It amazes me that a game like this even exists but honestly I could say the same about many games. But as notorious this game is, it was actually fascinating reading into the backstory of this game.
This game was cancelled before it even released. It was one of six games featured in Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors for the Sega CD.
Basically, they are two of the greatest entertainers of their time. They mix magic and comedy and perform it live, they're funny, they defy physics, they take jabs at bullshit, etc. They have been doing it for at least 40 years. The idea of a video game based off of them in the 90s was something that only they could have come up with.
The main reason why the game never released was because the company behind it filed for bankruptcy and shut down. But eventually it made its way onto the internet and has become a cult classic.
I also like the Full Motion Video sequences of Penn & Teller themselves.
One of my favorite Penn & Teller moments is where the two appeared on Hollywood Squares with motherfucking Gilbert Gottfried, the voice behind Iago from Disney's Aladdin, yeah no joke. And it was a really funny episode that featured a whopping 9 consecutive wrong answers.
It is a very funny watch. It's some of the dumbest shit I've ever seen in a game show.
https://youtu.be/iFMaPUtCi9o
But Desert Bus is a whole different story. This game is just asinine. But the worst offender is that everything in this game is deliberate. Penn & Teller made this game to take a jab at all the people who bitched about the controversy of violence in video games.
They decided "let's just make a game that is stupidly like reality and make doing the laborious busywork of real life into a video game." Now all we need is a video game where you can fucking do your taxes, but that might already exist.
The whole game is where you drive a bus. You drive, and drive, and drive, and drive..
Ocassionally you'll see a sign on the side of the road but that's pretty much it. There are no passengers on the bus to interact with, there are no other vehicles, there's no radio so you can listen to some music, and the road never turns. You can also push the B button to hear the sound of the bus door opens. That's.. something I guess.
Let's do some calculations. This bus is going from Tuscan, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada. And it doesn't go any faster than 45 MPH. Tuscan to Las Vegas is around 360 miles. 45 MPH for 360 miles equates to about 8 hours of driving.
This game is 8 hours long?? Jesus fucking Christ. Well maybe once this 8 hour journey is over maybe we can get some insane payoff for doing it.
.....
Wait, what's that? Nothing happens?
You mean we are stuck driving the bus infinitely with nothing happening throughout and with no reward afterwards?
Well actually something does happen after 8 hours of driving. You wanna know?
You get a point.
Yep. That's it. A singular, fucking point.
Supposedly Penn & Teller were going to have a contest where you sent them your high score, and whoever got the highest score would win a trip on an actual bus ride with the two masterminds themselves from Tuscan to Las Vegas, with a show there and whatnot. Which sounds awesome right? But that never happened sadly.
You can't pause the game by the way. The Start Button just blows the horn. And this is also intentional.
Also, if you stop moving the D-Pad, the bus will automatically veer off to the side of the road and get stuck in the sand. Then you have to wait for a tow truck to show up and tow the bus. All. The Way. Back.
So does that mean if you have been driving for 6 hours, you have to wait 6 hours for the game to start over? What the fuck.
Or you could just, you know, reset the game...
You just have to keep driving!! Jesus Christ, I wonder how many people have pissed themselves while playing this. You can't take bathroom breaks, you can't stop to grab food, you have to keep driving this damn bus. Imagine the amount of sensory deprivation from players sitting in front of the screen driving this shit for hours upon hours.
The fact that a game like this was cancelled and yet it made its way onto the internet and people have played it and even adapted it into an Atari 2600 game and even made a remake of it on Steam really speaks volumes of just how insufferable the experience is.
The people who played this fuckfest want you to suffer with them.
I can't imagine anyone playing this for more than 20 or 30 minutes. The farthest I've ever got was an hour, and that was for a livestream. And yet that hour felt like the longest hour of my entire life. You think you're playing the game for shits and giggles but then it turns into a horrific sensory deprivation induced nightmare. I see nothing but road and sand in my fucking dreams.
I mean you know it's bad when I got really bad car sickness after playing this game. I actually suffer from car sickness in real life. So imagine that. I get car sick just from playing this game.
This game is simply a health hazard, both physically and mentally.
