A few extra city blocks, a few new destinations and customers, even some new shortcuts would have been nice. Even better, what if the developers had spent a few months putting together a level editor for the game so that the PC community could get to work making their own cities and towns?
Before long we could have been ferrying passengers to and fro in every major city in the free world! Some day a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets. Until then, unscrupulous minicab drivers will continue to aggressively hawk their services, proceed to take you home via the Watford gap, and then have the temerity to charge you three times the agreed fare.
It may not be the most obvious subject for a game, but Crazy Taxi is about as far removed as it's possible to be from the depressing world of pine air freshener, Magic FM, and the stench of other people's sick.
In fact it's quite a cheery take on the lot of the cab driver, insanely so, as the name suggests. Peruse the surrounding screenshots, and you will find nothing but bold, bright colours, blue skies and smiling faces.
Not your average PC game then, you might be thinking, and you'd be absolutely right. If you've been living in your PC bunker for the last few years, let's bring you up to speed. A big hit in the arcades, Sega's Crazy Taxi was an obvious choice to appear on the Dreamcast, and did so to critical and commercial acclaim well, as commercial as you can be on a console owned by about eight people.
There was a Crazy Taxi 2, but it's the original that we are concerned with here. It's being converted to the PC by the same outfit that brought us Virtua Tennis, a game that shares a similar history: from arcade hit to Dreamcast classic to PC footnote in the space of a couple of years. Crazy Taxi may have had the Dreamcast brigade drooling into their bibs back in the day, but why on Earth would a discerning PC gamer want to play a two-year-old console game?
Rather than posing aggressive rhetorical questions, let's ask the game's producer, Strangelite's Danny Rawles. So is the notoriously snobbish PC community going to be interested? It's an ageless classic that still looks great and plays brilliantly - even in today's market.
We can't argue with that, but is there anything that can be done to improve upon the - admittedly excellent Dreamcast visuals? Our aim is to create a faithful conversion of the DC original and as such, for the majority of players, the game will look identical to the Dreamcast version. But for those with higher specification PCs, they can benefit from higher resolutions and increased draw distances. Other than that, it's exactly the same game, and one that sees you take the wheel of that big yellow car in the pictures.
Cruising round one of two fictional cities in the titular taxi, the idea is to take passengers to their intended destination in the quickest possible time, something of a breath of fresh air literally for anyone who regularly uses cabs in London.
A fairly simplistic concept, but there is more to it than that, such as the fact that tips can be earned by driving flamboyantly, or to be more accurate, dangerously.
Weaving through an impossible gap will yield a squeal of delight from your passenger, and an extra couple of dollars in your arse pocket. Yes, if it wasn't already blatantly obvious, the game is of course set in America.
As such, crass commercialism is rife, and a number of major brand name outlets provide some of the destinations. Although the general direction is hinted at by a great big arrow at the top of the screen, the cabbie's proverbial knowledge will come in handy, and being able to recognise areas and find your way around town will be invaluable.
Each city comes replete with a working traffic system, with none of the ambient drivers in the least bit bothered that you are in a hurry. As well as the two cities, a host of challenges are available, such as bursting balloons and even knocking down bowling pins, another parallel with Virtua Tennis.
The emphasis is clearly on 'fun', and Crazy Taxi could well prove a welcome departure from the goblin-ridden nonsense that traditionally pervades the PC. The game's producer certainly thinks so: "Absolutely.
Not only are these games fun to play but they are also fun to develop and produce. Crazy Taxi is one of those rare games that offers instant pick-up-and-play gratification. The game is insanely fast and fun to play and I strongly believe PC gamers will enjoy the 'adrenaline rush' gameplay that our console cousins have always raved about. It may have escaped your notice, but the PC is also privy to another high-profile console conversion of a driving game.
Both games are great in their own right but they are different enough to stand out on their own and not get in each other's way. In the happy-go-lucky world of Crazy Taxi, potential hit-and-run victims show amazing reflexes and athleticism, and prove impossible to mow down, something that may prove anathema to blood-crazed PC gamers.
