Crazy Taxi

aka: Crazy Taxi Classic
Moby ID: 3575
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Description official descriptions

Crazy Taxi is an arcade-like racer where the player takes the role of a taxi driver who weaves his way through crowded streets, across sidewalks, and even underwater, in a wild and frantic race to deliver passengers on time. The courses are largely set inside cities crowded with general traffic and pedestrians (which can't be run over, they dive away). The main goal is to bring as many customers as possible to their destination in time. Available customers are marked through circles and the color represents the distance and the fare they offer. Green means long rides with plenty of money, and red ones are very short.

In the main Arcade mode, there is a timer that quickly runs down. It can be replenished by picking up customers. While driving reckless maneuvers are encouraged. Players can disregard all traffic rules and customers give extra tips for speedy and dangerous driving, but these can only be cashed when the customer arrives at his destination in time. By the same token, the reward at the end of a ride is based on the amount of time left, as each customer also has a personal timer. The city is filled with slopes and jumps, and the game uses a very loose driving model. No damage can be done to the car, so driving as fast as possible is encouraged. While driving players can toy with the gears to perform two special tricks: a crazy drift and a crazy boost to speed up more quickly.

Next to the Arcade mode, there is an Original mode and Crazy Box where specific goals need to be met on closed-down courses. In the regular modes, it is possible to disregard the usual timer and play for a fixed amount of minutes. At the end of the race, the player is rewarded with a license, either D, C, B, or A, with S for outstanding performance. Next to the interactive courses from the arcade version, there is a new course for home consoles. There are four cabs and drivers to choose from. The cars have different statistics and the drivers' different attitudes while racing. The game has a soundtrack featuring The Offspring and Bad Religion (not for the Xbox 360 version).

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Credits (Arcade version)

48 People (35 developers, 13 thanks) · View all

Chief Graphic Designer
Graphic Designers
Character Designer
Chief Programmer
Programmers
Technical Support
Mechanical Supervisor
Mechanic Engineers
Electric Engineer
Cabinet Designer
Sound Supervisor
Music - Hear It, Ten In 2010, Them and Us, Inner Logic
  • Bad Religion
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 79% (based on 93 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 228 ratings with 10 reviews)

A Far Cry from the Arcade

The Good
The actual concept and gameplay in Crazy Taxi is always fun, even when presented in an extremely flawed way. The repeat value completely hinges on wanting to beat your past performance (for better or for worse)

The Bad
First complaint: The controls. So much is lost in translation between the arcade steering wheel and the gamecube controller. The controls are so sensitive; a slight push of the stick and you do an incredibly sharp turn. Something about the arcade controls limited the movement so that your car moved like an actual car... and not something with 4 wheel steering.

Second Complaint: The Graphics. No additional work was done on the Gamecube release of the game. This translates into an extremely sub-par looking game for the system. Extensive clipping, clunky character models, and poor textures seem like the product of an older system.

Third Complaint: Lack of Additional Features. I guess I shouldn't complain about the lack of additional features; they're there alright. However, sloppy mini-game additions that could have been programmed in an evening are not even worth putting on the disc. So, we're basically left with a simple Crazy Taxi arcade release without any other significant draws.



The Bottom Line
Basically a direct port of the arcade release that doesn't hold up nearly as well as it should.

GameCube · by Game22 (35) · 2004

Funny at first, then just annoying.

The Good
Crazy Taxi is one of those simple action games that takes a basic, easy to learn premise and fleshes it out into a funny and addictive (for a while anyway) game by keeping it all simple.

I guess you could call the game a driving game at heart, an EXTREMELY arcade driving game, where the objective is to outlast a timer by picking up customers and taking them across the city towards their destination for money and extra seconds. If you've played the GTA3 Taxi missions then you know what I'm talking about, you approach a character with a $ sign on his head, stop in a clearly marked "pick-up radius" and head on to whatever destination he/she wants to, following an arrow-compass. That's it. Of course, what makes Crazi Taxi Crazi Taxi is that the seemingly simple gameplay premise is jacked-up to much faster and frenetic levels, with heavier traffic, a much tighter time limit, faster vehicles (and a closer camera view that makes the sense of speed even greater) and a much wilder terrain with jump-friendly areas practically on every street and with even a set of "special moves" that make the already cartoonish physics a complete joke by basically adding the possibility to perform impossibly tight turns and "dashing" forward with your car (yeah, you read that right). The "course" for the game is a gigantic virtual city with it's collection of shortcuts and varied landmarks that include winding San Francisco-like hills, beaches, residential areas, comercial plazas, etc. and to be honest it's a pretty amazing sight. A sunny coastal city fully rendered and fully populated with all sorts of vehicles and persons.

