Crazy Taxi (Dreamcast) - (Arcade Mode | Gena | Crazy Rank | Longplay)

Описание: Hey Hey, come on over have some fun with CRAAAAAZY TAXI!
How do you make the mundane job of a taxi driver exciting? By ditching real car physics, add in bad religion and offspring for the music, a little product placement and bam, crazy taxi.

If there ever was a racing game that I will forever love (2nd to daytona USA), then it's crazy taxi. Also discovered this when I got my dreamcast from way back. The games development history is pretty funny, our developer Kenji Kanno was one day stuck in traffic and he figured how cool it would be if you can just drive in the opposite lane. The game was also a breakaway from the whole "100 yen for 3 minutes." Basically arcade games back then offered only about 3 mins of enjoyment if your not good at it, if you're a skilled player then you can pretty much play for much longer with one credit.

On to the game, again it's a taxi simulator but with a whole lot more personality, the game is essentially a score attack game. You drive in a city loosely inspired on san francisco and pick up a passengers. The color on the passenger indicates how far their destination is, red being the closest and green being the farthest. Bringing up the whole "100 yen for 3 minutes" thing, the game awards you with more time if you perform well, which is a nice reward since it's what keeps the game going. Your also get about 4 rankings when you arrive at your destination, speedy awards you with 5 seconds, normal gives you two, slow awards you with zero and Bad makes your passenger jump off your cab.

Best tips I can give is memorize the map as much as possible and remember. Also master the crazy maneuvers, though the only thing you have to memorize is the crazy dash, crazy drift, crazy stop and the limiter cut. The mini games/crazy box is a great way to practice all these moves. You can also practice this via the maps, in home console ports have the option of playing from 3 to 10 minutes, this is super helpful as well if you plan on memorizing the map.

The drop offs are easy to identify since they have their own unique color, if that's not enough then the product placement helps. Really though, the game has real world locations such as pizza hut, Levi's, FILA, KFC and tower records. A bit strange but it's surprisingly helpful since it helps you remember what place you're going to.

As for the maps, the arcade map is okay but gets troublesome when you reach the city, essentially you want to go full circle on the map, backtracking is fine but it can eat away some seconds, second issue the the traffic, basically buses and trucks are what you have to look out for. Original map is by far the best one since it's easy to memorize, the amount of shortcuts it what makes this map fun and easy even with the traffic. The game ends when you run out of time, your license depends on how much money you've made, in this case, the crazy license is the highest rank of all.

Our cabbies also have a lot of personality, Axel is short tempered but generally a nice guy (who's apparently a womanizer.) Gena, our games hottie spends all her time with her cab and driving around the west coast, all the money she earns goes to tune ups as well. B.D. Joe, the cheerful and talented drummer who just wants to make everyone smile. Gus, our competitive driver that only aims to be number 1.

I never really noticed the differences in each character (I had to look up if each cabbie has their own unique perks.) Regardless, I think any character works fine really so long as you know the map well.

Last but not the least, is the games punk rock soundtrack by Offsprings and Bad Religion. It's pretty much my first exposure to punk rock and it honestly fits the games aggressive and fast paced action. The graphics are very nice and bright, it feels like a breath of fresh air.

Overall, it's one of the best driving games for the Dreamcast, it's got crazy cool music and crazy cool driving. It takes some time to practice but once you've mastered all the crazy moves, you'll be wanting to reach for that craaaazy license. So what're you waiting for, go ahead and pick your car and driver!

If you like my runs be sure to check out the group I'm in if you want to see us play more good ol fashion retro games!
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