According to Rawles, this is something PC gamers need to get over. The best Taxi players will try not to hit any objects at all because the whole premise of the game is about speed. Fair enough. Midtown Madness employed a similar system of pedestrians leaping out of the way, and that proved popular enough. Is there a direct comparison with that game?
It could almost be classed as a genre-defining game Of course it could. Whatever it is, it's certainly not a simulation, and while it may technically be classified as a driving game, it has more in common with Tony Hawk's Pro Skater than it does with the latest Formula One title.
Tricks and jumps are all part of your armoury, and the rules of physics are only very loosely adhered to. We've been playing an early beta version and it looks to be shaping up nicely, although with the sound currently restricted to just the overly cheery voices, it did eventually begin to grate.
The dialogue should prove less irritating against the background of a bustling city and the obligatory angry music, which is one area where the PC version could differ from its console counterpart. The original Dreamcast game featured a skate punk soundtrack from The Offspring and Bad Religion, but the PC conversion could boast something else.
As the producer admitted: "There will be four music tracks in the game but these are yet to be finalised, so I can't reveal any more about them. You can't cater for everyone's tastes so we are currently discussing the possibility of allowing the player to swap the game CD with a CD from their own music collection.
The game will automatically play the tracks from the inserted CD rather than the four default tracks for a more personal playing experience. Whatever happens, anything will be preferable to listening to Heart FM while slipping in and out of consciousness. Stop the car.
A film about a taxi driver might sound like the most boring thing ever, but Martin Scorsese proved otherwise in with the functionally named classic, Taxi Driver. Starring a menacing Robert De Niro as anti-hero Travis Bickle, a loner pushed to the edge by the sordid, violent scenes of the New York night shift, it's a powerful and dark experience.
Completely unlike Crazy Taxi, although amazingly there are plans for a film based on the game, director Richard Donner The Omen, Superman, Lethal Weapon l-IV, The Goonies has obtained the rights, and was quoted last year as saying: "I loved playing Crazy Taxi and I realised immediately that it had the potential to be a big summer event movie.
Sega's game franchise has the perfect mix of action, humour, and great characters to translate to the big screen. While a lot of videogames are set in science-fiction environments or fantasy worlds, Crazy Taxi is set in New York City with a Russian cab driver. If you do this right, it'll be a lot of fun. It's all gone very quiet since then though, and Sega is saying nothing. Frankly, we'd be amazed if it ever sees the light of day.
It's not often that a game is fought over in the offices here, but our copy of Crazy Taxi moved its way from desk to desk a lot more than your average game. It wasn't just the four guys reviewing the game who were scrabbling for it either There's something remarkably compelling about the game--and it's not just that it looks so good.
As we said last month, the sign of a really good arcade game is when it's simple and effective. Crazy Taxi doesn't get bogged down with overly complex concepts or rules If you remember the classic version of this game, you'll know what Crazy Taxi is all about, and if not, don't worry because we'll remind you: you'll drive a taxi around town picking up customers and taking them wherever they want before running out of time.
It seems easy but it's obviously not because you'll have to beat the countdown and a traffic nightmare that will make it impossible for you to drive as fast as you want to. The game is a fun simulator in which, you'll have to drive your taxi around at full speed, dodging all kinds of obstacles whilst you cause havoc with your skills behind the wheel.
Choose your taxi driver and drive as recklessly as possible with all sorts of combos that will scare the hell out of your passengers and reward you with more money.
Downloading this game will bring you back to those arcade games in which you have to drive your car as fast as possible to reach the checkpoint for the time ticks down to zero. Balancing Games. Ball Games. Barbie Games. Baseball Games. Basketball Games. Best Games. Bike Games. Bird Games. Board Games. Boat Games. Bowling Games. Boy Games. Brain Games. Bubble Shooter Games. Business Games. Car Games. Card Games. Cartoon Games. Casino Games. Christmas Games. Cinderella Games.
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