Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller

"Returns to the classic gaming and than some!"

Crazy Taxi 3 High Roller Introduction
The third installment of the highly anticipated crazy taxi series hits the Microsoft X - Box. After the first two of the crazy taxi games a new installment of series continues the hit that kept fans coming back for more and more. After the first two crazy taxi games on the dream cast this one hits a next - generation console the Microsoft X - BOX and unfortunately for non - owners of the X - BOX they will not see this great game because of its exclusive to the X - BOX.

This game is one of the most popular games that Sega have released in a very long time. Crazy Taxi is a game were you pick up pedestrians and drive them to the location they want to go to. It is a classic game that is found in many arcades around the world . Many spin offs have been made to try and copy the crazy taxi series like Simpson’s Road Rage , Smash Driving and other games. However Crazy taxi is the true champion of this genre and will always be a classic.

This game is made by the biggest 3rd party company ,which are the makers of some classic video games from the past and present which is of course Sega. After Sega’s Dream Cast went out of business Sega turned to 3rd party and produced on all the 3 next - generation consoles. After 2 years after the second installment of the crazy taxi Sega and Hit maker started to make the third game of the series on the Microsoft X - Box. Sega and Hit maker released Crazy Taxi 3 : High Roller on July 24th and they didn’t seem to miss a beat after a wide gap of the second and third game. Read on for the rest of my review.

Game play Ten out of Ten

This game seeks to amaze. The basic game play of this game is to ride around different city‘s and collect taxi fares from different people. When you collect a fare you ride around the city of your choose and drive like a maniac swerving around on coming traffic to get to the destination. You will find your self ramming cars just to get to your destination. There are many different locations in the game well over 100 places to drop the people of from , the local pizza hut to a big old church. You get to select who and where you want to pick somebody up.

There are also different people you can pick up from football players to a sweet old lady. In crazy taxi 2 there was a couple new features from the first . There was that you can pick up multiple fares , like if you see a gang of cheerleaders you can pick them up at the same time. There will be a couple different changes if you pick up multiple fares than if you just have one. First off when ever you drop one of the multiple fares off you will not get paid you will only get paid when you drop the last one of them off and you will not get paid one cent if you drop all of them except one.

Another change that took place from crazy taxi one to crazy taxi two is that there is a jump button. You can access the jump by pressing the y button on the control. What the jump button do is of course allow you to jump. This is very helpful thing because you can access new shortcuts which will cut your time to the actually destination by a lot sometimes even by half in some occasions , it allows you to jump over on coming traffic , you can jump higher when you see ramps , you can even ride on buildings if you jump high enough. When you use the jump button you also gain cash , not to much about five dollars but they do add up to about 100 dollars at the end of your run.

Some cool features found in the game is that that you can select between 12 different characters. Eight of the twelve characters that are found in this game are from the previous of the crazy taxi games. When you select a course you want you will only be able to select from four of the taxi drivers to that area but when you progress into the game you will be able to select from all of the twelve characters. Another cool feature is that you can do a crazy dash which makes you get to your destination faster and get more money which is essential to beat some of the modes in the game. Another thing is that you can find a customer absolutely every where from the side of a street to the bottom of the ocean and on the top of buildings.

Now part of the review I have been talking about what were new features in crazy taxi two from crazy taxi one was but this paragraph is to show you some different changes from the past crazy taxi’s to crazy taxi three. One noticeable change is that crazy taxi 3: high roller features all of the past boards ( west coast and small apple) plus a new area based upon the famous Las Vegas called glitter oasis. You can find different customers in different locations . Now all though crazy taxi 3 has the boards from previous crazy taxi games you can expect a few minor changes in the environment and especially the graphics. which work very well with the X - Box.

