Video Game Reviews #548 and #549: Crazy Taxi

Crazy Taxi

Sega Dreamcast and Arcade

Nostalgia Factor:

For today's review, I am reviewing Crazy Taxi for the arcade and Crazy Taxi for the Dreamcast both at the same time. I don't normally do this, but I have done it a few times in the past. The reasoning for this is that the two different versions of the game are essentially the same thing in my mind. The Dreamcast game has some added features, but the base game experience is pretty much the same thing.

I first played Crazy Taxi back in 2001 or 2002. I worked at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee student union as someone who would run around and fill up supplies. I went unsupervised for long portions of my shift, so I would often sneak away and explore the union. I remember going down to the bowling alley one day and noticing it had an arcade. I went to check out the games, and the one that immediately jumped out to me was Crazy Taxi. I had heard of the game, but I had never played it before. I popped in some quarters and I played a round of the game. I had a blast with it. I loved the concept, the music, and the busy world of the game. I thought it was just so fun and unique. I ended up sneaking down to the bowling alley and the arcade quite often to play this.

I ended up buying the game for the Sega Dreamcast a short while later. I sunk so much time into the game, completing all the side challenges. My girlfriend at the time (Colleen) also really liked the game and would spend all night playing it with me. We had so much fun with this game, passing the controller back and forth and singing along to the Offspring music. Good times.

I haven't played much Crazy Taxi in the ensuing years. As much as I like the game and have fond memories of it, I know it is a relatively shallow experience and you can't actually "beat" the game. But it was only a matter of time before, one of these years, I would get around to revisiting it. I guess that time is now.

Crazy Taxi - has it held up after over 20 years? Let's find out!

Story:

This game does not have a storyline. You simply pick from one of four different cab drivers. You are given a designated time limit to pick up passengers and take them to their destinations. Once your timer runs out, your earnings are tallied and the game is over. Again, there is no real story to be found here. You're essentially just playing for a high score.

Gameplay:

As I said before, the Sega Dreamcast version of Crazy Taxi has some extra features that the arcade version does not. Before we dive into the extra features, I'll explain how the arcade game works. You put in some money. You pick your driver. You get about a minute on the clock. Your goal is to pick up customers that are waiting for a ride. You can tell they are waiting for a ride because they will be standing in the middle of a colored circle. Green circles indicate high paying customers who are going a long ways. Yellow and red circles indicate lower fair customers whose destinations are located closer to you.

It is your goal to take your customer to their location as quickly as possible. The faster you are, the more money you earn. You also earn bonus time so you can keep playing. Next, you pick up another customer and take them to their destination. And then again. And then again. You're basically doing the same thing over and over again. Eventually you will run out of time, and the game will end. Your total earnings will be tallied, and depending on how much you earned, you can enter your initials as a high score.

Each round only lasts a few minutes. It's a fun few minutes, though. I always wanted to put another quarter in right away and try to beat my previous score. That said, I was never very good at this game. Is anyone, though? It's a game that is designed to F you over and make things as hard for you as possible.

What makes the game fun is how "in your face" it is. The bright colors, the loud Offspring music, the busy city streets full of cars to crash into and objects to knock over. There are real life locations in the game, like KFC and Tower Records. You can drive on the highway, through parking garages, and you can even get airborne flying over ramps and steep hills. It's just a really fun and chaotic experience.

The Dreamcast version of Crazy Taxi includes both Arcade and Original mode. Arcade mode is the exact same thing you see in the arcades (except you can adjust how much time you have to work with.) Original mode is very similar to arcade mode, but has a new part of the city that you can play through. The goal of each of these modes is to simply get the high score. As I mentioned before, there is no "beating" this game.

The Dreamcast version also offers Crazy Box mode. This mode contains challenges like launching yourself off of a ramp in order to get the longest distance, popping balloons before the time limit runs out, and knocking down bowling pins before the time runs out. Essentially these are minigames designed to increase your skill at the game. As you play, you learn how drifting and the speed boost work. So it helps you become a better player in the long run.

These challenges are pretty hard. I remember it taking a long time to complete them when I was younger. Honestly, I didn't put too much time into them this time around. I gave them each a handful of attempts. If I couldn't pass a challenge, I'd just move onto the next one.

Graphics:

This game holds up very well. The game's cities are bright and full of details and things to interact with. When you crash into things like garbage cans and stop signs, they go flying across the screen. There are pedestrians diving out of the way and cars to avoid all over the place. The overall graphics are sharp and pleasing to the eye. This is not a game you look at and say "hmmm that hasn't aged very well." Some games from this era look ugly, or have certain deficiencies that plague them, like frame rate dippage, slowdown, or draw distance issues. Crazy Taxi has none of that stuff.

The cityscapes are inspired by San Francisco. I am not familiar with San Francisco, so I am curious to see how accurate this game is to the actual setting. But everything is so active and bursting with activity. I love it.

Sound:

Ah, the music. This is probably what comes to everyone's mind when they think of Crazy Taxi. Its sweet, sweet Offspring soundtrack. This game also features a few tracks from Bad Religion, too, but it is mainly the Offspring that everyone remembers. Most notably, the song that starts with "yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!" There's just something about the Offspring music that really captures the sprit of the game. It's great. I'll include a link to these songs below.

The sound effects are good, too. The voice acting, the car noises, the noises of crashing into things. It's all hectic, chaotic, and wonderful. It really is a great sounding game.

Crazy Taxi music

Overall:

All right, down to the nitty gritty. Which game is better? Clearly, it is the Dreamcast version. It includes everything you'd get in the arcade version, and more. There is much more replay value here and much more bang for your buck. The experience of the arcade is a bit more immersive, with the steering wheel and the foot pedals and everything. But the Dreamcast version is the more complete game.

As much as I love Crazy Taxi and as much as it means to me, I can't really give it a glowing, upper echelon review score. I'd like to give it something in the A range but I just can't. There is so little meat on these bones. Each playthrough is only a few minutes long. You can't beat the game. Plus, the game is designed to be difficult in order to make you lose. So there are a lot of frustrating moments. It's always annoying when you get stuck in a pile up of cars, or when you are hitting the gas and you are just sitting there spinning your wheels, or when the arrow points you in a misleading direction.

I like a game with a goal and a purpose. I like a good story. I like to feel like I'm accomplishing something when I play a video game. Unfortunately, Crazy Taxi is just one of those games you can only pick up and play for a few minutes at a time. I liken it to Pac-Man, Centipede, Donkey Kong, and all those old types of arcade games where you are only playing for a high score. You can't actually complete the game, you're just playing a little snippet of it over and over again. I've never been a big fan of that kind of game. I've made this point repeatedly. Just look at some of my old reviews. Crazy Taxi is not immune from this type of disdain coming from me. Would I rather sit down and play a longer game with a storyline or would I rather sit down and play a whole bunch of short rounds of Crazy Taxi? Give me the longer game, please.

It may sound like I'm being unnecessarily harsh on Crazy Taxi, but I am going to give both versions of this game a positive score. The Dreamcast version gets the slight nod, but really, both games are good for the same thing - quick and exciting short bursts of gameplay. It's not something you sit down and play for hours on end. It's just something you put on for a few minutes while trying to beat your high score. Then you get tired of it and you move on.

Luckily, this game does just enough to keep itself forever relevant in my mind. The graphics, the music, the fun locations, the crazy traffic, the silly voice acting, the overall chaos of the game. It's a game I find incredibly endearing, even if I do recognize how shallow it is. So this game gets an easy recommendation from me.

THE GRADE:

ARCADE: B-

DREAMCAST: B

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