The New OMSI? - The Bus - First Look 

I'm glad u are doing another bus simulation again

In case anyone didn't know, exactly today 6 years ago on April 2, 2015 was the day that Squirrel went full time as a content creator. Congrats Squirrel! 😀😊🥳👏

1:08, guy walks thru bus. Yep that’s realistic! Just like OMSI. 😂

I would normally consider raw content like this very boring but there's just something about squirrel that makes his videos so entertaining, so calming, I dont get it but I'm not complaining

Being a bus driver in Augsburg, Germany, i would really enjoy if the passengers wouldn't interact with me in any way or form.

I actually lived *on* this route for about 10 years, very close to station Beusselstrasse. I know most of that route by heart and I can tell you the modelling is very, very close to reality. The modelling is realistic even down to individual store names. I’m very impressed. 😳😁👍

Can you imagine if Omsi 3 came out. Same game, same developers, outstanding graphics and optimized. Maybe some new features like companies or something like that but I think that Omsi 2 is actually just really good the way it is. How amazing would that be?!

Just need Yoda to ride the bus now. "EXCUSE ME, MAY I HAVE A TICKET PLEASE"

Wow the attention to detail, the steering wheel vibrates when you start the bus. Thats so cool!

17:00 Berlin actually doesn't have a phone ticket that uses NFC. What you do have is tickets in an app that provide a QR code for inspection and also aside from normal paper tickets you have this credit card sized NFC card that registers different tickets that you can get on subscription. It's a bit like oyster card but not really.

Maps looks great, went to Berlin once we landed into Tegel and stayed near Alexander Platz, and it was just like this!

The peeping sound was someone pressing the button to get off the buss at 19:14

Btw you can have higher values in the FOV by typing the number manually into the box. Only the slider maxes out at 90🙂

Omsi especially Omsi 2 were way above their time, in a good way. Can you imagine how amazing it would be now if it was kept in development. The level of genuine feel from driving physics, sounds, and details are so good!! Yet to see anyone come so close

19:47 I believe is where squirrel made his first ever Omsi video that is very poetic

Another halfway made TML game that will not get rid of the bugs before being abandoned for another half-made game again

that one2one mapping makes all the difference tho.. it looks great and way more believable, very impressed with side of things

They've done a great job on the visuals, didn't see much in the way of asset fatigue (if you ignore the people) - each area looked distinctive and believable. I know Paul you have to take a critical eye on things but I would just hijack a bus and go and do some sightseeing in Berlin! 😂

even though OMSI is getting more and more unstable by the day. no bus sim in the last decade in my opinion has beat it. theyre all too cartoony. Why dont you play OMSI UK Maps?

Right, as the disclaimer you mentioned says, this is early access and work in progress, which is in my opinion the best time to point out flaws with the game, in hopes that they will be fixed. Going into more specific things, starting with the positives: The map is impressive. Very brave move to go with 1:1 scale of a real location and they have nailed it. Big props to that. Also having licensed buses is a big deal for a simulator. The modelling of the buses is very nice as well. Some materials look great, like some pipes, pavements, the road look alright. The building storefronts have a nice parallax effect going on that makes them nice and three dimensional, however it seems to be creating some artifacts. I cant tell exactly, maybe its being taken into account in reflections and gets repeated indefinitely.. something like that. Now, for the negatives. What jumps out to me immediately is that once again TML has chosen this overly saturated, bloom-y, shiny look for the game, something that I've come to name "The default Unreal Engine 4 look" since I see it on a few games using the engine and it looks terrible. 10:41 - I appreciate the attempt at baking ambient occlusion into SOME of the textures but, please TML 3D modelers, increase your sampling and your pixel margin. I can see the black lines along UV seams all over the window and that trim piece on the side, as well as the grainy look of low resolution AO maps. As for the rest of the bus, I cannot see any baked AO. Yes, Unreal Engine can do real time AO but you can tell it does not look anywhere near as good as properly baked on. While we're on the same timestamp, your materials need work. A lot of it. The whole dashboard and consoles look like they are made from one single type of non-reflective, smooth plastic. You have enough reference to model the interior very accurately, which is commendable, at least take some time to match how the materials look as well. 2:14 - Again, please reconsider your lighting and/or materials. I can tell there's some sort of global illumination/radiosity going on but it happens to an extreme degree. You can see the paint from the cars influencing the ground underneath them, making them look like they have some sort of underglow neon. Consider adding some fake ground shadows under the cars to stop them looking like they are floating too. Old trick but its still used. 12:48 - While screen space reflections are pretty convenient, consider using a static cubemap for your buildings or at least something that does not take into account the player's bus, since we can see the wipers creating artifacts on the windows behind them, right side. 13:45 - Again, the lack of ambient occlusion is painfully obvious in places like tunnels, where it should be darker. Squirrel is running this on a 3090 he said? Basically maxed out and the real time AO only kicks in about 10 meters infront of him and only on some objects. But yeah, I could complain and nitpick about a lot of things but I tried to only mention stuff that could be better and it isnt from a technical standpoint, instead of artistic choice. I really hope this game improves and becomes a worthy OSMI replacement, since that is quite dated now.

