Crazzy Taxi Bus!
Imagine a game where you play the role of a bus driver. Picking up and dropping off passengers would be your primary task, but avoiding cars, pedestrians darting across your path, and cyclists are all in a day’s work too. Now, imagine the bus you drive is composed of two parts connected in the middle (similar to the image below) and your shift is during rush hour. This is what bus drivers must often deal with to ensure that the transit system remains efficient.
Riding home the other day, I overheard the bus driver chatting with another passenger about all the stuff she has to deal with on her route. It’s about a 45 min bus ride from the heart of downtown to a suburban area and she has seen it all.
From a car turning left and scrapping the bus and speeding away, white paint on his black SUV, to pedestrians who don’t care and dart across the street like they are invincible and cyclists who cycle dangerously between buses and cars.
Her daughter loves to play video games and she herself used to play a lot before she became a bus driver. Driving that route each day got her thinking about a video game exactly as described above, but with a really good AI, and realistic physics. The speed of the bus would be dependent on the conditions of the road, the load of passengers and the traffic. Avoiding collisions with other buses, cars, bikes and people would get you the points, Crazy Taxi Style.
An Interesting premise for a video game, wouldn’t she be surprised to find out one already exists? Released in ‘07, Bus Driver lets the player drive up to 12 different buses, transporting their passengers to their destinations. The SCS Software developed and published PC game is a 3D driving simulation that can be downloaded for $29(Free trial download also available). 
The game uses the arrow keys and a few of the other surrounding keys to make driving the bus as realistic as possible. You need to remember to turn on your blinkers as you maneuver into the next lane and to each bus stop.
You open the bus door so the passengers could board (that part reminded me of the little people in Theme Park and their crowd chatter as they boarded the rides). You also need to stay within your lane and watch out for traffic.
Good graphics, a varied selection of buses and environments to drive in, and the wide array of realistic maneuvers one must pull off to add to your score, Bus Driver makes for a great bus driving simulation that is actually pretty fun too. I wanted to play it a little more, but to my dismay the demo expired after an hour.
