Fans of the classic Sega arcade and Dreamcast game Crazy Taxi had a lot to be excited about when Taxi Chaos was announced. Clearly a homage to the Sega game, there haven’t been many games in the niche genre of taxi driving games over the years. In fact outside of the Crazy Taxi trilogy which wrapped up with Crazy Taxi 3 on the original Xbox, and various Crazy Taxi re-releases over the years, there really hasn’t been any games in the same genre almost ever. Well, except of course for the Simpsons Road Rage which itself came out in the same generation as Crazy Taxi.
Well, this all changes now as Taxi Chaos is the closest we’ve ever had to a new Crazy Taxi game, and for fans desperate for more crazy action, this will scratch that itch. For everyone else, this probably won’t hit the spot for you, but there is fun to be had here.
Gameplay
The game plays almost identically to Crazy Taxi. You play as one of two taxi drivers and have to drive around a large open city picking up customers with the goal of dropping them off at their destination as quickly as possible. Every time you drop off a customer you get bonus time in which you have to pick up more customers and drop off as many as possible before the time limit runs out.
Controls wise, unlike Crazy Taxi where you switch gears between forwards and reverse you have an accelerate button and a combined brake/reverse button and to be honest this difference to Crazy Taxi is for the worse. When you need to stop your taxi in very specific spots to pick up or drop off passengers you need the brakes to be instant, and I found that I would often have to use a combination of the accelerate and reverse to get the car to stop precisely. As such precious seconds were frequently lost.
The game does give you the ability to make your car jump just as you could in Crazy Taxi 2 and 3, and doing so will give you a combo bonus of tips that you earn whilst on route to your destination. Again where as on Crazy Taxi this felt like a way to build up a score, on Taxi Chaos it feels like the jumps do slow you down which is a shame. This means you’ll use them less frequently and they are best saved for hopping over obstacles.
I hate to do this whole review in reference to how I find things compare to Crazy Taxi, but unfortunately as it borrows so heavily from the Sega game, it’s easier to point out how it improves or not to the arcade classic. Just like Crazy Taxi it seems like you can get bonus cash for driving closely past other cars, but this wasn’t super clear if this actually worked that way.
The game controls well enough, but just is slightly worse than the over 20 year old Crazy Taxi games. This is a shame, but by it’s own merits the game controls well enough. It does need to be said that the on screen arrow which guides you towards your destinations is often quite vague and seems to flip flop about more than it feels it should.
The most interesting new feature is that cop cars can actually minus your cash earnings is you tangle with the cops and get a fine. It’s a shame that there isn’t more creative use or a mode where you have to run form the police constantly to add extra pressure.
Modes
The game is super bare in terms of modes and features. There are achievements to unlock by completing various goals in game, and there are also several cars to unlock, but not a lot of replay value other than to get the highest score.
There is Arcade and Pro modes which is just two versions of the same mode, with the only difference being that in Arcade mode you see an on screen arrow to direct you to drop off points and in pro mode you don’t. Unfortunately the game didn’t hook me enough to master the layout of the map to do super well in Pro mode and I don’t really see the appeal in the mode.
Also on the modes front is free pplay mode where you can just drive around and learn the map without time limits, but again this wasn’t a captivating mode. It’s a shame the game only has one city to explore where as even Crazy Taxi 1 had two on it’s console release and had lots of mini game levels for you to challenge which would also help you master the driving techniques.
Presentation
The game looks very similar to Crazy Taxi and has graphics which also reminded me of Fortnite and The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker in ways. This hits the nostalgia for the Sega game well, and certainly doesn’t need to be more realistic. With only two characters, whom don’t have the best personalities they don’t have the cool factor of Crazy Taxi, but do their job well enough. The music is serviceable, but this is perhaps the area where this game would have little chance of stacking up to the licensed soundtrack of Crazy Taxi. The characters have some humorous dialogue, but it’s nothing spectacular just inoffensive.
One big issue with the game that has nothing to do with it’s likeness to other games is that it has crazy loading times. When the game first launches it took about two minutes to get to the menu screen. I tested this game on Switch so it may not be an issue on other systems but this felt weird considering that the game doesn’t seem like it should need that long.
Conclusion
Despite what may feel like an overall slightly down view of the game, this is mostly because it doesn’t match up to the 20+ year old Crazy Taxi which it desperately wants to be. If you are a fan of Crazy Taxi and want to have fun with a clone game this is your best bet in years. If you’ve never played Crazy Taxi, I’d suggest picking that up first as it can be found on many systems very cheap. On the Switch however it cannot, so this a good alternative.
This is a game best played in short bursts as a distraction for a few minutes between playing other games or to kill time on a bus or train. Maybe a game to pick up on the eshop when it’s on sale, or to look out for reduced if you want a physical copy. The game is fun, but just not quite crazy fun.
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