Back then, there were no smartphones yet, the screens were full of pixel blocks, and you had to turn the steering wheel yourself. Now it's different; any game comes with a dozens-of-gigabytes installation package, and the graphics can show pores, but why can't I find that old enthusiasm anymore?
How big is this 'Super Driving'? After installation, it's only a few hundred megabytes. But it's just such a small thing, yet it made this old body of mine stay up for three nights in a row.
You're asking me why I care? I care about that sense of steadiness that develops slowly. It starts with a broken-down bus, getting up at six in the morning to catch the first bus, watching the virtual passengers get on, swipe their cards, arrive at their stop, and get off. The sound of the windshield wipers against the glass is made to be just like the real thing. Back in the day when we played games, we never saw 3D rain effects; we had to imagine it ourselves, and strangely, imagining it was the most satisfying part.
Nowadays, those big games, every now and then, have you saving the world, one moment slaying dragons, the next moment doing interstellar migration. Isn't that exhausting? I just want to quietly be a small bus company owner, thinking about which route has more passengers and when to add extra trips. Just like back in the day when we watched buses arrive at the station after school, counting passengers and guessing how much the driver would make that day—that kind of simple joy, kids nowadays probably can't experience it.
The brilliance of this game lies in the fact that it doesn't force you to spend money; the charge says 0. Where can you find good free things nowadays? Back then, we played on the Famicom, and one cartridge could last a year because there were only a few games. Now there are hundreds of apps on the phone, but we end up swiping every day not knowing what to play.
To be honest, at first I was pretty dismissive of this thing made by 'Shenzhen Tianyi Summer Network Technology Co., Ltd.', since it sounded like a small, insignificant company. But once I started playing, I realized they really captured the mundane feeling of driving a bus authentically. Driving the bus back to the depot at the end of the night, lighting a cigarette while looking at the settlement report—it gives a sense of solid achievement that's way more satisfying than those games where you level up to 999 with a single hit.
I remember when 'Densha de GO' came out that year, I was just as obsessed. Back then, I could spend hours studying just a single driver's console. Now, you can simulate anything, but people's hearts just can't settle down. This 'Super Driving' game, however, has helped me regain some of that original feeling—you don't have to compete with anyone on power or spend money on gacha; you can quietly manage your own bus empire.
Recommended for those older bros like me who are tired of playing games. Also recommended for young people, so you can see that even without flashy stuff, games can still be fun. Back in the day, we didn't have so many choices, but every game we played was like a treasure. Now games are getting bigger and bigger, but where has that kid who used to spend an entire afternoon playing Contra in front of the TV gone?