Monday 28 November 2011

This Week: Reg Varney: Bus Conductor Sega Mega CD

Reg Varney: Bus Conductor was a joint collaboration between Japanese and English developers during early 1992. Within the game you played cheeky bus conductor Reg, who has an insatiable appetite for young women and little time for taking fares.

You start your route heading out of the depot and holding tight to the pole at the rear of the bus until your first fare hops on board. Passengers have different ratings to Reg, and it's up to you to deal with them accordingly. The first class Reg encounters is "pensioner", a very slow, mumbling, codger, that Reg must compose his "patience meter" before taking the fare in copper coins.

Next level for Reg is "school kids". These are chased up to the top deck were Reg will have to power his "urchin gauge" before delivering a sharp slap to the back of the head and taking the fare. These prove troublesome for Reg as they will pay less and stay on longer, leaving Reg with the task of throwing them of the moving bus and shaking his fist shouting "bleddin' gits!"

The next level for Reg is a certain amount of respite in the form of "birds". Reg's "fanny magnet" will stop him collecting more fares and draw him to girls half his age, with "love heart" symbols above his head.  As his route continues, combinations of all elements will test him into missing fares, until  Blakey hops on board telling Reg "I'll have your badge for this Butler!"

The game caused much confusion on it's release as it was programmed in Japan, with sound completed in the UK. The English developers didn't have the heart to tell their Japanese cohorts that Reg was actually the driver and it was Jack Harper who was the conductor. Unfortunately, the Japanese had only just received the series and were bamboozled by the whole sorry affair. Indeed the English sound team used Bob Grant (Harper) for the voice over work, with only Stephen Lewis ("Blakey") used correctly. Such was the confusion and mess of the game that Stan's wife: Olive (Anna Karen) can clearly be seen being punched clean out at the end of the game. Not that this was ever seen, as it was only ever released in Japan, were fans only ever left the in game intro music playing, so they could dance to it dressed in ambiguously sexed bus conductor outfits.

2 comments:

  1. The final level features a showdown with angry parents, who blame you personally for massive scars on the back of their kids' heads. Reg must utilise his plentiful stash of fake pound coins to stave off the baying mob outside Lakepalmer Primary.

    Coming December 2011 to the XBOX Live Arcade.

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  2. I like that ending. I'd like to think he wins in the end but with this game being English, I think he will run out of coins and the baying mob will duff him in

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