Recommended by LukeGirard and DustyVita for this list.
One of those games where the more I’ve played, the less qualified I’ve felt to talk about it; even finally getting an S-rank only had me seeing about half the arcade map and most of the deeper mechanics still feel arcane to me (Crazy Box is the realm of the gods) but it’s got a move called the [LIMITER CUT], so you know it’s good.
Guess I was most surprised by how demanding it all is- not just getting the timing right for your special moves (or the fact that there are even special moves), but the way you’ll need to get some familiarity with each of the fares and what part of the map they’ll take you too. Play haphazardly, and it’s pretty easy to squander your time in an infinite cycle of delivering passengers to and from Pizza Hut and FILA, so high ranks end up being just as much a test of your mental map of the city as they are of your ability to dart between traffic. That might sound a bit too high-minded though: on a base level this a game that’s worth playing because it nails the roar of the engine and has one of the best licensed soundtracks in gaming- something I only really learned to appreciate when it wasn’t there.
I played a bit of the Xbox 360 port out of a grim sense of obligation and it’s actually kind of staggering how lifeless the game feels without “Them and Us'' and “Way Down the Line'' blaring in the background- the whole experience seems like it was tuned with Offspring and Bad Religion in mind, everything from the timing of the animations as your passengers leap out of the cab to the way the music hypes you up as you careen through the road, which is to say nothing of what it adds to the game thematically. A YouTube channel called Under10Hours made an excellent video that made me consider the tracklist that much more and really opened me to the underlying bleakness of the game. Where, whether you come in with a meager D-Rank or clock in a new personal record, your last few seconds will either be spent frantically looking for a new fare or hearing your passenger berate you as your dart to the finish line, always a gnawing sense that you’re never quite good enough, that you could’ve hustled just a bit longer.
One of those games where the more I’ve played, the less qualified I’ve felt to talk about it; even finally getting an S-rank only had me seeing about half the arcade map and most of the deeper mechanics still feel arcane to me (Crazy Box is the realm of the gods) but it’s got a move called the [LIMITER CUT], so you know it’s good.
Guess I was most surprised by how demanding it all is- not just getting the timing right for your special moves (or the fact that there are even special moves), but the way you’ll need to get some familiarity with each of the fares and what part of the map they’ll take you too. Play haphazardly, and it’s pretty easy to squander your time in an infinite cycle of delivering passengers to and from Pizza Hut and FILA, so high ranks end up being just as much a test of your mental map of the city as they are of your ability to dart between traffic. That might sound a bit too high-minded though: on a base level this a game that’s worth playing because it nails the roar of the engine and has one of the best licensed soundtracks in gaming- something I only really learned to appreciate when it wasn’t there.
I played a bit of the Xbox 360 port out of a grim sense of obligation and it’s actually kind of staggering how lifeless the game feels without “Them and Us'' and “Way Down the Line'' blaring in the background- the whole experience seems like it was tuned with Offspring and Bad Religion in mind, everything from the timing of the animations as your passengers leap out of the cab to the way the music hypes you up as you careen through the road, which is to say nothing of what it adds to the game thematically. A YouTube channel called Under10Hours made an excellent video that made me consider the tracklist that much more and really opened me to the underlying bleakness of the game. Where, whether you come in with a meager D-Rank or clock in a new personal record, your last few seconds will either be spent frantically looking for a new fare or hearing your passenger berate you as your dart to the finish line, always a gnawing sense that you’re never quite good enough, that you could’ve hustled just a bit longer.