The PC version also comes with a set of extras ported over from the DC version, and those include an extra city for when you get bored with the original one and which is more of a metropolis-like city than the original touristy one, a selection of arcade or time-locked modes (where you can't earn extra seconds and basically play to see how much money you can get in X minutes), and a series of challenges that are single-area scenarios that basically revolve around you mastering the varied special moves and making all sort of jumps, dashes, etc.

The graphics mantain the same texture detail and effects (or lack of, really) as in the original, but the PC version allows you to adjust the resolution to stratospheric levels and provides a good, albeit dated, visual quality.

The Bad
Regardless of the added areas and challenges, the longevity of the game is basically nule. Sure, in the arcades it seemed as if the game always left you wanting more, but once you have it with you on a permanent basis the game just dies out on you, and does so because of two major reasons:

First, the gameplay is really nothing deep. After all, It's just a little, dumb, arcade racer, and I take the "racer" with many reservations. Quite frankly this game has the most flat-out ridiculous physics model I've ever seen on a game like this. Sure arcade racers aren't known for their realism and that's ok since you don't want to play a sim, however this time it's just incredible! You don't drive car, you control a...."thing" that appears to slide over the ground following your controller input and ignoring anything that gets in it's way and such nuances as the speed and direction that it was moving on. You can take 90-degree curves as if on rails, ram head on against oncoming trucks and send THEM flying, accelerate from 0 to 100 in a nanosecond, even drive underwater and wave goodbye to the passing whales!! (No, I'm not making that up), suffice to say that even Twisted Metal has a more realistic driving model. And while you may think that makes the game what it is and that I'm a fool for even bringing it up, you should know that's one of the main reasons the game becomes so boring after a while... after all you just jam your finger on the accelerate button and just go to wherever the arrow points at, there is no difference in any of the available taxis (except for a little shift in mass that comes in handy when crashing against other vehicles) and there's no challenge at all to the game. Plus there are the usual arcade glitches that leave you scratching your head and cursing the arcade driving model, such as the nasty collision detection that somehow tends to "lock" your car to a wall if you crash into it at an angle (instead of bumping against it or just bouncing off it) forcing you to go in reverse and then leaving the "sticky" walls, or the unpredictable power-slides (when you want to slide, the car will turn as if on rails, and viceversa), etc. etc...

The other reason that will kill the game in no-time for most people with average sensibilities is that it's just the most annoying game on the face of the earth! Apparently SEGA took the "Crazy" moniker to heart and to speed the game up to even more frenetic levels gave each character and the announcer an infuriating bubbly "tee-hee" voice and stupid catchy phrases (all with "Crazy" somewhere) plus they signed 5 or so songs from The Offspring and some similar bands... That repeat over and over and over again... Result? It's teeny-bopper hell for anyone trying to play this game for more than 10 minutes, with an average session containing such wonderful moments as:

"-He-HEEEYY!! Hop on in!! - Hi! Take me to the Original Levi's Store!! (ka-chiiiiiing...)Tee-heee...!! - Let's Roll....like CRAZY!!!" ... Get Craaaaazy! Let's make some Craaaaazy Money!!!, WooooooHOOOO!! That was Craaaaaazy!!! Dude, That's the Craaaaaziest!! You are Craaaazy man!! CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY!!! AAARGH!!

And on top of all that insanity you have to listen to the popcorn teeny neo-punk crap of the Offspring!!! GOOD GOD!! This game makEs me wAnt to mURdER pEoplE!! JUST KILL EVERYBODY IN LITTLE PIECES WITH A MACHETE AND RIP OUT THEIR ORGANS WITH A CHAINSAW AAANDDDD.......uh.... well, er anyway, the game is just infuriating... it's the gaming equivalent of an annoying hyperactive 5-year old kid high on caffeine.

(And to clarify things, for me punk rock is spelled with a "Ramones" and a "Sex Pistols" or maybe a "NOFX" or a "Green Day" if you want to be more in tune with the times... NOT by ripping off the god damn Beatles!)

The Bottom Line
Simple concept, Good execution. That's it! Crazy Taxi is a nice diversion, but your average goldfish will outlive it's longevity. One of those games that once past the novelty fun just doesn't offer any meat to really chew on, and thus dies out in a matter of hours.

And please, Do NOT play this game if you have a Psychotic disorder of any kind! Consult with your therapist before installing!

Windows · by Zovni (10503) · 2003

Still one heck of a fine game.

The Good
The first thing that grabbed me was the graphics, now I'd like to note that I have never seen the game in arcade form, so my first experience was on the Dreamcast.

The things I love about Crazy Taxi are the size of the cities, the randomness of destinations (although after six years it's less random than as it seems at first) the control setup, and the music.

