Not as fun as it was on the Dreamcast, but it's still crazy fun game!
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It's time for the Crazy Taxi review! For the Gamecube!
Crazy Taxi was developed by Sega and originally designed for the arcades. Later, it was ported over to the Dreamcast, which I had a copy of, and then later again, was ported over to other systems, including the Gamecube. Crazy Taxi was actually a launch title with the Gamecube, which I found to be a bit odd, considering the game was two years old at the time of the Gamecube's release. Now I want to make this clear: I never played the arcade version of Crazy Taxi, but I did spend hours and hours into the Dreamcast version, so if there's any comparison to be made, it will be with the Dreamcast's version, and not the arcade's.
The whole principle of this game is to pick up people in your cab, drive them to their destination, and make as much money as possible before time runs out. Simple concept right? Well if you're a customer in the game, get ready for the craziest and most dangerous taxi ride of your life! However, since you're not a customer, but the driver, this is just another normal day on the job. When you pick up a person, you're given a time limit to drive them to their destination. Now if you obeyed the rules of the road, you would virtually never get your customers to where they wanted to go in the time limit. But because there are no traffic lights, stop signs, or even cops on the road, even though there is a police station in the game, you get to drive, that's right, crazy! This means getting your customer to their destination by basically any means necessary, in your somehow indestructible car! The action seldom stops in this game!
When you first start out, you get to choose between two levels you want to play on: Arcade, or Original. Now you can choose to either play with Arcade rules, which I'll explain in a bit, or if you just want to play for three, five, or ten minutes. Now it's time to choose which driver and their cab you want to use. Now I did hear that each car has different attributes such as more or less speed and control than other cars, and I think I have to agree with that statement. However, I found that all four cabs are VERY similar in speed and control, and I don't think it's going to make THAT much of a difference regarding which car you choose to play the game with.
If you chose to play for a set amount of minutes, that's really all the time you get to play. Now if you want to have some REAL fun, and have the potential to play forever, you'll want to play with the Arcade rules, and this is how it works: When you first start driving, you're given 50 seconds to play. As I stated before, when you pick up a customer, you're given a second time limit to bring them to their destination. When you pick someone up, your game time limit is extended. How much time you receive depends on how far away their destination is from where they're picked up. If you bring them to their destination quickly, you will be awarded with five extra seconds to your game time limit. If you brought them within a fair amount of time, you will be awarded with two extra seconds, and if you brought them late, you will receive no extra seconds. And if you really screwed up, they will jump out of your car, and your cab fare for that person will disappear!
There's a variety of customers who will want to go to short or far away destinations. The customers in red will have the shortest destination, and the ones in green will have the longest. In my opinion, the key to your success in this game is to try to always go for green customers. They have the most cash and will give you the highest time limit. Now I just have to stop here and say, these people are insane! For one, they're getting in and taking a this kind of cab ride which in real life, would kill you in the first five seconds, and two, look at how much they're willing to spend on a cab ride! Hundreds and hundreds of dollars! How are they able to afford that!? And WHY would they waste they're money like that!? If they're going to spend THAT much money on something so dangerous, why not go skydiving? Oh yeah, it's a game…So anyway, in my experience, if you just go for red and orange customers, you're not going to get very far. So always try to go for at least yellow customers, but lime-green and green customers are the money makers!
As you're playing, your customers will give you tips for your excellent, but stupid, driving skills! You receive tips for passing other vehicles at a really close range, and using your Crazy Drift, which helps you turn on sharp corners. You'll also receive tips for going of jumps which is so much fun!
The Gamecube's version of Crazy Taxi looks very similar to the Dreamcast's version. As a Gamecube game, it doesn't look that good. However, as a Dreamcast game, it's not that bad. Sure, they do look a little blocky, and the animations of the characters are pretty shallow, but it's still not that bad as a Dreamcast game. And since this is a port of the Dreamcast's version, I'll just say the graphics are pretty good.
The controls are almost perfect! You'll use the R and L buttons to accelerate and brake, and of course, use the analog stick to control. I guess the only problem I had with the controls is when you're performing a Crazy Drift. Sometimes you would turn too much or not enough which can really mess you up and cause you to deliver your customer to their destination later than you would have wanted. Everything else though was fine.
Now this might sound odd, but there's something about the Gamecube's version of Crazy Taxi which just doesn't have the same appeal as the Dreamcast's version. Don't get me wrong, the game is fun on the Gamecube, but it just isn't as fun as it was on the Dreamcast. I seriously don't know why it's like this for me, but it is.
Another downside was the level size. After playing it for so long, I kept wishing there was another level, or at least make the two levels larger in area. I just think they're too small.
As well as the main game, there are also a bunch of mini-missions you can complete which are fun, and when you're a new comer to the game, can be quite difficult too, which I really liked!
Crazy Taxi is a really fun game! Like I said before, as a Gamecube game, the graphics are not that good, but as a port of the Dreamcast version, they're not that bad. It also has almost perfect controls, great fast-paced action, and can be very addicting!
But the downsides were, that I thought the level size was just a little too small, the controls for the Crazy Drift could become a bit frustrating, the camera could go berserk just every once in a while, there are only three songs in the game, which are pretty cool at first, but can get tiresome after a while, and I don't know what it is, but the Gamecube's version is just not as fun as the Dreamcast's version.
But overall, it's still a very fun game to play! I've heard people say they REALLY don't like the ports of this game, and say that the arcade version was the best. If that's how you feel, fine. But I never played the arcade version, just the Dreamcast's and the Gamecube's, so I'm judging the game on that basis. If you haven't experienced Crazy Taxi before, I'd say try to play the Dreamcast's version, as I think it's better than this one. However, this version is still pretty fun to play!
This game gets a 3.75/5 with the title of Awesome!
Ratings:
0=COMPLETE AND ULTIMATE FAIL!!!!!
.25-.75=Total Crap!
1-1.5 = Horrible!
1.75-2.5=Bad
2.75-3.5=Good
3.75-4.25=Awesome!
4.5-4.75=EPIC!!!
5=MONUMENTALLY AND SUPREMELY PERFECT!!!!!