Crazy Taxi
Reviewed by Dale Kulas
The Game
Based on the smash arcade hit by Sega, in this game you
control 1 of 4 cabbies, and go cruising around town, taking
civilians to there destination within a certain time limit
to earn cash. Will this game gave us all the same thrills we
experienced from the arcade version of the game, or fail
miserably? Lets get onto the review and find out.
Graphics
WOW! An arcade perfect translation, both the arcade and
Dreamcast versions of the game use the Naomi software, so
this game looks exactly how it did in the arcades. All of
the game's visuals are fantastic, the citie look great where
you can tell apart the banks, parks, Pizza Huts, and
Kentucky Fried Chicken's . All the cars are detailed down to
every notch to where you can see other cars on the road
using their blinkers, and all the civilians look great, and
surprisingly stick out in front of all the cars driving
along from a little kid, to a pregnant woman. And to make
sure you know which driver needs to hitch a ride, a big old
polygon is surrounding the area you can pick him up him.
Their really isn't nothing bad about the graphics, there's
no slowdown going on at all during all this wacky action, no
noticeable missing details from the visuals at all, so
graphics are the best thing in this game.
Sound
The soundtrack for this game rules! Sega got hit bands like
Offspring and Bad Religion to do some exclusive tunes for
this game. I always got that 'All I Want' song stuck in my
head. There's lots of voice samples in this game too, where
the people you cab around demanding you step the wheel or
slowdown and telling you where to go and, your cabbies
responding to them with some rather smart remarks. The guy
who introduces the game gets annoying right away, but it
really doesn't effect the score of the sound any ways.
Game play
The game controls rather smooth and easy like the arcade
version, where you use the L & R triggers to accelerate and
brake, and the B button to shift drive and reverse gears,
and that's about it. The control stick allows for easy
steering so you'll be getting the controls down for this
game in no time with ease.
Now onto the game modes. For starters, you got Arcade mode
where you can play by Arcade rules where you get extra
seconds for game play time depending on how fast you take
your customers to there destination. Then there's original
mode where you get to cruise around where for either 3, 5,
or 10 minutes, but there's only one city to drive around in,
and you don't get extra seconds added to your time like in
arcade mode. Game control is pretty good in the game, but
it's kinda hard to steer your car underwater (kinda
unbelievable you can actually drive underground too!).
Sometimes it's hard to keep your eye on the arrow and on the
road at once, and every now and then you might miss a turn,
which will make you get a little frustrated at the game.
But exclusive to the Dreamcast version of the game is the
Crazy Box mode, consisting of 9 mini games, and 6 hidden
mini-games that have wacky challenges like taking a customer
to a destination following a series of ramps and not falling
into the water, or driving up a parking ramp through heavy
traffic in a short amount of time, and there's just so much
to do. You can have up to 4 save files on your VMU, and it
also keeps track of high scores for bragging rights.
Replay Value
The Crazy Box mode sure does add a lot of replay value by
adding all those exclusive, Dreamcast only, mini-games for
lots of added fun, But where's the 2-player mode? You think
Sega could've squeezed in some sort of multi player mode, so
this game might not be as playable as you though it was.
With just the added Crazy Box feature and the Arcade and
Original modes, I only found myself playing this game for
about a month or two before it hit the closet.
In Brief
+: Perfect arcade-to-console translation, Added Crazy Box
mini games are fun to play
-: A 2-player mode seemed like a must for the console
version that was not in here, seems like more other features
could've been added
The Final Ratings Rundown
Graphics: 9. 3
Sound: 9. 0
Game play: 8. 1
Replay Value: 5. 8
Overall: 8 out of 10
Final Analysis
A great, fun conversion of the arcade hit. If you love the
arcade version, then pick it up for Dreamcast and save
yourself a lot of quarters, but if you're looking for a lot
of extras, and I mean a lot of extras, then you might be
disappointed, sure the crazy box is full of fun mini games,
but a 2-player mode would've made the game just perfect, so
I only recommend buying this game if you really liked the
arcade version, but if you weren't the biggest fan, I say
just rent the game a few times and you'll be done with it.
OR
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