Desert Bus (Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors) - Positives - Rerez

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Penn and Teller are two incredibly funny and very entertaining magicians and back in the ‘90s they attempted to make a video game that was so real, so completely boring that they didn't think anyone in their right minds would want to play it for very long. And they were wrong. Desert Bus the infamous and unreleased game on the Sega CD. Let's find the positives.

Smoke and Mirrors was a video game that was supposed to be released for the Sega CD but because it was coming out around the same time that the Sega CD crashed well the company that was backing it decided not to release it and for years everyone just heard about this game but never actually got to play it. That is until a review copy of the game surfaced a few years back and ever since then the game has become this oddity that people have been seeking out. But one game out of the entire collection of games stands out more than anything else. Desert Bus is a game where you drive from Tucson, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada in real time. That's right kids eight hours of real-time gameplay. Not one minute turns into an hour in game. And if you thought that was bad consider that the game actually doesn't end at the eight hour mark. It can go forever you can just keep playing the game again and again and again. Over the years people have really gotten attached to this game as a number of people that create videos online thought it would be really cool to play the game for hours and hours and hours to raise money for charity. And that worked surprisingly well. But today we're going to be taking a look at the game and really breaking it apart figuring out exactly what's so bad about the game. Well we don't have to go too far — it's terrible. There's nothing in the game. You're driving down a very open road, there's no traffic, there's nothing on the sides of the roads besides some rocks and once in awhile a bus sign, there really isn't much going on and the gameplay can be very boring because of it.

Desert Bus was never meant to come out by itself. It was supposed to be included with a package of other games and those games were designed to trick your friends. There was also a game that was a standalone experience that was sort of a platforming game and that platforming game arguably isn't the best and the other minigames don't really stand out nearly as much as Desert Bus. But it still stands that Desert Bus was supposed to be a package of games bringing up the value just a little bit more so that you weren't going to the store and buying just Desert Bus. So the first positive is that Desert Bus was in a compilation of games. In modern video games realism is something that a lot of developers are trying to hit. Everybody makes first-person shooters with ultra realism in them and a whole bunch of driving simulators are created to try and be as realistic as possible. And while they do try Desert Bus has a lot of them beat because eight hours of real drive time between Tucson and Las Vegas is incredibly realistic even if it is super boring. So because of that the second positive is this game is pretty realistic.

A game really isn't a game unless there's something to do and Desert Bus has a very interesting design feature in it. See the bus doesn't just drive straight. It veers off to the right. You actually have to interact with the game to make sure that your bus stays on course. If you drive off into the gravel too much over time your bus will accumulate damage and eventually break down. And if you break down your bus has to be towed all the way back to the beginning of the game. That is pretty shockingly real and believe it or not they've added other touches of realism into the game that kind of make it a little bit more interesting to play than just a basic straightforward driving game. At one point while you're driving a bug will hit your windshield and that adds a bit of difficulty because it just gets in the way of actually being able to see the road. And speaking of not being able to see the road once it gets to nighttime well it's pretty hard to play the game because you really can't see the edges of the road that much and it makes it very challenging. And to be quite honest in a game like this where there isn't very much to do it can be very challenging to keep a bus on a straight course for eight hours and when the night comes in and when a whole bunch of the other factors come into play it makes the game just a little bit more interesting than I think a lot of people give it credit for. So positive number three is this game can be very challenging.

With the popularity of iOS games and Android games we've started to see a lot of people create what are called endless runners. Now endless runners are basically marathon games. They never really end unless you are not skilled enough to keep going. Now the way that Desert Bus is a marathon game is actually very interesting because it came out at a time when marathon games really weren't the thing. The concept of playing an arcade game for hours and hours and hours trying to rack up the highest score well that was an idea that was present back then but around the ‘90s there was a shift in game design where people were making video games that focused more on story and less on getting a score. I believe that Desert Bus isn't just a good example of a marathon game but I think that it's also probably one of the first marathon games to have ever been created. I know a lot of you are thinking how hard could it possibly be to drive a vehicle in a straight line. Well after eight hours you get bored and you know what you probably don't want to continue and if you don't want to continue while the game won. And there are people out there that are playing this game for hours and hours and hours trying to get a naturally high score and it gets a lot more difficult the longer you play because you can keep damaging your bus and that damage accumulates over time. This is a very challenging game and one of the most difficult games I've ever had to play. And it really isn't difficult because the game plays hard. It's difficult because you have to pay attention for a long amount of time. So the fourth positive is that this game is the perfect marathon game.

There are thousands of video games out there that have had huge marketing budgets that people don't talk about or play anymore. Not only was Desert Bus a game that was included in a bundle of a bunch of other games but that game pack didn't actually come out. It was unreleased and to this day everyone is playing this game and talking about it. Think about that if a game that had no marketing budget and never came out has this many players there has to be something more to it.

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