I do live in Berlin, take the bus regularly (though not the TXL line), but damn, that feels as accurate as it can get. TXL as an airport doesnt exist anymore though (its near enough that i could hear the planes flying over here, so i recognize a lot of the stuff in that game).

They should try making procedurally generated pedestrians. Adding and removing accessories, random hair and clothing color, all that stuff.

You're right about the accuracy of the scenery. You know it's done well, when you can recognise a part of the city you stayed in for just a couple of days.

I lived in Berlin for a few years, and took that Tegel - Alex bus fairly often, it's mapped pretty damn accurately!

So I was gifted this game by someone in my community I have to agree with everything you have said, some things that was not covered by you is that triple screen support does not work fully you turn it on head to your bus but you then can not turn the ticket machine on and then subsequently you can not use the any menu buttons to get back to the start, so your only option is alt f4 and start all over again. I'm a bus driver in real life and think this game shows so much potential I just hope they fix everything all the bugs with it

You didn’t address the question on everyone’s mind... how well modeled is the window squeak when you slide it open?

Omsi 2 is so nostalgic, i remember when it was so popular in 2012

Squirrel: plays The Bus RU-vid: yes, you're clearly playing ETS2

Bought this and driving about picking passengers up to "19" by Paul Hardcastle on the in-game radio...Lovely stuff.

Is there any chance you will ever continue playing My Summer Car? I really miss the unique mix of yourself, the Finnish patience simulator and all the shenanigans you get into! Thanks.

What's the short CityWide bus doing there? BVG don't have the SoloBus version, only the GN14! I'm guessing they got nothing but a license from Scania and nobody else. It would be more accurate to have the CityWide GN14 and the Citaro C2 articulated version on the line.

In regards to multi-player, in Seattle at least, often times busses stack two or three deep on the same tour, so that could be fun.

I think this game has great potential myself, idk about everyone else. I like the little details (even in early access) such as the wheel shaking around when you started the bus lol

When SCS Software officially add buses into ETS and ATS it'll be a game changer !

I can't help myself, but I find the game just way too bright

Great preview thankyou. I'm not at all into bus sims but this looks fantastic.

Living in Berlin i´m impressed how accurate that bus line is. Really impresssive! Lets see how this Sim tunes out. Looks promessing at the least.

You've been to the airport, but obviously never on a berlin bus. They won't tap phones on a thing because that's not a thing in Berlin. I did notice one thing straight away though when i played first time. The game is in early access, and the route used is Berlin TXL - Alexanderplatz. Berlin TXL has been closed for months.

cant wait for one day to have a city like this in fernbus, so at the start and end of your journey you have a realistic 1:1 city to drive through

Probably the best simulation of Berlin I've seen yet, there is even trash lying around and the traffic is vicious. (and they got a lot of licenses it seems, pretty nice for realism) People buying tickets at the bus drivers is pretty much in the past, it's fully automated today, so I hope they will reflect that in the future. Btw the movement speed of the driver is insane, it must be an Olympic sprinter

The improved map scale is definitely a good selling-point for this one! Nice vid 👍 I would love for some classic/older busses in this...

