A classic arcade game brought to the PS2! Bare bones, but a great add to any collection if found for the right price.
User Rating: 7.5 | Crazy Taxi PS2
Ahhhhh, Crazy Taxi! One of my favourite recent arcade games. I've been wanting to own this game for a while now however, I haven't been willing to pay a big price for it as I assumed it must be a pretty short, uncomplicated game. In a way I was right, and in another way I wasn't. The basic idea of the game, if you don't already know of it (and I find that hard to believe), is that you have a choice of 4 different cabbies you must race around with in order to deliver passengers to their points of destination, within a certain time limit. The ultimate goal of the game is to earn as much money as you can and keep the game going for as long as possible. To earn as much money as possible there are certain things you can do. First, delivering the passengers to their destination as fast as you can will earn you a bonus. During the drive you can earn tips from your passenger by performing certain stunts such as jumping, drifting, and weaving in and out of traffic, coming as close to other cars without hitting them as you possibly can. There is only one way you can earn more time in this game though, and that is by earning the time bonus you get when you deliver a passenger to their destination very quickly. It's a pretty basic idea and it works. In this game there are 3 modes of play you can choose from. The first two are very similar and they are "Arcade" mode and "Original" mode. The only difference between the two modes is the environment they take place in. They each contain a different and unique map that you motor around in. I assume one of them is based on the map that the original Crazy Taxi arcade game took place in and the other one was a new map made up just for the console release of the game. But I could be wrong, who knows? Under each of these two modes you have four gameplay options. The first is "Play by Arcade Rules". It is based on the original arcade game version of Crazy Taxi. You start off with 3 minutes on the timer and you must deliver as many passengers and earn as much money as possible within those 3 minutes, at the same time earning as many time bonuses as you can to keep the game going for as long as possible. After your game you receive a ranking and are told what class of license you earned. The class of licenses available (from best to worst) are: S, A, B, C & D. If you get a high enough ranking you beat the game. The other three options you can play under each of these modes are the "Work for 3 Minutes", "Work for 5 Minutes" and "Work for 10 Minutes" options. They are pretty simple. You get either the 3, 5 or 10 minutes on the clock at the start of your game and you try and earn as much money as possible within that time limit. Time bonuses do not apply in these options. At the end of each of these game options you receive a license but no ranking. The third game mode Crazy Taxi offers is the "Crazy Box" mode. This mode consists of 15 mini-games you can play. The mini-games in question are: Crazy Jump, Crazy Flag, Crazy Balloons, Crazy Bowling, Crazy Drift, Crazy Turn, Crazy Bound, Crazy Zig Zag, Crazy Rush, Crazy Jam, Crazy Pole, Crazy Zig Zag 2, Crazy Through, Crazy Parking & Crazy Party. A lot of the mini-games are fairly easy, but there are a few that are more tricky and a couple that are damn well impossible! Overall they are a lot of fun and incorporate all of the skills you learn throughout playing the game in to little competitions that focus on a certain a certain aspect of the game like jumping or drifting. As for graphics, they are decent. Remember it was probably one of the first games released for the PS2 so it's hard to compare it to the games that are released nowadays. For the time it was released in I would say they were actually pretty good, but now they look at little dated. Not too bad though, it definitely doesn't ruin the game or anything. Gameplay is pretty good. The cars respond fairly nicely, the only issue I had was in learning how to do the drift. For some reasons I couldn't get it down. That certainly made a few of the mini-games really difficult! One of the best parts of the game was the soundtrack, it was basically a repeated recycling of Offspring and Bad Religion songs. That may grate on some people after a while, but to me it was heaven! Overall this game was a pretty solid effort considering it was an early release on the PS2 and was based on a pretty simple game to begin with. They did well to add the two maps to the game, the various game modes, and all of the mini-games. Not a blockbuster by any means, but if you can find this game for the right price it will definitely keep you happily busy for a couple of weeks.
