Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: Crazy Taxi

Written by Omer Ali on August 27, 2001

Second View: Drivers Hunted...By the hood of my car!

Personally I don't care much for automobile oriented games, they just make my head spin and turn my thumbs a cherry red and make them extremely sore. I know I sound like a pansy but this is my article and I'll cry if I want to, except for this game. Crazy Taxi is one really cool game that made me want to incur the pain brought on by extensive play.

Crazy Taxi is for the most part a very straightforward arcade game. The basic premise of the game is to drive around town and pick up various fares and take them to their end destinations. The crazy and fun part of the game is to get your fare to his or her destination within the time limit and by performing crazy driving moves to impress the fare into giving you more points. By performing better and more complex moves the more likely the chance the fare won't jump without paying. The picking up and dropping off of the fares is just one of three playable modes offered by Crazy Taxi. The other two are Original, and Crazy box mode. In the original mode you can play on specially designed course, and in Crazy box mode you can play various mini-games that will let you super charge your Crazy style. You have the option of choosing four unique drivers who all come with their own unique cabs. The cabbies consist of Axel, who is a party surfer type guy, Gena who is the sexy girl, B.D. Joe the cabbie with a heart of gold, and Gus the pioneer of the Crazy style that is the backbone of the game. Each cab and cabbie have their own pros and cons; you'll have to play around with them for a while to find which suits you best.

The gameplay is fantastic and easy to take a hold of. The crazy driving moves do take a bit of time to master though, I advise that you just play the game a few times without trying to pull off any stunts. This will get you comfortable with the various courses and fares. To get the hang of the crazy moves you should play in the Crazy box mode, this mode will give you the greatest amount of flexibility in which to practice. The controls for the stunts and crazy moves are easy to memorize and pull of once you've gone through them a few times, all one really needs to pull of the stunts is good timing.

The music was not exactly up my alley. The soundtrack consists of tracks performed by popular music bands Offspring and Bad Religion. I myself would have preferred some hip-hop and techno beats, but hey the world's not a perfect place.

The actual look of the game is really great and not much different from the Dreamcast version. Crazy Taxi, amongst other games, still does not make full use of the PS2's power. At times you can see some gritty edges and not so smooth surfaces when making turns and when pulling off the crazy moves. This PS2 version is not as great looking as the Dreamcast version but its pretty damn close.