That map looks incredible to be fair. Probably need that 2000-3000 series GPU to run it well, but damn it does look like Germany and full of life.

This makes me more confident about me having wishlisted this on steam

The control options are same issue as fernbus too. Tested 2 days ago.

Full controller support means being able to play the game strictly with a controller. Right now you can steer, gas, and break with a controller but you need the mouse and keyboard for many functions. For example, in Bus Sim 18 you can do everything with the controller.

I will never understand why they don't listen to the community. We all said we need better physics. This game just looks like Putting in everything from FernbusSimulator into a new map and thats it

Hmmm, looks like the bus is floating, not in contact with the road, I wonder if they will eventually get the "realistic" feel of OMSI 2, be great to have that feel in a modern bus "sim"

Hey squirrel, you can map buttons to your wheel. When you map a button just press the accept button even though it say it will conflict. I have and it works, i have a fanatec dd1 and heusinkveld pedals. I have wipers, horn, indicators all mapped to my wheel without any problem, even though it shows up in red it all works fine.

At about 13.00 while the wipers are on and the bus is stationary, you can see the wiper going up and down in the reflection on the large window outside the bus to the right of the screen.

It has the potential, that's for sure.

A 1:1 city map. That's a first for me. Great job.

welcome back Paul. missed your videos. glad your keeping well, stay safe bud 😊

I'm still waiting for the release of Bus Sim 21!

SCS software must make a new bus simulator game. That would be dope ❤️

Lots of potential, I know it is more difficult but it would be amazing if Microsoft for instance could procedurally generate all the roads and surrounding buildings allowing for 1:1 scale map never seen before. Imagine actually being able to drive (bus or truck etc) your local roads. Maybe some day in the future this will possible

My main thing with any sim is does it feel good is there detail in the wheel, Yh i noticed some stuttering

You can bind to buttons on your wheel, it just pops up saying that you already got something bound to that (which you know you don't) just hit accept and it will let you keep both binds.

It needs a lot yet (definitely needs support for ALL kinds of mods) but it looks promising

24:09 finally, a multiplayer game for people with social anxiety! “oh there's Jeff! Ok, see you in an hour.” 😊

Oh squirrel they did new Berlin brt dlc for omsi 2 also London dlc

I like all bus simulators out there (I even develop my own haha). The quality details of cities in TML games are impressive. Fernbus, Tourist Bus and now this one... It's not common seeing bus simulators with so realistic and well done cities. Even in older projects that had worse AIs and physics, the map quality was still great back then (like BCCS). For physics and sounds probably OMSI will still be the best for many years, we can't have everything on the same game, it's too hard to develop hehe. Lotus also promise a lot but it's too far from a finished product. I really hope they release a mod system for The Bus, with mods games stay alive for many years, even after the end of support. This could keep it "forever".

the sound design and graphics look so good

Berlin resident here, the mapping is really awesome from what I can tell in this game, but as you say, it's still way too early for most things in the game. Graphics are OK at best. AI is very realistic though :))

I also think the same, like why you need multiplayer in a game like this? Your game already planned for modding support, so there you go, that's how your community will interact with each other. Ditching multiplayer and use it for adding/support more singleplayer feature would be more beneficial.

Need something like this for VR. That would be incredible

So glad to see another Squirrel video!!!!!!!!!

These simulation games (not just this one) really could do with raytracing support

Berlin Tegel airport was closed from October 2020 :(

You should do some train simulator videos with the class 142

They don't need licenses for using restaurants like Burger King. Since it's a recreation of an actual location the licensing is different from what I've heard.

Imo omsi 2 had the best bus sounds, i loved the MB 0405.

I think light in general looks great, except the glowing people of course.

digging the realistic look!

1:07 dude literally went through the bus, but at least they disclaimed about bugs.

