Though highly flawed, Crazy Taxi will provide a good amount of fun
The premise of Crazy Taxi is very basic. You're a taxi driver that has a given amount of time to pick up as many customers as they can. You gain higher amounts of cash from the customer as you make dangerous passes, drifts, and ramps, while trying to make it to the destination as fast as you can. If you make it at a short amount of time, you get a higher time bonus from the customer and a nice amount of money. However if you take your sweet time and irritate the customer, you simply lose the customer and gain no cash. The best way of earning the maximum amount of money is to drive with recklessness, speed, and style, which for some reason amuse the customers.
You play as four taxi drivers, which range from Axel, B.D. Joe, Gena, and Gus. There are not huge differences in the choices that you make in terms of gameplay, with the exception of you being placed in different areas at the start of your run. It is also worth noting that the characters have no real personalities and just feel like generic rebellious people. But then again this is an arcade game, so nobody should expect Citizen Kane-like dialog with the characters.
The gameplay is very arcade like and feels very fast paced. The cars move at an unrealistic speed and you can make ridiculous drifts, while being able to drive underwater and ramp off roofs. It's just simple mindless fun. The car driving also feels pretty smooth as you tear through the city trying to get the customers to their destinations. Though it may be smooth, there are quite a few glitches in the game, such as being able to drift off walls. A complaint that I have is that whenever you hit the traffic you bounce back rather far and it can often cause a lot of irritation, especially when you are driving through oncoming traffic.
The driving also feels rather slippery at times, allowing you to easily make sharp turns and wild drifts. Throughout the game, you learn a variety of skills to make your driving more stylish and quicker, such as ramping off a bridge at a high speed to land on a roof and reduce the destination by a few seconds.
There are two locations to choose from, which consist of the original city found in the arcade versions, cleverly coined Arcade Mode, with the second one being a completely new location, coined Original Mode. Out of the two I personally enjoyed both, but one major complaint I have with the Arcade Mode is that there are way too many highways with oncoming cars and certain areas just feel too stretched out. The main city however is very fun to play in with many familiar product placements as driving locations for the customers, ranging from Pizza Hut to Levi's.
The Original Mode has a different layout with a more bay-like feel, but one huge mistake that Sega made when making the game was not fixing the arrow, which tells you which direction you must go when driving your passenger. There were countless times that the arrow led me to a wall, causing me to go the "wrong way" in order to deliver the passenger to the correct place. This can get rather frustrating and annoy many people trying to get a high score. Fortunately this issue is not present in Arcade Mode at all. All in all both modes are very fun and these issues don't strongly detract from the fun you were to have.
Another thing worth noting is the addition of the Crazy Box mode, which is not included in the arcade versions. Crazy Box is basically a mission mode, in which you complete small tasks, such as ramping for a certain amount of feet all the way to bowling with your car. As your skills progress, challenges get harder to complete, in which you need to get practice on. Crazy Box is a bit amusing at first, but in essence it is nothing that you should go crazy for.
The graphics of the game are all right. Virtually nothing has been changed in terms of graphics from the arcade version; so don't expect stunning, cutting edge graphics in this game. The city is nice and colorful, yet there are many areas that lack real polish. All the characters in the game keep the same facial features and really just look like Barbie dolls. This can especially be said about B.D. Joe, who for some reason can talk to customers, while never moving his mouth, but just keeps that giant creepy smile of his. There are also many visual glitches in the game, which have not been fixed in this port. In conclusion, the graphics look the exact same as 1999, with no changes added to it. But that really does not make a difference in the game, yet it would have been nice if Acclaim at least tried to polish off the graphics a bit and fix some bugs.
The sound in the game is also just OK. The car sounds are the typical engine roaring and tire screeching, which is really nothing special. One thing I do find irritating is the voice acting. With the exception of the Gus, the main drivers all sound fine and there are no problems. The problems that are there are the voices of the passengers. It was as if Sega had intended the people in the game to have annoying voice-overs, as they just sound so darn weird and annoying with their shrill and squeaky talking to the unusually deep voices.
The soundtrack in the game is also in a mixed bag. Unless you sit around rocking out to Bad Religion and The Offspring all day, I would just recommend you turn off the music, as it only consists of Bad Religion and The Offspring. It kind of would have been nice if the soundtrack had more options to different artists, so at least the music would not only appeal to one or two groups. In the end the sound in the game is all right, with the two worst parts being the voiceovers and the music.
The lasting appeal of the game really depends on your love for the gameplay itself. Like a typical arcade game, the game can wear rather thin for certain gamers, as you simply play the same modes repeatedly for fun or for a higher score. The game also presents itself as straight to the point, with no real secrets to be found. Many people with a joy for arcade racing will get a kick out of this game for quite a while and Crazy Box is challenging enough to provide some more gameplay, though it does not add a huge amount to the lasting factor. It really would have been great is Acclaim actually polished the game a bit, such as adding some features or enhancing the graphics and sound, but it still is a whole lot of fun to play, updated or not.
In the end Crazy Taxi is a simple and fun racing game that should appeal to any gamer out there. It not be the most realistic or polished racer out there, but is sure is a whole lot of fun, which any person can appreciate.