New York Bus Simulator

Don't buy it.

The technical condition of the game, on a terrible level. It has fps sags despite the fact that my PC is clearly suitable for the system requirements.

But, further more interesting, to run the game you need QuickTime Player, it is installed with the game, but you still need to remove it, go to the official site and download from there (it's free) and then the game will detect that it is there.

Further technical problems, the steering wheel works so bad. Its sensitivity and angle of rotation does not correspond to how I scroll it in reality. Further I already said that my PC is quite normal to run this game, but it has fps drops.

In general, a lot of bugs, poor optimization, weird controls, and not very good bus physics, so I do not recommend 3 out of 10.

addictive and fun when you understand what to do etc.

It'd be nice if this game actually worked. I can't get past the main menu.

Doesn't work, crashes due to quicktime issues

The game is nice. There are some bugs but I love this game. But i cant download the new designed buses. Maybe the link is out of date ? ( The link in the manual )

Okay, let me start off by saying, I love this game, simply because I have nostalgia for it. It was once of the first PC games I had an interest in, quite an introduction, I know. But I am not going to let that get in the way of looking at the game objectively.

First off is the title, it is labelled on Steam as New York Bus Simulator. No it isn't named that, this is City Bus Simulator 2010 New York, not really a big deal it is more of a nitpick but it is usually a sign of things to come when the developers cannot name their game correctly.

The game has campaign, free drive and mission modes...

CAMPAIGN (WARNING: SPOILERS)

You play as Carlos, the New York City bus driver, the first chapter starts off with Carlos being called into the depot by his boss, Lewis in order to take care of a compromised bus, after a communications malfunction, Carlos returns to the depot only to be scolded by Lewis for leaving the bus on its own, after returning to the area where the compromised bus was Carlos finds that it went missing. He calls another worker of the depot, presumably a manager or a supervisor, named Jack who seems to sympathise with Carlos much more than Lewis did and instructs Carlos to find the bus or Luke, the bus' driver. The story then involves taking over bus routes for Luke as he went missing or being a back-up driver and along the way Carlos meets a woman named Isabelle who very quickly starts developing feelings for Carlos. When the main plot returns, Carlos ends up running into the missing bus in an alleyway about half-way through the game and finds various clues such as a phone number that belonged to Luke, eventually all of these clues point to a bigger picture. In Chapter 7, after a date with Isabelle, Carlos returns to the depot to find Jack, the manager from earlier, talking with someone in secret on the phone, earlier on in the campaign, Carlos mentions to Jack the bus in the alleyway and Jack questioned how he found it. You later find, after driving a bus route in Chapter 8, the missing bus again parked in a closed street, it is there that we find out the truth, Jack and Luke were part of an operation to use the stolen bus for a bank robbery and were arrested, Lewis congratulates Carlos and Carlos once again meets up with Isabelle in Times Square at a hotel where the two presumably get it on behind closed doors.


(SPOILERS END)

The Campaign, for a bus simulator, is quite cheesy, it is the last thing you would expect for a game with "Bus" and "Simulator" in the title. There are quite a few quality issues with the campaign. The obvious one is the fact that TML and Aerosoft, the companies that made this game are both German companies and it shows in the product. They couldn't have hired better translators? Really? There are many spelling and grammatical mistakes in the subtitles during the campaign, more just a nitpick, but quite jarring, it honestly looks like they translated the German text using Google Translate. The tow truck you drive in the campaign constantly switches names, first it is a service car, then it is a tow truck, or at least, service car is what the subtitles call it since the character voices call it a service "bus", now how did they screw that up? It is so obviously not a bus. They didn't re-record the lines?

The next issue with the campaign is how it is obvious that most of the characters are being voiced by one person. This one guy even voices some of the side characters that have no names, there is one point at the start of Chapter 5 where the guy is voicing one of the side characters and puts on an accent only for the accent to just piss off a few seconds later and it is back to his normal voice, which is literally Jack's voice in game.

FREE RIDE AND MISSION MODES

The free ride is exactly what is says on the tin, select a bus, hit a route and go wild. There are some neat secrets and one particularly neat unlockable here also that I won't spoil, although I have no idea if this was a glitch or if it is supposed to happen or I am just forgetting something but I remember there being more than the Nova Bus in the free ride, in fact, there was, because I was able to retrieve the files of my old physical copy of this game and find the other vehicles in there and import them and they work now. The mission mode is kind of like a mini campaign almost, although not quite, it does star Carlos and Lewis but it is more so doing jobs for Lewis rather than a plot.

