Crazy Taxi

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.