In the Dreamcast's brief life, it hosted a strange library of games that felt unique to the platform. A lot of the games felt like a reflection of arcades in the 90s, with House of the Dead 2, Soul Caliber, SEGA Bass Fishing and Crazy Taxi focusing on high scores and over stylized aesthetic. There were a host of arcade titles on other consoles, but for the most part the gaming landscape was heading toward narrative games and competitive play, with online deathmatches growing on PC and just over the horizon for consoles. Arcade titles haven't died out, much as the platformer never truly died out, but it is no longer quite the behemoth it once was, marginalized to mobile apps and mini-games. I always associated Crazy Taxi with the finale of classically 90s styled arcade game (if there is such a thing outside of my compartmentalized nostalgia), regardless of whether it was actually true. I was a Playstation 2 person, myself, still playing in the platformer playground with Jak and Daxter, and finding myself more and more falling into the first-person shooter hole I'd find myself in for the better part of the next decade. So, going over to my friend's house to play Crazy Taxi felt a bit of a throwback, even to preteen me. It's a weird thought to remember, because I equally remember how ridiculously fun it was, regardless of grand social context.
It is to Crazy Taxi's credit that the game mostly holds up today, even despite a finger-locking control scheme on PC, where I played it this last week. It is so fun, as a matter of fact, that I was frustratingly motivated to get better at the awful controls so I could play more of the game. Crazy Taxi has you picking up passengers, dropping them off within a time limit, and trying to earn as much money as possible before the level timer expires. Doing well requires you to master accelerating and braking, a silly thing to say for any other car based game, but something rather tricky here. Reverse and drive are bound to separate buttons rather than a toggle, requiring some tricky maneuvering with your fingers in order to hit the buttons in the correct sequence, not to mention confusing the brain a bit. On PC, "D" is reverse, "S" drive, "E" gas, and "Q" brake. Quickly bounce between those and you'll be playing a game of twister with your fingers. Granted, you can rebind the controls, but presumably these are the controls the game wants you to play with, which is bizarre and not immediately intuitive. In action, if you lay on the gas you'll find yourself doing a tail spin, likewise braking has a long runway before you come to a full stop. The trick is to use the gearshift: switch to drive and gas to boost forward quickly from a stop (toggle between reverse and drive quickly while driving to boost your speed), and shift to reverse while braking to stop quicker. Holding gas and brake will allow you to slide and drift, gaining you more money during your run by giving you combo bonuses and helping you come to a tight stop while orienting you in a particular direction.
Speaking of combo bonuses, doing jumps and near-missing traffic without hitting them will also net you bonuses, tempting you to controlled-yet-reckless play that enhances the game's frenetic feel.
Probably the biggest contributor to the frenzy is the physics, which bounce and jostle the taxi all around, sometimes to a myriad of glitches such as clipping through sidewalk only to be launched upwards or toppling over a multi-car pile-up. Traffic is another concern, clogging up roadways and sometimes wrecking on their own, creating pockets of unpredictable chaos that add a lot of personality to each run.
Personality Crazy Taxi has in spades. It is extremely fun to go back to today and hear that alt-metal, ska, and early-emo soundtrack rain over bombastic physics, rude driver-rider interactions, and slacker-type player characters. Axel's spiked green hair, in particular, felt so of a time it can only be properly framed by an Offspring song. Characters are rude and more than willing to jump out of a speeding car if you don't get them to Pizza Hut in 20 seconds flat. The announcer, easily the most iconic part of the game, will deride you if you get a low score, screaming "Is that your best?!" at the grading screen. It's all attitude, a glorious time capsule to the late 90s and early '00s.
One of the somewhat annoying drawbacks to being an arcadey title is the lack of content. Arcade styled games often rely on replay ability more than a breadth of content. The version on PC is the Dreamcast version, which has 2 maps and 4 characters. There are 12 challenges that will test your knowledge of techniques, but altogether it took me maybe 6 hours to go from novice to fully completed game, achievements and all. I would be inclined to give the game a pass for the most part since the game was so addictively fun, if it wasn't for the fact that this thought has come up with every friend I've talked to about this game. Unlockables would have been a fun reward for getting S-rank on the two maps, or completing the challenges, as well as further setting it apart from the arcade version of the game (as it stands, the one extra map and challenges are all that set it apart - granted, a good 50+% increase in content, but given the starting point this doesn't amount to much). In a lot of ways, this lack of content is the most dated part of the game, even considering the alt-metal soundtrack and muddy graphics. Older games are infamous for being short-yet-difficult as they were trying to either shake you down for quarters or extend their lifespan since a kid wasn't likely to get more than a few games over an entire console's lifespan. One of the biggest shifts in games during the 5th and 6th generation of consoles was the prominence of the save system, and with it a design around a sense of progression. I'm not implying that Crazy Taxi should have a story or adventure mode (although that honestly might work to better contextualize the challenges), but I think it is a notable aspect of the game that it adheres to a style falling out of favor. Multiplayer, another growing arm of the gaming landscape, was likewise absent in Crazy Taxi, which is pretty crazy since the game seems perfectly built for crazy head-to-head matches.
These drawbacks, however, only dampen an otherwise great game rather than tarnish it. Crazy Taxi stands as an addictive oddity, and one of the best games on a system with an unfortunately short lifespan.
8.5
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