Have you ever wanted to play driving game, but not one where you have to finish first... Game that requires skills others than pushing pedal to the metal and cutting corners... Game that rewards precision, good planning and patience... No? Then Tokyo Bus Guide 2 isn't right game for you - in any other case, please continue reading.

Tokyo Bus Guide 2 is game that puts you behind pretty large steering wheel of Tokyo city bus. Your goal - drive thru whole course, be on stops on time and obey the highway code. You can choose from two buses, which aren't in fact that different, so you are free to choose the one which looks better for you (they also sounds different). Each course consist of several kilometers (indicated on course selection screen) of road and at least few bus stops. Goal is obvious - be on every bus stop just in time. It may sound easy, but you have to remember that you have to respect the highway code and make the ride comfortable for the passengers.

There are several cameras to choose from. You can use outside view, which is helpful when approaching tight turns, or one of the inside views, which makes everything more real. Mirrors are available in any view and you should use them regularly, otherwise you will lose points and may provoke a crash. Other bus "features" are lights, horn, turn indicators and emergency lights. Indicators aren't only for eye candy - they are fully functional, and you are required to use them. Example uses include turning, changing lanes and stopping/ starting from bus stop (before you stop you have to use your left indicator, and before starting you need to use the right one).

Courses are pretty interesting, mainly thanks to heavy traffic associated with them. Of course its level will vary - there are some sub-urban routes where traffic is close to none, and besides that every course is available in three variants - noon, evening and night, which provide even more traffic variety. Road traffic A.I. is good enough to provide satisfying experience - they will often stop to allow you start from the bus stop, sometimes they'll slow down to provide space for changing lanes etc. One thing that suck about them, is that they're fixed. By fixed I mean that traffic on particular route/ daytime combination is always exactly the same. It suck, but chances are you won't notify that before finishing the game, so it's not that bad.

Driving model is up to expectations for this kind of game. Buses are fairly easy to drive, but you can easily feel their weight and slowness. Most of maneuvers are not too difficult to perform, except tight turns, which requires some experience - when turning, you should twist your virtual head along with the bus, so you can see where exactly you're going. Sometimes getting back from bus stop pit also may be quite dangerous and in event of too sharp turning, back of your bus may hit the kerb. In most cases, speed limit is either 40 or 60 km/h, which may sound a bit dull, but when combined with great feeling of speed which this game has, 40km/h is pretty decent, and at 60kmph, you'll be (almost) flying. Unfortunately there are also 30km/h areas (mostly sub-urban ones) which are in fact a little bit annoying and dull.

The very best of what this game has to offer are requirements that makes you feel like real bus driver. There is no place even for little, but repetive mistakes - you start with number of points and every mistake will subtrack some of them. Easy, easy - making to the bus stop will give you some points, so it's not that hard. Not very hard, but you have to remember that on the road every move you make has to be perfectly planned and indicated. Let's start from the beginning - you are at the starting bus stop. People (ugly, 2D flat models with some funny faces) are getting inside your bus. Ok, everyone on board? So let's go! No, wait a moment. Doors - you have to close them. Allright. Now, you have to indicate that you will be starting by using your... well, indicator (in most cases the right one). If you need to change lanes you also have to use side view mirror. All checked? So let's go. Oh, and don't forget to announce next bus stop (by pressing X) early enough - good habit is to do this as soon as you leave previous one. Ok, so we are near next stop (there is indicator on-screen telling how far from next bus stop you are) - should we prepare for stopping? Yes, no... maybe. All bus stops are optional, meaning if there are no people waiting for bus (if there are some, you will see large blue icon over bus stop) nor people wanting to get off (you know this, because if somebody wants to get off he'll press a button and you will hear it and see it), there is no need to stop. Ok, but suppose we stop. Some people get off, some enter the bus... ok, let's go. You close the doors and you're ready to go, so... but wait a moment, who's that? Late passenger, for sure. It's very common that some passengers are late - you really should allow them to get in, by opening your bus doors once again. Ok, all ready, now we can really go. Just remember to pay attention to traffic lights & avoid too rapid braking/ accelerating, which may be not very comfortable for passengers.

Graphics in this game are OK. Your bus and road traffic looks fairly good - maybe the models are pretty simple, but textures are sharp and neat. Tokyo buildings and environment follows the same pattern - simple, but pleasant. One notable exception in terms of graphics are people. I just don't know for what reason developer of generally nice looking game puts awful, 2D, flat (you can actually see that they are flat as a paper), low resolution, pixelated and over-smoothed (at the same time) elements like this in it. There is only one good thing about them - some of them looks really funny. Last word about them - if you encounter many, many of them, e.g. in city's center, you may see a little slideshow...

Overally, this game rocks. It's very, very fun to play as soon you get hang of it. It's all in Japanese, but even if you don't know single word in that language, you'll be fine (you can download main menu translation - http://www.box.net/shared/qzlxlskvdn - by Yamanote74 from http://densha-de-go.com forums). Addiction is what you'll feel after few minutes spend with this title - you'll always want to "try just one more time" to get perfect score and receive some nice postcards from your clients (yes!!!). Of course there are some things that could be done better (graphics of people, lack of crossroad and zebras without traffic lights, fixed road traffic, no free roaming mode), but that's the case of every game.

Final verdict: If driving a bus sounds interesting for you, this one is a must-have!

Tokyo Bus Guide Arcade