Dang the graphics on this game are so good!

Excellent vid, Squirrel - very fair and pragmatic first look. This is exactly what both we, the potential buyers, and the developers need. Well done 👍

Thanks for your support!

While i give credit to the blokes who made this game for making the map very realistic (all according to how Berlin looks like IRL), im sorry to say but the game is HORRENDOUS. When will these devs realize that they cant get on and compete against OMSI with stuff like this? OMSI 2 might be a dated and buggy game, but at least it feels much better than this. It still has the basic graphics of Unreal Engine 4, it just feels really plasticky. The fact that you can walk outside and what not is a big bonus compared to OMSI 2, but it doesnt make up for it. Maybe one day we will have a proper successor to the OMSI series, since as i played it for like 250+ hours, i really like it and its just sad how successor games dont live up to its reputation. (not hating on Paul on anything, just criticising the game. btw, the description says that the game is ETS2 :P)

Omsi and Fernbus are still around. Their track record isn’t giving up on games.

Amazing game, textures, realistic and very well-made. But I remain to OMSI 2 since I got used to it. Thank you for showing me this information.

You have to remember that you are buying in at the cheapest price. It will be more expensive later. Also, buy now and support the game. They need money and interest to go forward.

Was browsing through Steam and stumbled upon "The Bus". Thought, I wonder if Squirrel has had a look at this. Of course he has.

*Is the steering that accurate...like as moving the steering wheel a full 180 degrees to make a small turn*

Live weather!? Yay!

I sometimes like to "travel" on Google Maps, and there was a period about 4 years ago when I explored Berlin. And I recognized a lot of not so famous places (e. g. Beusselstraße at 19:30, it just surfaced from my memory immediately). So mapping is very impressive. A huge improvement from OMSI (2). Greetings from Saint Petersburg, Russia

All we want is a new simulator that will have at least the bus simulation features of omsi 2 and it will be completed, without bugs and bad optimization.

Im gonna play the devil's advocate and say that thay do not have the licenses to use BK, Rossman or other major companies logos willy nilly. The dev would be hellishly expansive if they really had all the licences to use them (see why ETS2 has no had any proper business names in towns). Call me pessimistic but I'll press X to doubt.

10 years making bus games; can't nail the AI for traffic, which is 80% of the fun in a bus driving game. Driving physics is like Fernbus, so here too, no advancements whatsoever. The people are the same Fuse people that are in all their games. This should be called "the flip" more than "the bus", since it is an asset flip from their previous games

hey squirrel will you take part on the official Renault Range T 2021 release event on ETS2? and yeah, they'll realease a real truck from a game... and i think this is brilliant..

Very well thought-out review. You brought up some points that others haven't mentioned, like the timeline for the phased updates

It looks quite realistic, i have driven parts of this route and they look very good. The only thing i wish is that the devs implement the North-East part of Berlin (where i live) and there are many Bus-Lines as well, 154, X54, 256, 197....

i love how i got the ad for the game when I was watching this

This is really interesting. I really enjoyed your coverage with omsi 2, so I’m equally interested to see more regarding this game. I’m very excited to see ‘live weather’ as this feature was a fantastic experience with fsx.

It certainly looks and *sounds* very early access. Still, perhaps this'll end up being good eventually? Is this basically ETS2 but with buses? Like the same engine with the same AI and physics?

If you're gonna fly into Berlin nowadays, you'll fly to Brandenburg Airport. It sat in limbo for many years until finally opening in October 2020

The triplets that boarded has a eerie feel

Looking pretty good by far.

Nothing beats OMSI 2. The most exciting is trying to start a beat up bus in the freezing cold weather and trying to get the cabin warm so the passengers stop complaining.

I followed this route in google earth streetview as he progressed, and it looks pretty accurate, buildings, streets, vegetation etc. even most shops. This could be very good when game is finished :-)

i love the potential of this.. i hope it really gets the time and updates that it deserves. I think the 1:1 scale makes it worth the 25 Euros all by itself!