Crazy Taxi

Finally, a fun driving game where the emphasis is on speed and control. Wait a minute - almost every driving game is like that. But do the others let you mow down pedestrians, cause massive accidents, or go flying over obstacles? They would if they got Crazy!

Finally, a fun driving game where the emphasis is on speed and control. Wait a minute - almost every driving game is like that. But do the others let you mow down pedestrians, cause massive accidents, or go flying over obstacles? They would if they got Crazy!

Fare Thee Well
In Crazy Taxi (based on the arcade game of the same name), you pilot one of four taxis through a city based loosely on San Francisco. You'll be shuttling passengers through various tourist sites like the beach or the cable car stops, along with some annoyingly commercial destinations, like Kentucky Fried Chicken, the Original Levi's Store, and Tower Records. Passengers are spread out everywhere, but you're timed, so you have to find the best shortcuts and time-shaving secrets, like barreling out of the second story of a parking garage, or drifting dangerously into a crowd to pick up a passenger.

But don't think the game is a one-stop cab-stand that ends when you've driven through the whole city (which is surprisingly small). In addition to the arcade mode, there's a feature called Crazy Box. In Crazy Box, you have a ton of mini-games that you have to complete, and they're about as hard as finding a clean cab in New York City. You'll have to learn how to Crazy Drift (drifting while adding up combo points), Crazy Charge (dashing through traffic with a burst of speed), and Crazy Dash (speed burst) through sixteen very trying games. One game expects you to knock down huge bowling pins in a larger-than-life bowling lane while getting to the end in a timed showdown. That's 70 pins in 30 seconds. Sounds easy? Yeah, right.

Dent Try This at Home
The graphics are amazing, as is the case with most AM products (Virtua Fighter 3, Sonic, etc), and the animation of the scurrying crowd and the bustling city is fabulous. There are some draw-in occurrences, but they're very minor. There's also a couple of spots where the car gets stuck in the scenery, and that's not so minor.

The sound is funny at times, and repetitive at its worst. There are a few songs on the soundtrack that fit the game perfectly (most notably by Offspring), until you have to play the same mini-game over and over again. By the time you complete the more difficult of the mini-games you'll want to do some serious damage to the Offspring.

Control is simple, but advanced controls (like the Crazy Drift or Crazy Dash) take timing and skill. There are also some flaws in the control that make you want to go Offspring on the Dreamcast. Most notably is when you're making good time in a mini-game or regular game and the car stalls on you, peeling out on the grass and not going anywhere. This only seems to happen when you're desperate to make up crucial seconds.

Death and Taxis
The game also seems fairly short. A couple of afternoons of serious concentration will get you past most of the mini-games, and after that it's all about best scores and highest point totals. But getting past all that and letting your cab rip through the streets is what Crazy Taxi is all about, and that part of the game is more fun than you've had on your Dreamcast yet. Crazy Taxi is a wild ride and you definitely should apply for your license, even if your cab run is shorter than expected.

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