastic though with sound effects that’ve clearly been recorded professionally from an actual bus journey. You can even hear passengers walking around on the floor above when you’re driving a double decker
It has built in mod support with a very dedicated and realism focussed modding community that regularly pushes out new content.
With a quick google search you can find loads of fan made bus models, skins and even entire maps like the Yorkshire 2.0 map that comes with new voices for the passengers as come aboard, though not a whole lot can be done to improve the visuals with the whole game looking abit washed out and barren. There’s no shortage of flickering textures aswell as creepy, photo realistic skin masks plastered on the heads of the passengers that give you a cold stare as they’re getting on the bus.
Originally coming from Yorkshire myself though I don’t remember ever seeing roads lined with thick Jurassic ferns like you see here, but who knows.
Anyway speaking of being cold you can also adjust the weather from clear to rain, rain to fog and even a full on heavy snow storm on the fly whenever you fancy a change of scenery, and in some cases it even increases the difficulty since snow and ice on the road has a very noticeable impact on how much grip you have when going around corners.
Graphically it’s not amazing. It’s not terrible it’s just very… Soviet, despite being largely focussed on Germany. As I mentioned earlier there’s a few translation issues here and there, especially during the very detailed tutorial that goes as far as to teach you how a main menu works and what every button does. All the passengers speak German and most if not all the bus stops are written in their German names which you might find off putting depending on your fluency in Deutsch.
Personally despite sleeping through 3 years of German classes all those years ago my speaking ability doesn’t go beyond shouting ‘Sanitäter’ whenever I need a medic in games like Hell Let Loose.
As with most hardcore simulators like this it’s got a long, expensive list of DLC’s that come to more than a thousand euros including new buses and maps, with some packs like OmniNagivation adding basic improvements to the game that make navigating along your often complex bus route more accessible.
On the one hand I think quality of life improvements like that should be included in a free patch, especially considering the default route navigator is ugly and leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to functionality, but on the other hand it all costs money to make and they need to cover their expenses, so I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether or not the DLC’s are worth it or not.
And that’s largely how I feel about the game as a whole too. Overall I enjoyed spending a few hours driving around, picking up and dropping off passengers and found the AI were quite capable drivers. The buses felt great to drive with a wheel aswell as a keyboard once I got used to the overwhelming amount of controls that took a painfully long time to get them how I wanted them so they felt atleast vaguely familiar to other games I’ve played, and once I got used to the drab graphics I began to look passed them and see the game as an enjoyable driving simulator.
On the other hand the lack of any progression beyond loading in a new map and driving around around a route endlessly with only the radio, the wacky customers and my imagination to keep me company quickly began to feel stale and I just wish they’d added a way to progress or something to aim towards to give players more of a reason to play.
All in all if you’re looking for an ultra realistic, moddable bus driving experience...
#omsi2 #simulator #3minutegamereviews #gaming #review #buses
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