TECHNICAL ISSUES

Now getting to the part that is the main source of the negative reviews for this game. I had no where near the amount of experiences most of the reviews are pointing out, particularly with Quicktime Player but that could be because I had a physical copy of the game before. I will point out this issue because it is the reason I bought the game on Steam, if you are going to play this game in 2021, DO NOT buy a physical copy, if you buy a physical copy, the game requires you to enter a serial key, most physical PC games that don't use Steam do but it isn't in an installation wizard, you have to enter the key in on Aerosoft's webpage for it which no longer exists, so literally, physical copies are unplayable. Across my old physical copy back on my old computer and playing the game again on steam, I had encountered several technical issues, a lot of the ones you see if you have watched Vinny's stream of the game in the past will happen. First off, Quicktime Player. As I said before, I had a physical copy of this game on my old computer and when I got my new computer, I imported most of the files from the old one including Quicktime Player so I hadn't had any issues, just one installation and I was in but I know the struggle, if any of you had watched Vinny's stream, you would know the stream started off with him trying to install Quicktime Player and the game constantly failing to recognise it and it appears most of the reviews had that issue too. Other issues include falling through the ground on the tutorial mission, which also happened on Vinny's stream and it is easy to get stuck on things, although that can be solved by hitting the ALT key to jump (And yes, ALT is the jump key). Frequent crashes also seem to be an issue although in my time playing the Steam version, I only had one crash and validating the files seemed to have fixed it. I emphasise though THE STEAM VERSION, because I had a lot more on the physical version, particularly, the game would always crash at the start of Chapter 6 and I could never progress further than that. I had one glitch just today also. Playing Chapter 8 on the final bus stop, passenger gets stuck on the stairs leading into the bus and I am forced to leave about 3 passengers behind. I also don't like how sensitive the steering is with a keyboard, and no, there is no options for steering sensitivity.

FINAL VERDICT

Overall, while I have a soft spot for this game, objectively speaking, it is not a good game, there are technical issues aplenty, the voice acting is belchworthy and the quality control was so obviously not there. As I said before, I love this game purely for nostalgic reasons, I had bought it on Steam again to re-experience it since, as I mentioned before, physical copies no longer work, but if you are looking for a good bus simulator, your money is better off spent somewhere else like Bus Simulator 18 or OMSI 2.

this game is fun yall buy it but u need to know the city of new york

This game actually works as long as Quicktime that comes with the game is installed and the PC is restarted. However there is a peculiar problem reminiscent of Dirt Rally; it only works with 4-core CPU, not more. Also like other reviewers have said, the performance is poor. I had to reduce light and shadow range from the default 65 and 55 to 0 and 0 respectively. When glow and blur effects are also disabled i could get above 100 fps at 720p. However that makes the graphics quality and realism looks really crappy. 5/10

More details later.

Update 1 - 27th Jul 2019
My bad, it didn't need to run on 4-cores. Disabling SMT is enough. This compatibility fix might be due to the latest Asus BIOS 5007 which incidentally has no option to disable cores.

Addendum to Update 1 - 3rd Aug 2019
Incidentally disabling Simultaneous Multi-Thread processing increases performance thereby achieving consistently higher fps. This improvement can be also seen in many other older games like FF XIII, FF XIII-2 and Ship Simulator Extreme and even in some newer games like The Crew 2, Gravel, Star Wars Battlefront and Doom. In Gravel and The Crew 2 for example, i was able to turn on more graphic options without sacrificing baseline 60 fps. Similarly in this game, i noticed steady 60 fps in the main menu whereas previously it was fluctuating.

SMT seems to be more useful for desktop applications like a video editor rather than in action games. Maybe in strategy genres like city simulation, base building or 4x games where increasing number of cities or bases requires scaling of multi-tasking operations is where SMT might shine. However disabling SMT prevents the PC from entering sleep mode. Re-enabling it disables hibernate mode; can't win them all i guess.

Therefore based on performance improvement alone, this game deserves at least 6/10 IMO. Which means to say, it's definitely playable.

Update 2 - 21st Dec 2020
After the 1st update, i did not play the game; only saw that it worked and tweaked the performance. During that time i had a nominally functioning RX-470 GPU. I didn't remember what was the last graphics settings, namely light and shadow range. However when i started the game again today, it defaulted to 1600 x 900 (same as desktop resolution) and the light and shadow ranges were at maximum.

Here's the thing; it was amazing! 60 fps steady! So i cranked up the resolution to 1920 x 1080 and it still was amazingly steady at 60 fps! Well this is because now i'm using RX-580 with twice the amount of GDDR5. Alas my elation was shortlived; as soon as i restarted the game at full HD and maxed out light and shadow ranges, the fps drops to below 40 fps. I was shocked! I tried everything, tweaking the CPU cores from 8 down to 4 then down to 2 using both combinations of SMT off or on. Nothing could restore the initial 60 fps that i got with the same GPU and CPU config. So now i'm a little disappointed because i have to settle for light and shadow ranges of 11 instead of the initial setting of 100.

I dunno what went wrong and i'm not too happy about it. Certainly it isn't the RX-580 as it wasn't even overheating and it wasn't even at half power; it was running at less than 40W even in full HD. As this is only at the main menu, not even in the game yet so maybe in-game it might eat more power. Still i dun understand why the performance drop after a restart.

While this doesn't change my recommendation to No, it does weaken it somewhat. I'll see what further things i can do to restore it back to 60 fps at max range but i'm not too hopeful about it.

Update 2a - 22nd Dec 2020
My bad, i understand now. The main menu background scene cycles between night and day. In the daytime, light ranges makes no difference to fps but at night it takes a huge performance hit.

