Despite how long it's been since the series got an actual new game (especially if you rule out the slightly more recent mobile games), I've always considered Crazy Taxi to be one of Sega's most iconic franchises, as having it spawn a few sequels and a ton more knockoffs really cemented its place in both the racing genre and video games as a whole. Even with this in mind, I never got the chance to try this game out, and as much as I wish I could give the original arcade cabinet a try, I decided to play the game's PS2 port instead. This is one of those games that I can see myself coming back to very often in the future, because while it does have some drawbacks and I really can't see myself playing it for more than 30 or 60 minutes in one sitting, Crazy Taxi is still an absolute blast to play.
Growing up, pretty much every clip of the game I saw in a YouTube video mentioning it looked totally wild and in-your-face, but even then, nothing compares to actually playing Crazy Taxi. 24 years after the game's original release, there's still nothing that plays or controls quite like it, as the blistering speeds, short fares, and hilariously janky physics will have you crashing, dashing, and drifting your way to your next stop if it means getting any more money out of your current passenger before they jump out of your cab out of impatience. Crazy Taxi has a slew of different techniques and mechanics that you absolutely need to get the hang of in order to get a high score at the cost of the game itself doing a horrible job of actually explaining them to you, but once you do figure them out, it feels great to actually pull them off and get that much closer to the fabled Class-S license, with the Crazy Drift being especially fun thanks to its potential for chaining moves to get a higher combo. Speaking of which, Crazy Taxi encourages you to pull off as many tricks and moves as you can during each fare to not only make it to your destination in time, but to also get extra money through a higher combo string, and this combined with the aforementioned amount of moves can lead to some immensely satisfying moments of linking one move to another, such as going from a Crazy Drift to a Crazy Dash so that you can jump off of a ramp before having a bunch of near misses with oncoming traffic. The game's totally-not-San-Francisco map was also quite well designed with its emphasis on landmarks and opportunities to use your moves (including a staggering amount of product placement), and memorizing the routes to and from destinations made making the most out of the simple to pick up, yet difficult to master control scheme all the more rewarding. The punk rock soundtrack from the bands Bad Religion and The Offspring gave Crazy Taxi a lot of its loud, yet charming personality and offbeat late 1990s attitude, and despite how bite-sized the game is, the voice lines from B.D. Joe (and only B.D. Joe, because I literally never picked anyone else) are practically etched into my brain.
On its own, the core gameplay and arcade modes of Crazy Taxi are as fun as they are chaotic and addicting, but the console version comes with an extra addition that I felt was totally at odds with the rest of the game, and that would be the Crazy Box challenges. On the surface, having a set of challenges to complete that also serve as a way to teach the player about the game's mechanics seems like a good idea, but for some reason, a majority of these challenges are demanding to the point where it's frustrating. A lot of these missions are ones where making even one tiny mistake means that you have to reset from the beginning due to how tight the time limits are, but because the game's almost inherent jank is the kind that can pretty much only fit a fast-paced arcade game, you'll often end up restarting the missions constantly over factors that never feel like your fault, as the controls in this context feel like they're working against you. It doesn't help that the button timings for the Crazy Drift and especially the Crazy Dash are so strict that they don't even register half the time, and while that's perfectly fine in the game's arcade mode, it doesn't mesh well at all with the challenges where every single move you make has to be absolutely perfect if you want to get even the bare minimum score. I also wasn't a fan of the game's "Original" map that was added in addition to the one from the actual arcade game, although that's more of a preference thing than an actual criticism. Despite its flaws, I still had a lot of fun with Crazy Taxi, even if I don't see any reason to pick up any of the sequels any time soon.
Growing up, pretty much every clip of the game I saw in a YouTube video mentioning it looked totally wild and in-your-face, but even then, nothing compares to actually playing Crazy Taxi. 24 years after the game's original release, there's still nothing that plays or controls quite like it, as the blistering speeds, short fares, and hilariously janky physics will have you crashing, dashing, and drifting your way to your next stop if it means getting any more money out of your current passenger before they jump out of your cab out of impatience. Crazy Taxi has a slew of different techniques and mechanics that you absolutely need to get the hang of in order to get a high score at the cost of the game itself doing a horrible job of actually explaining them to you, but once you do figure them out, it feels great to actually pull them off and get that much closer to the fabled Class-S license, with the Crazy Drift being especially fun thanks to its potential for chaining moves to get a higher combo. Speaking of which, Crazy Taxi encourages you to pull off as many tricks and moves as you can during each fare to not only make it to your destination in time, but to also get extra money through a higher combo string, and this combined with the aforementioned amount of moves can lead to some immensely satisfying moments of linking one move to another, such as going from a Crazy Drift to a Crazy Dash so that you can jump off of a ramp before having a bunch of near misses with oncoming traffic. The game's totally-not-San-Francisco map was also quite well designed with its emphasis on landmarks and opportunities to use your moves (including a staggering amount of product placement), and memorizing the routes to and from destinations made making the most out of the simple to pick up, yet difficult to master control scheme all the more rewarding. The punk rock soundtrack from the bands Bad Religion and The Offspring gave Crazy Taxi a lot of its loud, yet charming personality and offbeat late 1990s attitude, and despite how bite-sized the game is, the voice lines from B.D. Joe (and only B.D. Joe, because I literally never picked anyone else) are practically etched into my brain.
On its own, the core gameplay and arcade modes of Crazy Taxi are as fun as they are chaotic and addicting, but the console version comes with an extra addition that I felt was totally at odds with the rest of the game, and that would be the Crazy Box challenges. On the surface, having a set of challenges to complete that also serve as a way to teach the player about the game's mechanics seems like a good idea, but for some reason, a majority of these challenges are demanding to the point where it's frustrating. A lot of these missions are ones where making even one tiny mistake means that you have to reset from the beginning due to how tight the time limits are, but because the game's almost inherent jank is the kind that can pretty much only fit a fast-paced arcade game, you'll often end up restarting the missions constantly over factors that never feel like your fault, as the controls in this context feel like they're working against you. It doesn't help that the button timings for the Crazy Drift and especially the Crazy Dash are so strict that they don't even register half the time, and while that's perfectly fine in the game's arcade mode, it doesn't mesh well at all with the challenges where every single move you make has to be absolutely perfect if you want to get even the bare minimum score. I also wasn't a fan of the game's "Original" map that was added in addition to the one from the actual arcade game, although that's more of a preference thing than an actual criticism. Despite its flaws, I still had a lot of fun with Crazy Taxi, even if I don't see any reason to pick up any of the sequels any time soon.