Please send help.
1/10
This game was cancelled before it even released. It was one of six games featured in Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors for the Sega CD.
Basically, they are two of the greatest entertainers of their time. They mix magic and comedy and perform it live, they're funny, they defy physics, they take jabs at bullshit, etc. They have been doing it for at least 40 years. The idea of a video game based off of them in the 90s was something that only they could have come up with.
The main reason why the game never released was because the company behind it filed for bankruptcy and shut down. But eventually it made its way onto the internet and has become a cult classic.
I also like the Full Motion Video sequences of Penn & Teller themselves.
One of my favorite Penn & Teller moments is where the two appeared on Hollywood Squares with motherfucking Gilbert Gottfried, the voice behind Iago from Disney's Aladdin, yeah no joke. And it was a really funny episode that featured a whopping 9 consecutive wrong answers.
It is a very funny watch. It's some of the dumbest shit I've ever seen in a game show.
https://youtu.be/iFMaPUtCi9o
But Desert Bus is a whole different story. This game is just asinine. But the worst offender is that everything in this game is deliberate. Penn & Teller made this game to take a jab at all the people who bitched about the controversy of violence in video games.
They decided "let's just make a game that is stupidly like reality and make doing the laborious busywork of real life into a video game." Now all we need is a video game where you can fucking do your taxes, but that might already exist.
The whole game is where you drive a bus. You drive, and drive, and drive, and drive..
Ocassionally you'll see a sign on the side of the road but that's pretty much it. There are no passengers on the bus to interact with, there are no other vehicles, there's no radio so you can listen to some music, and the road never turns. You can also push the B button to hear the sound of the bus door opens. That's.. something I guess.
Let's do some calculations. This bus is going from Tuscan, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada. And it doesn't go any faster than 45 MPH. Tuscan to Las Vegas is around 360 miles. 45 MPH for 360 miles equates to about 8 hours of driving.
This game is 8 hours long?? Jesus fucking Christ. Well maybe once this 8 hour journey is over maybe we can get some insane payoff for doing it.
.....
Wait, what's that? Nothing happens?
You mean we are stuck driving the bus infinitely with nothing happening throughout and with no reward afterwards?
Well actually something does happen after 8 hours of driving. You wanna know?
You get a point.
Yep. That's it. A singular, fucking point.
Supposedly Penn & Teller were going to have a contest where you sent them your high score, and whoever got the highest score would win a trip on an actual bus ride with the two masterminds themselves from Tuscan to Las Vegas, with a show there and whatnot. Which sounds awesome right? But that never happened sadly.
You can't pause the game by the way. The Start Button just blows the horn. And this is also intentional.
Also, if you stop moving the D-Pad, the bus will automatically veer off to the side of the road and get stuck in the sand. Then you have to wait for a tow truck to show up and tow the bus. All. The Way. Back.
So does that mean if you have been driving for 6 hours, you have to wait 6 hours for the game to start over? What the fuck.
Or you could just, you know, reset the game...
You just have to keep driving!! Jesus Christ, I wonder how many people have pissed themselves while playing this. You can't take bathroom breaks, you can't stop to grab food, you have to keep driving this damn bus. Imagine the amount of sensory deprivation from players sitting in front of the screen driving this shit for hours upon hours.
The fact that a game like this was cancelled and yet it made its way onto the internet and people have played it and even adapted it into an Atari 2600 game and even made a remake of it on Steam really speaks volumes of just how insufferable the experience is.
The people who played this fuckfest want you to suffer with them.
I can't imagine anyone playing this for more than 20 or 30 minutes. The farthest I've ever got was an hour, and that was for a livestream. And yet that hour felt like the longest hour of my entire life. You think you're playing the game for shits and giggles but then it turns into a horrific sensory deprivation induced nightmare. I see nothing but road and sand in my fucking dreams.
I mean you know it's bad when I got really bad car sickness after playing this game. I actually suffer from car sickness in real life. So imagine that. I get car sick just from playing this game.
This game is simply a health hazard, both physically and mentally.
Please send help.
