System: Valve Index, HTC Vive & Oculus Rift
Price at Time Of Review: £32.99
Comfort Rating: Red
Genre: Interactive Experience
Input: Keyboard & Mouse
Best Playing Position: Sitting
Multi-Player: Yes
Age Rating: PG
VR Shop Score 1/100: 85
Description: LOTUS-Simulator is a driving simulator in a class of its own! At the beginning, the player chooses freely a vehicle and drives it around town, enjoys the ultra-realistic feeling of driving and the original sounds and may even forget that the vehicle is virtual. Once gripped by the excitement of simulation driving, the standards increase: stick to tight schedules, carry special passengers, master the difficult traffic. But that’s not all. The ambition grows with the experience: Now the multiplayer is played under real conditions – the colleagues in the control centre coordinate by radio, the game leader set challenges in the middle of the road, unpredictable weather, real duty rosters and long shifts. And after all, how about recreating the way of the school bus and to master the student’s traffic this time on your own? Didn’t the mate from the historic vehicle society have an ancient tram car with crank control standing around? You could breathe life again into it in the simulator – as a museum run or maybe even at the time it originates…
Review: Have you ever wanted to drive a bus? Maybe a tram? How about driving a train? ‘LOTUS-Simulator’ lets you do all those things! While it is clear from the start that this is not built for VR it was an awful lot of fun to play in VR. Looking out the window as you drive your tram down the street was a pure joy and while not amazing the graphics were more than believable. This is no arcade game, this game features a real driving mechanism and pressing the button to open the bus doors to allow the passengers to get on made me almost wet my pants in excitement!
OK, so let’s get the bad news out of the way. There is a STEEP learning curve here and it will take time to learn the ropes and then we come to the price tag. While the main game does cost you £32.99 there is DLC that totals £130 and for many, that is too much by far. But these are not small add-ons they are gigantic maps and thousands of development hours. Yes, I get that it is more for hobbyists that normal players, but that is who this game was made for! This is not a game you play for a long time, its almost a lifestyle choice! Even now, two years after it was launched ‘LOTUS-Simulator’ keeps getting better and better. It keeps growing and expanding and that is why I am happy to recommend it, but it really is much more an adults playset rather than an actual game, but that is my cup of tea anyway.
