Sad as it is to report, Crazy Taxi just isn’t very much fun anymore. Though they were once shining examples of over-the-top, wacky-as-heck arcade driving games, the original and its sequels have not been treated kindly by the years, a fact highlighted by Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars for the PSP. This release includes Dreamcast ports of both Crazy Taxi and its follow-up, Crazy Taxi 2, then tosses in a bit of ad-hoc multiplayer, and calls it a day. What it doesn’t do is adjust the game in any way, shape, or form for modern times. The shallowness of the gameplay is likely to turn off anyone who isn’t intensely nostalgic for all things Crazy Taxi. And even those folk will likely take umbrage with the sluggish gameplay and dodgy controls in this version.
Any card-carrying Sega fan already knows what to expect from these two games, but for the uninitiated, a brief synopsis. In both games, your goal is to take control of one of four different cabbies and drive around the city lickety-split, picking up customers and getting them to their desired location. That might not sound like much of a concept, but the thing that made the games so much fun back in the day was the jaunty, kooky nature of the gameplay, where driving like a maniac to fly over hills and narrowly avoid head-on collisions actually made your passengers happier and increased your score. Cars bounce off one another like they’re made of rubber, and insane drifts take the place of proper steering. Likewise, big jumps litter every city block, and in Crazy Taxi 2, you can even use supercharged hydraulics to leap over any oncoming traffic. The game also imposed some rather stiff time limits for each passenger, lending to the immediacy and frantic pacing of it all.
Any card-carrying Sega fan already knows what to expect from these two games, but for the uninitiated, a brief synopsis. In both games, your goal is to take control of one of four different cabbies and drive around the city lickety-split, picking up customers and getting them to their desired location. That might not sound like much of a concept, but the thing that made the games so much fun back in the day was the jaunty, kooky nature of the gameplay, where driving like a maniac to fly over hills and narrowly avoid head-on collisions actually made your passengers happier and increased your score. Cars bounce off one another like they’re made of rubber, and insane drifts take the place of proper steering. Likewise, big jumps litter every city block, and in Crazy Taxi 2, you can even use supercharged hydraulics to leap over any oncoming traffic. The game also imposed some rather stiff time limits for each passenger, lending to the immediacy and frantic pacing of it all.
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