Product Description

Buckle up! Crazy Taxi is a wild and hilarious race against the clock. As a fearless cabby, your goal is to rack up big tips before your shift ends. Zip through the busy streets and back alleys of an incredibly realistic city to find the fastest route possible, by any means necessary. Made in USA.

.com

In Crazy Taxi, you play a cabbie in an accurate, yet highly comic, version of San Francisco. As you might expect from such a game, your job is to identify possible customers in the crowd (known as "fares" in the lingo), pick them up, and get them to their destination as quickly as possible. That's the taxi part. The crazy part is that traffic laws, pedestrian safety, and property damage are all negotiable. Simply put, the game rewards offensive--rather than defensive--driving, and that's what makes it so compulsively fun. Also, unlike most racing games, there are no traditional boundaries or predetermined tracks for you to follow. The game allows you to follow your own path... even if that means driving over fences or under water.

Review

The arcade version of Crazy Taxi was a massive hit, with its high-speed driving and pounding soundtrack. Sega ported it over to the Dreamcast, where it sold by the bucketload, and now it's available for the PS2. And it's superb. The aim of the game is simple: drive a ludicrously fast taxi and make oodles of cash as quickly as possible.

Taking one of four drivers, each with his or her own skill set, the player needs to locate and pick up potential passengers, all of whom are identified by the appearance of a colored dollar symbol above their heads. From that point on it's a race against time through crowded streets to get the passengers to their destinations while picking up healthy monetary tips for speed along the way. You can increase tips through the execution of stupidly dangerous stunts and the cunning use of the shortcuts and back alleys the game offers.

There are three major modes of play, offering the cityscape of the arcade original, a world created especially for the console versions of the game, and the oddly named Crazy Box mode, which sets a number of challenges, ranging from high-speed ski jumps to water-balloon popping--an interesting if slightly unusual addition.

Graphically, Crazy Taxi is a treat. Big, bold vehicles rocket around the streets of the sprawling city, which has environments ranging from shopping malls to freeways and beaches. Everything shifts along at a fairly steady 60 frames per second, and the only gripe with the graphics is the pop-up at long distance, which is irritating but doesn't ultimately affect gameplay. The sound is excellent, with some thumping skate-punk tunes provided by The Offspring and friends, and comic back chat from the cab drivers and their passengers. Prolonged play may take the edge off this hilarity, but only time will tell.

What's sadly missing is any kind of multiplayer facility. Crazy Taxi is strictly a single-player experience. This isn't really an issue (especially when the living room's packed with prospective Travis Bickles, all patiently waiting a turn), but a two-player vs. mode would have been the icing on the cake.

This game certainly isn't a serious ride like Gran Turismo 3. There's not even a hint of simulation, and the real world never gets a look in. Instead, this is pure, blissful arcade entertainment. --Chris Russell -- .co.uk