Back in 2000, the Dreamcast was our new electronic toy of choice and was one of the games I played the most. At first, I was sceptic about this kind of racing game, but it didn’t take long for me to get completely addicted to those crazy cab rides.
I’ve been looking forward to the re-release of Crazy Taxi on Xbox Live Arcade. I loved the game, the music, the silly exclamations of the cabbies and their customers. It was a ton of fun back then, and I was expecting it to be a ton of fun now. But it wasn’t.
For those not familiar with the original title, Crazy Taxi is a different take on the racing genre. You pick up passengers and drop them off at their destination, and get paid according to how fast you got there and how many stunts you did on the way there. Fares are represented by a dollar sign above the customers’ heads: red for a close one, yellow for a medium distance, green for the furthest drive. You can earn bonus money as you go by doing crazy drifts, crazy jumps and crazy throughs (passing really close to other vehicles), which is added on top of the customer’s fare.
Crazy Taxi has three game modes, Arcade, Original and Crazy Box. Arcade is what I remember seeing in the arcade machine (my first contact with the game) and the one I played the most.
The area sort of loops after a while, taking you back to the initial strip where you begin. Original is much more challenging, with plenty of ups and downs, twists and turns, and some stretches of road by the sea. You can go for an underwater drive, if you feel so inclined… or if you fall over. Both modes are reminiscent of the hills of San Francisco.
Crazy Box is the ultimate skills challenge, requiring you to test your cabbie abilities by doing a series of mini-games, such as distance jump, bowling, popping balloons, driving customers to destinations. It helps when you know which cabbie to use for each task, since a certain vehicle may be great for drifting and suck at jumping. By driving with everyone in the Arcade or Original modes, you will learn which car is better suited for the challenge you’ve been working on unsuccessfully. And let me tell you, even if you switch that difficulty level all the way back to Easy, it will still give you a hard time. Why?
Well, here’s the first fault of this re-release: it doesn’t control as well. It was easy for me before to play on a medium difficulty, without much trouble passing cars or chaining crazy throughs, and now it’s just frustrating. The cars seem “bouncy” and turning feels like you’re either turning too much or too little, and the boost command doesn’t work as well as it’s supposed to. I remember having cramps on my hand just from using it as much as possible, and now I’ll be lucky if I can get it working three consecutive times.
There also seem to be a lot more collision issues. I don’t mean going right through the person you’re about to pick up, or them walking through the cab to get to their seat, but there are times when you will slightly hit something and end up bouncing around like a pinball or driving on two wheels uncontrollably for a period of time. It’s bizarre, and there should have been a reset for these situations, since they just make you waste time as you watch the timer count down.
Now, one of the things that gave Crazy Taxi the awesome upbeat atmosphere was the cool Offspring and Bad Religion soundtrack. Revving up your engine to the beginning of “All I Want” was the best! Unfortunately, that is nowhere to be seen, and this new soundtrack is just forgettable (so hooray for custom soundtrack options on the Xbox 360). I’d honestly rather play with it off, since the few songs repeat a lot and they annoy the crap out of me. I suppose this is the result of some licensing issue, and it’s not the only one, seeing as the brand “landmarks” are now gone as well: there is no KFC, no Pizza Hut and no Levi’s Store to drive to anymore.
Also unfortunate are the sounds and voices. The bangs and clanks are too overpowering over the cabbie and passenger comments. The voices aren’t what I remember either, so the funny tone of “Hey-hey! Can’t you park a little closer???” by what sounded like a very upset black lady, or the more common “Shut up and move your butt!” seem to be too inconspicuous, and the cabbies seem to have lost their personality over this technicality.
I wish I could say I am still having fun with Crazy Taxi 10 years later, but all I can think about right now is to clear a spot on the shelves to plug the Dreamcast back in and enjoy the original title in all its glory. Because as it stands, I’m just getting some achievements and putting the XBLA version aside.