The cities are big for a game such as this. Sure, they are dwarfed by the 3-D Grand Theft Auto games, but feel just fine for Crazy Taxi. Perhaps this review is biased since I mainly play the "Arcade" City as opposed to the (new for Dreamcast) "Original" City, because the design of the Arcade city is near flawless where the Original needs some adjustments, and has a huge framerate drop in the center of town which just spoils the otherwise 60 FPS fun.

At first glance, the passengers seem to be very random in where they want to go, which is good, but after years of playing Crazy Taxi one gets to learn that these encounters are less random than one would believe, although still the game will throw me a curve ball when a Priest tells me to take him to the Pizza Hut, where in 99 times out of 100 he'll want to go to the Church.

The controls for Crazy Taxi are something special. To properly play the game one has to know to think 5 seconds ahead of themselves, at least, because the game isn't dumbed down to give the player a 'Boost' or 'Handbrake' button, but instead these functions come in play by manipulation of the Dreamcast triggers (gas & brake), two face buttons (Drive and Reverse) and the analog stick (or D-Pad if one prefers it). I really can't tell the reader how to perform a "Crazy Boost", "Limit Cut", "Crazy Drift", etc. not because I can't do it anymore, but because I do such things these days as automatic as breathing. Some people would call it a Zen thing.

Finally there's the music. During the menus there are cuts from Bad Religion and The Offspring, and in the game there are nearly full songs by both bands as well. Although there are only four songs played during gameplay, two by Bad Religion and two by The Offspring, there is for some reason unknown to me why these songs never seem to get old (while playing Crazy Taxi anyway). Furthermore, in one of the songs by The Offspring the "F-Word" is used and SEGA didn't edit it out. (The PS2 and GCN versions do have that word removed)

Crazy Taxi also features a number of mini games that take place mostly in a confined (for the test) area and sometimes on the maps themselves. The mini games are there not to make the game seem like "it's more than just an arcade port" but more to train the player on how be really good at playing the main game. That's my take on it anyway. But for beating the mini games players can have access to another mode of transportation that is faster than any cab, but not so great in stopping. For these unlockable modes of transport one has to think ten seconds ahead.

The Bad
There's some pop-up for level structure and some nasty draw in on traffic in some parts of each map, but it doesn't truly distract the game to make it unplayable. There's not much else I can say bad about the game, but if one is in a bad mood, I would suggest not playing it, since I do find the customers to be verbally abusive at times.

The Bottom Line
This game is amazing! It's fast, 60 frames per second kind of fast. The gameplay seems basic at first, and it may seem like you are seeing the "Game Over" screen often, but that's only because you see a car and play it like you would with a true racing game. Crazy Taxi is not that at all. It has many tricks up its sleeves, and just looks like a racer. For instance, think of the first time you played Street Fighter II, you had six buttons an a joystick, and still the AI or a person beat you because all you thought you could do was three punches and three kicks. The same goes for Crazy Taxi, it may look like a pretty but shallow game, but it's deeper than one may think.

Dreamcast · by TreyTable (3) · 2006

[ View all 10 player reviews ]

Trivia

Lawsuit

The December 2003 lawsuit filed by Sega against Fox Entertainment claims that The Simpsons: Road Rage infringes on a patent owned by Sega of America. Specifically, Sega claims that The Simpsons: Road Rage gameplay is too close to that of Crazy Taxi. It was eventually settled in private.

The abstract for the patent reads as follows:

A driving game, wherein players having various driving skills--from beginners to those advanced--may enjoy both aspects of amusement and simulation in consistency. The game device of the present invention has an element for providing to a player a plurality of different movement modes upon moving the vehicle along a traveling line. Upon selection of a desired movement mode, a vehicle-driving game relating to the driving mode selected by the player is executed. Included in this plurality of driving modes are an assist mode in which auto-brake control is performed and a training mode in which various indications, such as the timing of the braking point, are given.

The full patent is available here.

Product placement

Product placement at its best: Kentucky Fried Chicken, Tower Records and Levi Jeans. Each one is present as a location in Crazy Taxi.

Information also contributed by Terrence Bosky

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Brolin Empey.

PlayStation 2, GameCube added by Kartanym. OnLive added by firefang9212. Xbox 360, Android, PlayStation Now added by Sciere. iPhone, iPad added by Kabushi. Arcade added by The cranky hermit. PlayStation 3 added by Crawly. Xbox One added by MAT. Windows added by Rantanplan.

Additional contributors: Zovni, Guy Chapman, Sciere, DreinIX, Patrick Bregger, GTramp, Victor Vance.

Game added April 2, 2001. Last modified March 15, 2024.