Review: Crazy Taxi (PSN)

If taxi drivers were paid based on how frequently they nearly killed their passengers, real taxi driving would be far more lucrative than Crazy Taxi could ever simulate. In Crazy Taxi, however, you’re the one in charge of nearly killing your passenger, not the other way around. This download port of a Dreamcast port of an arcade port is both a great example and a terrible example of one of the first generations of 3D gaming.

Crazy Taxi is like the stripper version of driving. Each time you pull off a stunt, the passenger throws a couple dollars at you, and then after a minute or two they’re done and they leave you alone.  The download version, like the Dreamcast port before it, consists of two cities (arcade and original) and a Crazy Box of challenge levels. The goal is simple: get as many fares to their destinations in the time allotted, and pull off as many stunts as possible to increase the payout.

Game: Crazy Taxi
Publisher: Sega of America
Developer: Sega
Genre: Arcade Driving
Price: $9.99
Verdict: The fun is still there, but the flavor is missing.
Pros: The gameplay holds up extraordinarily well.
Cons: Music and store licenses don’t carry over, graphics didn’t age well.

Acquired via Download Code from Publisher

When the topic of the first generations of 3D games comes up, there’s often criticism that the games don’t hold up or age well. Crazy Taxi, however, absolutely does – at least in gameplay. Just last year I’d hooked up my Dreamcast to celebrate the 10^th anniversary of the system’s launch and Crazy Taxi was fun back then, too. The simple mechanic holds up incredibly well and is still a ton of fun, even if the special moves have left my hands in pain. The PlayStation controller isn’t terribly well-suited to the game, and no word yet on whether the Xbox 360 version will feel any better, though it is closer in shape to the Dreamcast controller. While playing it was often hard to tell if the super moves (such as Crazy Dash, Crazy Drift, and Crazy Limiter Cut) were actually working.

The addition of leaderboards is great, though, and would’ve served the original well back in the day. An arcade-style game like Crazy Taxi is well suited to public competitive leaderboards, and if anything keeps players coming back after the first few games, it’ll be that.

While the gameplay stands up well, controller issues aside, other parts don’t fare (pun intended) so well. While the game’s resolution has been increased to 720p, it only serves to make the game look worse. The textures hold up only slightly better than N64 games. Also the title cards and instruction screens are abysmal. Sega couldn’t have taken the 15 minutes to create a 1080p Crazy Taxi logo? Sega, send me an email. I’d be happy to help. It only serves to make the game feel even older.

Taken with a cell phone camera, this picture depicts the the jaggy, low-res title cards of Crazy Taxi for PSN.

The real tragedy, though, lies in the soundtrack. Like so much other media from before the age of broadband, DVDs, and re-releases of everything, the music from the original – The Offspring and Bad Religion – doesn’t carry over. When I’d played the original to death I remember being tired of those songs, but now I look back on them fondly and wish I could play the game with them again without having to resort to using my console’s custom soundtracks feature. The licensed stores didn’t make it in, either. It doesn’t affect the gameplay of course, but there was something charming about taking someone to Pizza Hut or KFC that “the chicken shack” just can’t replicate.

The game is still fun at the core, but it will have a hard time finding an audience. Dreamcast fans still likely have a Dreamcast and a copy of Crazy Taxi. Everyone else will be largely uninterested. The changes, small though they are, are off-putting enough to make it tough to recommend.

GrE Grade: C

Popularity: unranked [?]