You can download it here.What do you get for completing such a task? Just one point. The game is out now for free on Steam for Rift, Vive and traditional monitors. While all of its flaws bear mentioning, it’s hard to knock a game that’s both entirely free and was built for charity, as Jillette helped renew the game for the volunteer organization Desert Bus for Hope that holds a titular annual event to raise money for the game-focused Child’s Play Charity. In a recent telethon-style event, the organization raised $650,250 with a total of 158 hours logged behind the wheel.Įven though it’s boring in all the wrong ways, if it can impact positive change in the world for even one person, it’s a resounding success that we can only hope to see more of in the future. At the time of this writing I didn’t get a chance to play an online session, but I can imagine myself getting to know someone pretty well over the course of an 8-hour drive. Although the bus itself is pretty attractive, it lacks some finer interactive touches you might find in a built-for-VR game like the car level from I Expect You to Die (2016).įunnily enough, the game includes an online multiplayer mode which lets you ride along with others as either a driver or passenger. Steering is done either manually or through trackpad/thumb stick, the later of which is way too jerky for comfortable play in VR. The render distance isn’t great either, making you feel like you’re more of a treadmill than in an actual desert. The VR version uses the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift’s respective motion controls, but annoyingly maps acceleration to the left trigger. 'Sairento' Follow-up 'Hellsweeper' Coming to Major VR Headsets in September Now that times have changed and VR developers strive to make their experiences more realistic, it’s hard to say if the VR version is trying to revitalize Penn Jillette’s hypothesis. While I haven’t done the full 8-hour drive, I found it purposely misses out on some more common aspects of VR driving simulators in favor of presenting the player with a less realistic, but decidedly more boring experience. The new VR version was brought to life by Borderlands developers Gearbox Software, making it their first VR production. Despite its political beginnings and failure to launch due to the game studio’s bankruptcy, Desert Bus garnered cult-status as it was later released on a number of platforms. The 2D version was originally built to highlight the ridiculousness of the idea that popular video games of the time adequately prepared players for real-world interactions (martial arts in the case of Mortal Kombat, and shooting guns in the case of Doom) and that not all video games are designed to ‘corrupt the youth’. Originally created in 1998 as a mini-game to the never-released Sega CD game Penn & Teller’s Smoke and Mirrors, Desert Bus is less of an actual game and more of a commentary in response to the famous ’90s brand of zealotry against video game violence that dominated political discourse at the time, spearheaded by the likes of Jack Thompson, Janet Reno, and Hillary Clinton to name a few. You may ask yourself: “why would I want to simulate driving an old bus at the top speed of 45 miles an hour through a depopulated desert road for 8 hours straight?” The quick answer: you wouldn’t. It’s not great (at all), but it’s built for a truly noble cause. Penn & Teller’s Desert Bus VR is finally here, letting you take the wheel of a crappy old commercial bus for a mind-numbing 8-hour trip from Tuscon to Las Vegas.
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