Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller

"You'll love it if you didn't play the previous CT games. If you did, you'll be dissapointed."

Crazy Taxi returns to fill the need for fast, reckless and incredibly fun cab-driving, this time Only on Xbox. CT3 adheres to the same formula of the previous to CT games, but unfortunately adds nothing new other then an underwhelming semi-recreation of Vegas and four new drivers.

The premise of CT3 is pretty much the same as the previous two games – drive your customers from point A to point B as fast as possible, while getting tipped for ‘crazy’ maneuvers, none of which unfortunately are new to the mix. You still have all the moves (Crazy Drift, Crazy Dash, etc) that you had there, but no new ones. As in CT2 you now have the ability to pick up multiple people at one time and drive them to different locations. Along with that, CT2’s ‘Crazy Hop’ is also present – hop over obstacles and into shortcuts do get you where you need to be quicker. Both of these add to the overall enjoyment of the game.

The controls have thankfully not been adulterated in any way during the transition to the Xbox. Your ride still makes hairpin turns, stops on a dime, everything that make the previous CT games so much fun to play. It took me some time to be able to get all of the controls down correctly, but once you do you’ll notice your game improving dramatically, especially if you played Crazy Taxi 2. This series depends on pinpoint and accurate control, and thankfully CT3 delivers in that respect.

The two older cities (West Coast and Small Apple) from the previous two games return, although the other cities featured in those games are noticeably absent. Along with those a new city is thrown into mix – the aptly-named glitter oasis. Modeled after Las Vegas, Glitter Oasis features a Vegas-style ‘strip’, and then outlying desert with landmarks like the Grand Canyon thrown in for good measure. West Coast and Small Apple were also updated for this game, most notably with the West Coast getting solid rooftops since you now have the ability to ‘Crazy Hop’, which was not present in CT1 where the city was originally featured. Small Apple has also for some reason been shifted to nighttime driving. Why? Hitmaker probably wanted to show off the lighting effects they’ve thrown into the game, and figured Vegas wasn’t enough flash.

As you would probably expect, level (or in this case city) design is very important to this series. In that regard Glitter Oasis comes up short. Although it does have plenty of ‘glitter’ on the strip, the city just doesn’t seem to have the flair of Vegas. How come they aren’t any Elvis references or huge gaudy signs with flashing arrows or long black limos? How hard can it be to recreate the Vegas?! Small Apple is now set at nighttime in this game, and is by and large the same as it was in CT2. The best city in the series still remains the original West Coast – although there are some revisions like a highway redesign and of course the addition of Crazy hop and multiple-passenger pickup, it’s also basically the same and retains all that made it so much fun to drive. Another inadequacy in the game is the absence of the other two cities from the previous two CT games. Since the game doesn’t offer much new, it would have helped to have as much of the old as possible.

The graphics of this game are, to put it kindly, disappointing. Suffice it to say I was expecting much, much more from an Xbox game. When I first heard of this game, I dreamt of reflective car surfaces, bump-mapping, weather effects, improved animations and such. Unfortunately, little of that is present here. There are some nice visual effects on the Glitter Oasis strip, but other then that the game looks more or less identical to its Dreamcast predecessor. Even more shocking the underwhelming visuals are accompanied with some pretty heavy slowdown, especially on the strip. The main culprits seem to be the flashy lights and blur effects used there – the rest of the city, and the other cities are relatively free of framerate problems.

Along with the visuals, CT3 also drops the ball in the sound department. Sound effects are standard CT fare, and you have nine songs in total, three each from Offspring, Bad Religion and Citizen Bird. The Offspring tracks are relegated to the West Coast, Bad Religion to Small Apple and Citizen Bird to Glitter Oasis with no way to interchange tracks and cities. Its way beyond my comprehension to understand why it would be fun to listen to the same three tracks over and over until you finally switch to another city just for a change of music. This would be tolerable, though, if CT3 included custom soundtracks. The decision to leave that option out gravely detracted from the fun factor of the game for me, since this game literally screams for custom soundtracks. You’re relegated to listening to the same nine tracks over and over for your time with the game. This is unacceptable for a game of this type on the Xbox – this isn’t the Dreamcast, wake up!!

Crazy Taxi 3 offers up some very challenging minigames in order to elongate its replay value. As with the previous CT games these are pretty challenging, and you certainly won’t be blowing past them anytime soon. The later ones especially require that you be up on your Taxi skills in order to make the very tough time limits. Some may even seem downright impossible, and require many, many tries before getting through. Unfortunately, there is not much new here either – some of the minigames are straight from previous CT titles, and the newer ones tend to use the same environments found in its predecessors. All in all however, the minigames are a great addition to the game and do succeed in giving you something to do once you’ve had your fill of the three cities. Completing the minigames give you certain bonuses which is a nice plus for the overall game.

In the end, Crazy Taxi 3 does a good job of reminding us what we loved about this series, but at the same time does nothing to take it to the next step. This game would be more appropriately titled CT2.5, since it adds nothing at all new other then uninspired city and four new drivers – not enough to warrant a whole new addition to the series. Why is there STILL no multiplayer in this series, not even one-unit multiplayer let alone online play or system link? I’ve been complaining about that ever since the original CT, what’s the hold up? How about some new play mechanics, or the ability pick up other passengers if you still have space in you ride? Spiffed up graphics? Custom Soundtracks? Anything more then a half-baked city and a couple of new drivers?

You get the point. Crazy Taxi 3 had potential to be the best CT yet backed with the power of the Xbox, yet falls way short of the mark. If you’ve never played a CT game before you’ll probably love this title, but for those of us who have, it’s nothing worth getting very excited about, although you are in for some enjoyment if you do decide to pick the title up – just not as much as one would have hoped for or expected from the next installment of this series.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/15/02, Updated 08/15/02