3RRDC Crazy Taxi

One of the coolest things about the Dreamcast was the vast amount of
sweet arcade ports. Finally, console owners were getting near arcade
perfect translations of their favorite games. But remember, arcade
games tend to offer quick fun for a few tokens. Brining it home for a full
retail price, and beating a game within a half hour, can leave a sour
taste in the mouths of consumers. So you need to add replay value.
Here we have Crazy Taxi, which in my opinion didn't really need all the
extra bells and whistles because the game was already very good. So
what makes this game tick? Step up and read this crazy review!

I remember walking into the local arcade and right between the Dance
Dance Revolution 3rd mix machine and the old X-Men beat 'em up was
the ever addicting Crazy Taxi. It was a fun game. You got to sit down
behind the wheel of a super charged taxi and cruise around the
streets of San Francisco looking for customers and dropping them off
at their designated locations before the time ran out. There isn't really
much of a story here, besides stepping up and trying to make money.
Although the instruction manual does give some history on the
characters, so that was nice. The game stars 4 distinct cabbies: Axel,
the cool green haired punk rocker; Gena, the only female cabbie in the
game; B.D. Joe a stereotypical African-American; and Gus, a slightly
older cabbie with style to spare. So 4 cabbies, 4 taxis, and that's a
pretty good selection. Although some players may take offense to the
stereotypical African-American characters, but we'll get into that later.

So I'd play in the arcade, and within minutes I would be finished. But it
was fun, and my friends and I would always take time to play Crazy
Taxi. Upon getting my DC, I quickly learned that Crazy Taxi would be
coming my way, so myself, and nearly everyone I knew with a DC,
bought the game. But did it still deliver? Would a wheel be needed?
Would one city give me enough replay? What would Sega do to
increase the life span? All will be answered, but first the basics.

Ok, put the taxi in drive with the B button, and reverse with the A
button. Hold down the R trigger to accelerate, and brake with the L
trigger. Ok, so it may not be as cool as the arcade wheel and pedals,
but it gets the job down rather nicely. So lead the car around the city,
and find people. Stop near them and they get in. Then they say where
they want to go, and a giant green arrow appears on the screen. It
directs you to their destination. Follow the arrow and go as fast as you
can. The faster you deliver, the more time and money you'll make.
Lather, rinse, repeat. Some customers give out more money then
others because their destination is further away. Do all of this until the
time runs out. The basic concept is rather simple; anyone can pick it
up in seconds. But in order to get good, now that takes some practice.
Also performing certain stunts gets you tips so try to bring in the
money.

There are a handful of modes to play in which include Arcade, Original,
and Crazy Box. Arcade is just what it sounds like; it's the same course
as the one in the arcades. But you do have options. You can play by
the arcade rules, which means you start off with a set amount of time,
and by delivering more people to their destinations in a fast manner,
you gain more seconds on the clock to keep playing. But you can also
play for increments of 3, 5, and 10 minutes. Next is Original. This is a
brand new course to cruise around with an entirely new layout to the
city and of course the people are in different places. The same options
apply here. I found Original mode to be a bit harder then arcade. It just
seems that sometimes it is more of a maze getting around to places.
But original is also a bit more interesting. I liked how it had more
seaside elements, like the giant bridge that goes over the water in
which you can race off of. So you get two cities. And boy are they big!
Tons of places to drop people off at. Some you will even recognize! Get
ready to spot Pizza Hut, KFC, Levi's, Fila, and Tower Records. Big props
to Sega for getting these corporations to appear in the game. It just
adds some style.

But then there is the Crazy Box. This is a selection of little challenges
that test various skills when handling the taxi. You start off with 9 of
these mini-games, but you can unlock at least 6 more (maybe 1 more
after that, but I'm stuck on one so I don't know). Some of these
challenges you'll pass in but the first few tries. Some will test you and
your patience for much longer. I would recommend you play Arcade
first before heading here. But the Crazy Box does help you hone your
skills, so it is vital to try and pass the challenges. What are these skills
you ask? Why I'll tell you.