Now my favorite feature of game play is Crazy X it lets you get to play different mini games and when you beat certain mini games you unlock different things such as maps a new feature mode and other things. Some of the mini games include , getting from one side of the football field to the other while hundreds of cars pile on you, ride through a tornado while cars fall from the sky , crash through UFO’s , pop balloons , go through a flaming ring , crazy taxi home run contest and other fun mini games to play.
You will find your self playing crazy taxi x many times to break your records and a lot of your friends to beat their own scores. This is definitely a good addition to this game.

Audio / Video Eight out of ten

Now since the Dream Cast was a very good system and it had awesome graphics the X -box used the same graphics as the Dream Cast did but add more polygons figures to spice up the graphics. When you compare the two graphics you can see more crisp graphics on the X - Box you will see the cars and the environment more detailed than ever showing great detail. Things in the environment worth mentioning is that the water looked very nice and clear which is some of the best water I have seen in a non realistic like video game. The crazy taxi characters look more like they should with nice whole faces compared to the limited Dream cast choppy character looks. If you do a speed dash you will see the fire under the tires and they will look just like if there was a fire under the car. This game has exceptional graphics but pretty much the same as the Dream Cast graphics.

The audio in this game is a trade mark of the crazy taxi games which means it is very good. In all the crazy taxi games you will hear great music while your running wild in the streets and swerving through the traffic. It gets you very pumped up which is very good because you will try very difficult shortcuts and you’ll think you could do anything when your pumped with the music that they give,. There are different music for the three different courses in the game all of them are pretty much rap / rock to get you pumped up and there are some different music for the mini games in crazy X. All and all the music in this game is pretty good just like the rest of the crazy taxi past game were.

Story seven out of ten

Well there is no definite plot in this game. It is a safe bet to say that the characters in this game work in some sort of garage with bets to see who will have to most money at the game. Which would explain why the characters would just drive crazy jumping from houses , ramming into cars, heading towards innocent pedestrians , and other crazy stuff you would see on a regular drive around the park. The fun thing about the story like I said above there is no definite story so make up your own and have some fun with it. You could just think of anything you want and expand on to it to make an interesting story about the crazy taxi series and games.

Replay Ten Out Of Ten

I want to first state that you never actually beat this game so that means this game has the most replay value of every game I have ever played and have ever heard about. First there are three different levels to choose from which means you have to break every record in that. You get to choose from a 3 minute trail a five minute , ten minute and a normal trail. You will either get rankings which show case how well you did and you will only beat the game if you get the highest ranking possible . There are five slots for the highest points and license in the high scores you will be trying your hardest for days to get a high scores your actually happy about.

If you bring over some of your friends it will be ten times a blast as just playing by yourself. Even though you can only play one player at a time you can rotate between each time and see if the second person going can beat the first person in getting a higher license or get higher money and even beat the all time high scores. You will be playing for hours with your friends to try and get higher and higher scores , and be playing until your thumb hurt.

Crazy X probably shows you the best replay value of the whole game. There are over 20 mini games to play and to beat. Not only will it take you a very long time to beat all of the mini games to unlock new stuff but it will take you even longer to stop playing them. I am saying this because when your hooked on the mini games you will not stop . You won’t have one favorite mini game you will have at least 3 because the mini games on here are very original. When you beat a mini game you usually are at the bottom of the high score list and you will think how the heck I am going to beat that score it’s impossible. Well you will find little strategies that will just boost you passed the high scores even though it might take you days to find how to beat it which adds to the replay value the most.

Conclusion
Category Score

Game Play 10 / 10
Audio / Video 8 / 10
Story 7 / 10
Replay Value 10 / 10

Overall 35 / 40 = 9 out of 10

To Buy Or Rent?
Well this game is a great mix of all the crazy taxi games into one. It shows all the past crazy taxi games levels plus some few new add ons like the new level glitter oasis and over 20 new mini games. It is very worth a pick up and should definitely at least be worth a rent. With all this replay value you will be playing for months and still want to play it the next day. I definitely think you should pick it up for the crazy taxi fanatic and the first timers to the crazy taxi series.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/06/02, Updated 08/06/02