It didn't work. It wasn't clear at all how to operate the bus. To find out how to control the bus, I had to go into where you set the keymap to specify which key controls which function. Most functions didn't even have a key set yet. I had gotten this to let a kid play it, but I ended cancelling purchase before showing them, because it was unusable.

I don't believe this. I decided to try this out, purchasing the game here & still doesn't work. Have the Gold Editons (CD/DVD) -stand alone version & like here, get an black screen-attempt to start game then crashes to desktop. Have the latest QuickTime player w/ no help. Am attempting to work w/ TML on the stand alone game to find an fix-so far no luck. Bummer. I love this game, even tho it may be an simple game but want to run an RTS instead of the Low Floor Buses but have the OMSI version-Chicago & at least that starts up.
Was going to try to change some "stuff" over (C4) Engine using WOS 1's files/DirectX. No Luck. Thnking was that since WOS 1 came out about the same time as CBS (since both use the C4 game engine). WOS 1 (stand alone) works great so thinking was the it may be the engine, since updating/using latest directx (DirectX 9.0c won't install) and updating to latest QuickTime (only version 7 will install). Well will have to see what support (Aerosoft) can come up with. Have been in contact w/ them for about a week for the stand alone game.

Yes it is an old game. But I still like it. I can only speak for myself, I had no technical issues at all. Everything went fine, no crashes, no bugs, no nothing. I had the game for years before it was on steam but lost it somehow. So happy to have it back in my library of games :-)

good game you can drive the mta bus route M42 with the classic rts 1999 bus its agood game for a 2009 simulator
mods are downloadble via google lus you can also unlock a serect car make shure you have direct x installed & quicktime 7 before you download to play the game

If your game isn't loading and saying there is an error you have to download the Quicktime Player for Windows made in 2010 it says the latest because it means the latest version in the year it was made.

Whatever you do don't buy this game. It's a total scam that will take forever to downlaoad, even if you have a beast computer. It also has shitty graphics, terrible control schemes, and is overall trash. I used to like sim games until I played this and it has ruined the entire genre for me; so whatever you do DO NOT BUY THIS GAME!

I found a game I can 100% say is a terrible simulator. BROKEN!!! Do not buy. The Monte has warned you. From falling into the ground 2 minutes in to most of the controls not even being mapped is just plain BS. I have never seen such a piece of junk game in my life. I have tried a few times and about 5 minutes into a campaign I get stuck inside a bus that drove up on the sidewalk walking to the garage on campaign mission 1. Inability to skip scenes just WOW. Please Please Please do not buy this trash. Good gaming and see you all around. I hope I saved some bux today. :) Did I mention how bad this game is. First Thumbs down review from me.

I did like it at one stage but it just became unplayable after some many crashes and in some ways it was alot more unstable than omsi2 but i can still run that well "One of the worst games i've ever bought"

Just DON'T BUY THIS GAME!

I played it a few times and then... I bought a new pc, thats where the story ends really.

Why doesn't it work anymore?
It simply does not. Installed quicktime, did a reboot but nothing. I hear a second when the music plays and then back to windows.

Fixes?
It worked before on my old pc, but doesn't anymore on my new one. Looked everywhere for a fix but no. Did find out that a lot of people have problems with this game anyway.

My OS and graphics?
I use Win7 Home Premium 64 bit and a Nvidia GTX 9-series graphicscard.

Do I recommend it?
No, I can not and will not recommend this game, try Bus Driver instead that one does work.

This would be a good simulator if not for all the glitches for example, I am stook on chapter 6 because the first time I did it I got the bus out of the space took the tow truck back to the appartment but when I got out of it Carlos fell through the sidewalk, the secound time I couldn't sit in the drivers seat of the bus so I walke down the bus and got stuck in one of the seats, another time I got the bus out, again! and praked the tow truck up and got stook in the hood of a taxi, and the last time i did it I couldn't sit on the bus again! Please fix.

UPDATE: I have gotten the game to work, and it is still a waste of $10.

With the Missions, you get told what to do at the beginning but if you forget then you can't ask what to do again.

With the Campaign, I am currently on Chapter 6 and it has an unskippable five minute TV show at the beginning. This is really drawing me away from playing this game because I have to sit there for five minutes waiting for the game to actually start.

My Logitech G27 is barely compatible with this game. If I move the wheel to the left in 5 seconds then it actually takes 10 seconds for the wheel in the game to move making it hard to drive. This is one of my only bus games where my steering wheel doesn't work.

Overall, don't buy this game, it is such a waste. Buy OMSI 2 instead, it is a much better bus simulator.

UPDATE 1/23/2016: I've been trying to play this game and it doesn't work anymore. When I try to play, the game crashes and takes me back to my desktop. This game is such a waste of money.

This game is terrible. If it were called Crap Game Simulator then it would win awards. If you want a good bus sim then get OMSI 2. Don't waste your money on this poor excuse for a game.

what ever you do. do not download this game. i wasted 17 bucks for a game that will not work. it needs the newest quickplayer7. and even with it, it still wont work