Crazy Taxi: Never Out of Business
With a glitzy sequel releasing in 2027, SEGA's iconic driving action series returns to current platforms, faithful at its core but not quite its predecessors.…
Few games embody that "just one more try!" sentiment more than the original Crazy Taxi , a 1999 release for the SEGA Naomi arcade board which launched a classic series practically overnight. The premise couldn't be simpler: pick up passengers and drive them to their destination as fast as possible. A standard playthrough can last just a couple minutes for beginners, or possibly over an hour for the most experienced cabbies. What first seems like a simple set of mechanics--drifting, dashing, grazing and jumping over cars for increased payment, and managing ranked fare spots shifting around you--coalesces into addictive brilliance. SEGA's Hitmaker team proved a new formula for vehicular action which players of all skill levels fell in love with, and its home versions showed this wasn't just a novelty bound to the '90s. Blue skies, rockin' skate punk music, an irreverent sense of humor, intricate levels with famous sights and sponsors, all tousled about as you rampage across San Francisco with the clock running out, throwing caution to the wind! It's almost 2027, and SEGA's reviving this core concept in Crazy Taxi: World Tour , an upcoming release with new graphics, online play, and many touted additions to the game. Previews and network tests show something promising, albeit surrounded by controversy and skepticism about the project's chances to replicate the original's success. No matter what happens, the original games for Dreamcast and competing systems haven't gone anywhere. I'll argue they're just as fun and surprisingly in-depth as ever, peerless in the driving genre and never to be taken for granted. Series tour, here we come! All I Want Something this crazy could only come from inspired people like the developers at SEGA Amusement Machines Division 3 (AM3),…