Crazy Taxi 2

"Like the Offspring? Play this game for about 20 minutes..."

I first encountered Crazy Taxi in an arcade while on vacation. The entire premise for the game appealed to me, as I had never seen a game where you take on the role of a cab driver. It intrigued me so much that I ended up spending my whole stack of quarters in that one machine. I had discovered a new arcade game that I had loved. Upon going into a video game store, I noticed Crazy Taxi 2 for sale for very cheap (the DC was being marked down significantly and a new system could be fetched for 50 dollars along with games going as low as 10 dollars, new). There were no copies of Crazy Taxi 1 to be found, so I received CT2 for Christmas that year. I played it for hours on end, and I did like it. Today, I dusted it off to see if I could have as much fun playing it today as I did almost 6 years ago. The game was the same, and it still gave me a good laugh for a minute, but I noticed how flawed and sparse the game is upon taking a closer look.

The entire goal of the game is to pick up as many customers as you can in a limited amount of time. Now this means as the driver you can't loaf around. This isn't called "Responsible Taxi" for a reason. You can make your car hop, you can drift, weave in and out of traffic and even drive underwater in some places to get your customers where they need to go. To pick up customers, you stop in the colored area surrounding them (each color differentiates the distance the customer needs to travel). Some will need to travel far, and some will be right down the block. Once they get into the car, a big arrow appears at the top of your screen, telling you which direction to drive. As you get close to the destination, the arrow will start pulsing and become yellow. You can't miss the destination once you get close to it, unless you're blind. If you make it in plenty of time, you'll be given a "Speedy" stamp (along with a normal or slow, respectively). Once the passenger is out of the car, you repeat the entire process. The better you do while driving, the bigger your fare. The quicker you get your passengers to their destinations, the more time you get added to the clock. The more money you make, the better class of license you get at the very end of your session. Yes, it is fun at first, but it gets very dull very quick.

You can choose from 4 characters (initially). Slash, Iceman, Cinnamon, and Hot-D. There are no differences in the car's speed or handling. The only difference is the character and what their car looks like and the things they say (believe me, they don't really say much. That's one of the game's flaws).

Honestly, the game's idea is very original and fun. This is the kind of game where you play to take a break from other games. There's no real goal in mind: you just drive and pick up/drop off customers. And the game's designers did a great job of making New York City seem the same way it does in real life, just applied to the game. The framerate is great, and there is little to now slowdown, even when you have a busy background that you're flying by. The colors are sharp and clean and very vibrant. No jaggies, and the sound is very clear. So what could possibly merit a 7/10 from my overall review score? Well, the fact that what I listed in the first couple of sentences is ALL the game is.

Granted, there is what is called the "Crazy Pyramid", which is a big collection of mini-games. The goals are pretty simple: do a 200 meter jump off a big ramp, hit a golf ball 100 feet, pop the balloons with your car. These are just diversions from the meat of the game.

You play until you run out of time, and the only way you keep adding time is to keep picking up passengers. After a while, you wish for like some kind of big boss race or a rival cab company to do something to your car, but nothing of the sort happens. You just pick up passengers and drop them off. Nothing more, nothing less. Sure, you can play the Crazy Pyramid mini games and have a good laugh, but after those you'll be wishing the game had a lot more elements that merited replayability. I think a two player mode could have helped this game get a better score, or even an Internet mode where you play someone else on the Sega Network, but the only thing this game had to offer over the internet was high scores and the ability to look at the Crazy Taxi home web page.

Something else I feel I need to mention about this game is the music. Yes, the most infamous part of Crazy Taxi 2. Offspring on a constant loop. During the real game, you get the same 3 Offspring songs on a neverending loop: Walla Walla, No Brakes, and One Fine Day. On the main menu, you get the very beginning of Americana. In the intro sequence, you get Come Out Swinging. When you're choosing your cabbie, you actually get a new band's song! Methods of Mayhem's (Tommy Lee's side band) Crash. Now, if you like ANY of these songs, I implore you to turn the sound off! You will never want to hear any of these songs ever again after playing this game! It gets so repetitive and boring after hearing the same songs 50 times (and it's not even the whole song! It's just pieces of the songs!) in one game sitting!

If you can find this game, I would get it. It's a good game, but just keep in mind that it really does get very old. The gameplay is just built on repetition and "more of the same". If you enjoy driving type of games, then this game is right up your alley. It's good, just really repetitive.

Just don't forget to turn off the sound.

PROS:
-Original idea
-Scenery looks almost spot on
-Fun mini games

Best Part: Driving to the bottom of a body of water and picking up four guys with afros and taking one of them to the Gap.

CONS:
-Gameplay is very repetitive
-No difference between Cabbies
-The music. SWEET ELEMENTS, THE MUSIC!!!

Worst Part: Realizing that after 45 minutes of playing, a new Offspring song isn't going to magically start playing while you're taking a really rude woman to the department store.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/05/09

Game Release: Crazy Taxi 2 (US, 05/28/01)