Crazy Taxi (クレイジータクシー)

Pick up fares and drive them to their destination.

Crazy Taxi is a fresh and inventive game which brings a much needed blast of originality to a largely stagnant arcade scene choked with sequels, remakes, and rigidly generic titles. Crazy Taxi is built ontop of a straightforward driving engine, but instead of racing around a track with other vehicles, the player is racing through busy city streets picking up passengers and taking them to various destinations. The faster you get your fare to where they want to go, the more cash (points) you make, and the more "bonus time" is added to your clock. Once your clock runs out, the game is over. Fares come in different classes, with color indicating the distance each wishes to travel. Finding the optimal route through the city and balancing your remaining time against available fares can be extremely challenging.

This simple gameplay structure leads to an extremely compelling experience as the player darts and weaves through traffic looking for shortcuts and dodging through a set of always-changing dynamic hazards. Exploring this open-ended urban setting creates a feeling of freedom in stark contrast to the track-based gameplay of driving games, the pre-defined paths of light-gun shooters and the claustrophobic arenas of fighting games. Any gamer who enjoyed the wicked pleasures of Grand Theft Auto on the PC and home consoles will recognize the same anarchic spirit at play here.

The game is filled with wonderful details: shrieking passengers, tumbling debris, even the Offspring / Bad Religion soundtrack is perfectly suited to the chaotic energy of the action. Crazy Taxi avoids gratuitous violence and hardware gimmicks to deliver the arcade goods the old-fashioned way: clever, original, addictive gameplay.

- Nefastis

Additional Notes by the Editor:

Reverse the Game Play

Unverified: Normally when you begin playing the game, your taxi is already headed forward, and your first available fares generally want to go to the Street Car stop. If you HOLD the gear selector in REVERSE while HOLDING the BRAKE AND ACCELERATOR before you press start to begin the game, your taxi will be facing the opposite direction, and a whole new route of fares begins!