The taxi can do more then just start, stop and go. While doing certain
button combinations, you can get your taxi to do some wonderful
things that will both shave seconds off your time, and help you get
bigger tips. First is the crazy dash. This one makes you go faster.
There's also the crazy drift, the crazy back dash, and the crazy back
drift. All of these skills are vital for getting a good license, which is, by
the way, a rank you are given after the game is over. The more people
you taxi around, the more money you make. The more money you
make, the higher your class. So if you suck, get ready for a class E
license. But get better and you can make it to a class S license. Once
you get that then the ending credits play. But hark! There are ranks
above class S! Do really good and make a lot of money to get rankings
like "Awesome" and even "Crazy". But you need to know the skills to
even think of getting these.

You can see all of your high scores in the records. You register your
high scores to your name and it saves it there. There are records for
everything, and I really felt compelled to keep playing the game to get
high scores. Not a lot of games these days can say that. It's a mighty
high honor. Oh yeah, you can tinker around with various settings in
options difficulties, and volume adjustments make up most of it. But
one thing of interest is traffic difficulty. Turning this up makes the
streets have more cars driving on them which makes it harder to
maneuver around. So beginners should turn this down to have room to
drive.

This game came out in early 2000 and for the most part, it still looks
pretty good. But it is showing its age. The city is huge, colorful and
clear, so the scenery is just detailed and gorgeous. But the character
models are a little dated. Especially the customers. Think of the
dancers in Space Channel 5, just wearing street clothes. The taxi itself
looks pretty good, but most of the other cars are less detailed. It would
have been cool to have different weather affects like rain and snow,
but maybe that will be for a newer taxi if one is ever made again. If
there's one thing, I wish could be fixed in crazy taxi, it's the crazy slow
down. I hate it when you're going at top speeds cruising over hills,
flying over cars, and then BAM! Slow down hits you and everything just
crawls, and then you get out of it and drive on your way. This is way
more apparent in the more crowded sections of the town, but you
never know when it will strike.

The Sound department is very...memorable. First the music. I believe
there are 7 or so songs that play in this game. 4 from Bad Religion and
3 from Offspring. The music totally fits with the game. And some of the
tunes, especially the Offspring ones, will get stuck in your head all the
time. I would have liked more music, and maybe a little more variety,
but remember this is from the arcade. They don't really expect you to
play long enough to hear all the music, so it's forgivable. Next are the
voices. In one word they can probably be summed up as offensive.
Particularly, the African-American women. But also, on the same side
of the coin, while not always tasteful, Sega has been one of the leading
companies in making their games more diverse, another example
being Sega Bass Fishing 2 I believe. But if the voices annoy you can
turn them off. Personally, I think all the voices are funny, and just add
to the kooky atmosphere of the game.

So as you can see, replay value was taken care of on the taxi's trip to
home console. At first, you'll probably get a few costumers and be
done within a few minutes. But after practice, today I got 66
costumers, and that took around a half hour. I guess if you had the
skill, the game could go on forever. Now that would be crazy! There are
some codes like to make the taxi a Chinese style bike thing, and there
is also another day mode, which puts people in different locations. Also
you can disable the arrow, now that would be crazy!

So there you have it. This is just another classic example on why the
DC is so great. Good arcade ports that are both original and most
importunately fun. Since being released on the DC, Taxi has been re-
released in the Sega All-Stars line, and eventually it was ported over to
the PS2, GBA, and the Game Cube. A sequel was also released on DC,
and a third installment reached the Xbox. So it was obviously popular
enough to warrant some sort of following. So if your looking for a fun
game, that you can just pick up and play, or sit down and play for a
while, then this is it. Sure it could have used some more polish, but
overall this is one crazy package with the console version having a
happy ending...too bad the arcade version didn't share the same fate.
A few months back, the local arcade decided it would be a good idea
to get rid of some of its older games to get new ones. Among those
that were cut were the House of the Dead 2, Sega Bass Fishing, and
yes, Crazy Taxi. To add insult to injury, Taxi was replaced by this
bizarre "game" called "The Tower of Terror". You put in two tokens and
then clutch two bars. Then it shocks you. You see if you can withstand
the power. I know, stupid. I'll miss going to the arcade to play Taxi, but
at least the DC can carry on it's legacy.

Review by: Orochi Sonic