1/10
5 Comments
@Jalen
And may I ask how exactly is this "word for word" as what you are implying? Do you mind actually reading the review before you actually jump the gun and say that this review is "word for word" of another person's review?
That is of course you like making yourself look like an ass lol.
And may I ask how exactly is this "word for word" as what you are implying? Do you mind actually reading the review before you actually jump the gun and say that this review is "word for word" of another person's review?
That is of course you like making yourself look like an ass lol.
@katiopeia
There are numerous lines throughout this review that are either direct quotes or have simply been reworded to not to be too obvious https://youtu.be/RFi2vcseEz8
“ This game was cancelled before it even released. It was one of six games featured in Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors for the Sega CD. Basically, they are two of the greatest entertainers of their time. They mix magic and comedy and perform it live, they're funny, they defy physics, they take jabs at bullshit, etc. They have been doing it for at least 40 years. The idea of a video game based off of them in the 90s was something that only they could have come up with.”
Basically a condensed version of what is said at 1:02
“ The whole game is where you drive a bus. You drive, and drive, and drive, and drive.. Ocassionally you'll see a sign on the side of the road but that's pretty much it. There are no passengers on the bus to interact with, there are no other vehicles, there's no radio so you can listen to some music, and the road never turns. You can also push the B button to hear the sound of the bus door opens. That's.. something I guess.”
Another near word for word quote found at 4:19
“ Let's do some calculations. This bus is going from Tuscan, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada. And it doesn't go any faster than 45 MPH. Tuscan to Las Vegas is around 360 miles. 45 MPH for 360 miles equates to about 8 hours of driving.”
5:11 Come on you’re not even trying to hide it at this point
I’d be here all day if I went through it all and there are some I could debatably give you benefit of the doubt for but those were the ones that stuck out to me the most. Now granted this is a very straightforward game and there’s not really much that can be said about the game that hasn’t already been said before so it is inevitable that there would be similar ground covered in other reviews but there are an abundance of lines that are way too similar to merely call it a coincidence.
There are numerous lines throughout this review that are either direct quotes or have simply been reworded to not to be too obvious https://youtu.be/RFi2vcseEz8
“ This game was cancelled before it even released. It was one of six games featured in Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors for the Sega CD. Basically, they are two of the greatest entertainers of their time. They mix magic and comedy and perform it live, they're funny, they defy physics, they take jabs at bullshit, etc. They have been doing it for at least 40 years. The idea of a video game based off of them in the 90s was something that only they could have come up with.”
Basically a condensed version of what is said at 1:02
“ The whole game is where you drive a bus. You drive, and drive, and drive, and drive.. Ocassionally you'll see a sign on the side of the road but that's pretty much it. There are no passengers on the bus to interact with, there are no other vehicles, there's no radio so you can listen to some music, and the road never turns. You can also push the B button to hear the sound of the bus door opens. That's.. something I guess.”
Another near word for word quote found at 4:19
“ Let's do some calculations. This bus is going from Tuscan, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada. And it doesn't go any faster than 45 MPH. Tuscan to Las Vegas is around 360 miles. 45 MPH for 360 miles equates to about 8 hours of driving.”
5:11 Come on you’re not even trying to hide it at this point
I’d be here all day if I went through it all and there are some I could debatably give you benefit of the doubt for but those were the ones that stuck out to me the most. Now granted this is a very straightforward game and there’s not really much that can be said about the game that hasn’t already been said before so it is inevitable that there would be similar ground covered in other reviews but there are an abundance of lines that are way too similar to merely call it a coincidence.
Katiopeia
< 1 min ago
@Jalen But that's the thing. You were implying that this review is "word for word" which is just untrue. When you read this review and then read that review you would know this already.
By saying "word for word" you are implying that this review is a copy and pasted 1:1 carbon replica of that same review which in itself is false.
That's why I am pointing this out because that wording is fundamentally not the case.
Not to mention there are things here that I mentioned that aren't there, and my word choice and placement is set up differently. It's just a matter of not much to say about the game.
This isn't an issue with any of my other reviews however.
You could've just quoted the Nerd you know.
Jalen
2 years ago
What’s the point of copying his review nearly word for word