Review – Crazy Taxi

Game Profile

Crazy Taxi

Developer: Sega
Publisher: Acclaim

Release Date: 01/24/00

ESRB: T

Genre: racing
Setting: arcade

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I love games that make me think. I enjoy crunching numbers to maximize my characters in an RPG. I feel good after a particularly masterful attack in a strategy game. I enjoy the slower pace of games that allow me to really get into the game deep.
On the other hand, I grew up as a console player. I remember vividly when my parents gave me an Atari 2600 console for the holidays. Deep inside me there's an inner child that's a console game fanatic trying to gnaw his way out. (Ouch.)

That inner child is an insane Crazy Taxi fan. His hands slip over the Dreamcast controller with glee, and the strategy geek in me rolls his eyes and goes back to thinking about maximizing the attributes in the latest RPG I'm playing.

Crazy Taxi is a brilliant game where you take the role of a taxi driver. No, not the sneaky cab driver listening in on the confessions of the passenger in the back seat, but the role of one who views traffic laws as mere suggestions. Your goal is to pick up passengers and drive them to their desired destination, collecting money from the passenger based on speed and how much they enjoyed the ride.

Now, this might sound a bit, well, pedestrian for a game about taxis. But, never fear, this isn't SimTaxi. First you mix in a driver that obviously drank too much coffee this morning with an indestructible cab. Add in passengers that like to live on the wild side that will tip you for near-crashes and time spent with all four tires off the ground. Combine with a rockin' soundtrack by the likes of Offspring and Bad Religion. Now you're starting to get the idea of why this game is a blast to play.

The beauty of the game is how it all mixes together to make a fun experience. At a basic level, you're just trying to pick up passengers and take them to their destinations. A big arrow points you in generally the right direction so you can barrel down the street. The city has a set layout, so you begin to learn where certain places are and what little shortcuts you can take to get there faster. Although your cab is invincible, running into traffic or buildings will slow you down, so driving well is important in getting where you want to go as fast as possible. There are also a few special moves you can do which make moving around easier: the Crazy Dash and the Power Slide. All these elements add up to a game that's just fun to play.

The Dreamcast version of the game includes the original track from the Arcade game. In addition, this version adds a whole new city with a whole new layout to explore as well. You can play by original Arcade rules, which mean that you have a limited amount of time to pick up and drop off people, but you can earn extra time by delivering people to locations quickly. Or, you can play in set time mode which allows you to drive around the city delivering fares for a set amount of time. I like the frantic pace of the original arcade rules, so I play that most often.

In addition, the game offers a "Crazy Box" of mini-games that test your driving abilities. These tests include doing a certain number of power slides, jumping off a huge ski-ramp with your cab to get the best jump distance possible, getting to a strange location with a passenger fast enough, or even jumping over bodies of water while trying not to fall in. You start off with 9 challenges available, but 7 more open up as you complete the ones you already have unlocked. You can save your records onto a VMU and compare them to your friends' scores.

Graphics
The games 3D graphics are clean and bright. The models for the cars and other players are pretty good, but you're usually driving around too fast to really appreciate any detail. The graphics never get in the way of the gameplay, although the camera sometimes isn't in the position you'd really like it to be in.

Sound
One of the best aspects of the game is the great soundtrack. The songs all get your blood pumping and make you eager to drive around at breakneck speeds. The sound effects are nice, too. Passengers say little things to you ("Hey, you almost killed me back there!") and your cabbie responds with the courtesy you expect from someone in an invincible vehicle ("You're not dead, are ya?"). Various horns, crashes, cracks, and splashes really make the game really draw you into the environment. Although I enjoy the Offspring, a wider selection of songs or an option to allow you to include or exclude specific songs from the playlist might be a nice addition.

Control
The controls are simple and effective. You can choose between two controller configurations, but you can't map specific buttons. The major complaint I have is that the special "Crazy Dash" move requires a button press and a trigger press done one right after another. This can put some wear on your wrist, especially if you're a typical computer geek that already fears nerve damage.. The game itself controls well, even though it takes a bit to get used to the games unique physics. You need to learn to break a bit in advance of when you really want to stop. Also, the 3D physics sometimes don't work very well, leaving your cab up on two wheels for way too long. It's frustrating when your cab keeps bouncing around taking precious seconds off of your reward time for delivering a passenger; thankfully, this doesn't happen too often.

Multiplayer
The game does not offer simultaneous multiplayer action, but that doesn't stop it from being fun to play with friends. Watching the frantic deliveries of another person can be a real blast. The game allows for four different driver profiles, so you and your friends can each have your own records to compare with each other.

Overall
Overall, Crazy Taxi is one of my favorite games of all time. Even the numbers geek in me has to admit that it's just a lot of fun to fly over a line of traffic, enter a power slide, then slam into the side of a building coming to a stop to allow your passenger out, and finally positioning yourself for a quick launch across the street to a waiting passenger all while rocking out to an Offspring song. The simple gameplay is enough to draw you in, but there's plenty of nuances waiting to be discovered for the long-term. Add in a bit of friendly rivalry with some friends and you can quickly see why Crazy Taxi is a great game.

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About the Author, Brian Green (A.K.A Psychochild)

I'm an introvert that extroverts well (especially online). I'm a pretty typical computer geek, able to spend long hours in front of a computer focusing on a project or game.

I was born to be a gamer. Some of my most vivid earliest memories are of creating games to play while I was bored. As a child, I was naturally drawn to computer games. Even though my conservative religious friends thought D&D was "evil", we still got into fantasy role-playing through computer games. I played on the computers at school when I could, and played on the game consoles I could afford to buy at home.

It was my love of games that lead to me to programming. I finished my assignments in class and then spent the rest of the hour working on little games. This continued into college, where I learned about text MUDs. I started coding on them and spent many late nights in the computer lab.

It was around graduation in college when I realized that a career in the game industry might be a good fit for me. After working in a boring corporate job for a bit and thoroughly hating it, I started looking for work in the industry. I was hired on at 3DO to maintain an online game called "Meridian 59".

After working at 3DO then working at Communities.com (both currently out of business through no fault of my own!), I helped start Near Death Studios, Inc. We bought the rights to Meridian 59 from 3DO and have relaunched the game commercially. (Details at: http://www.meridian59.com/)

I'm currently doing design and programming work on Meridian 59 while sneaking in as much gaming of all types (computer, board, paper RPGs, etc) that I can.