Review #186: Crazy Taxi

 YA YA YA YA YA YA YA!

 I love Crazy Taxi. It's one of Sega's finest Arcade Games, in which you play as a, ahem, Crazy Taxi... driver, and you must take different passengers to their desired destinations. It's an Arcade game through and through, which means it's fast paced, and the physics go through the window in favor of fun.

 The game has three modes: Original, Arcade and Crazy Box. Original and Arcade are basically the same game but in different towns. You can play either under the Arcade rules, in which you start with one minute-time to get your fare, but successfully driving a passenger to his destination gains you more time, or under set 3,5 or 10 minute runs. Furthermore, there's the 'Expert' and 'another day' variations unlocked by holding L1+R1 or simply L1 while choosing your ride. Crazy Box is a 'mission mode' of sorts that houses many different objectives, like knocking down all the bowling pins on the road, or popping every balloon on a field, etc. It's a fun little diversion, but it ain't much more than that. It also unlocks alternate cars for all four drivers.

  Gameplays is incredibly simple: You drive around town, look for people with dollar signs over their heads(Green, Yellow, Orange and Red, signifying how challenging the route is), stop nearby and drive them to their destination, there's no map, but an arrow on top of the screen aids you in getting to your mark. That's all there is to the game, really, but there's genius in its simplicity, going around the town is so much fun, no in small part thanks to the physics that makes everything feel very light, yet the collisions are satisfying... not that you'd want to collide, since you earn bonus money(Points) for 'near missing' other cars.

 To be fair, the game can get a bit dull after repeated sessions. The controls are something I didn't really like either, accelerating and breaking is just fine, but in order to go in reverse, you have to switch gears, which I thought was annoying. There really is no point to shifting gears in a game like this, and even then, X puts you in Reverse while Circle puts you back driving forward... it should've been just one button. I never really got a hang of it, even after mastering the Crazy Drift(Shift gears while drifting).

 The graphics are... kinda bad, and while I usually wouldn't care, there's no excuse for the framerate drops every now and then. They aren't very common, but with graphics this simple, this shouldn't be an issue. The music is comprised of Punk-rock music, mostly by the Offspring, they suit the game so well that I have a hard time imagining Crazy Taxi with any other soundtrack!

 As much as I love Crazy Taxi, there's no denying that the game gets boring after a while. The game could've used a little more variety as well, both towns look and feel very similar. Still, it's a decent game to pass the time.
 7.5 out of 10