YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH… Get ready to go back to 2000 with a re-release of the original Crazy Taxi on iOS. This arcade driving game hit the Dreamcast and arcade scene back in 1999 but like any classic, it’s always fun to revisit a vintage title from decades past from time to time.
Challenging players to pick up fares around a fictional version of San Francisco, drivers ignore all of the rules of the road as they try to get their customers to the destination before time expires. The more reckless a player is the higher a fare they’ll collect. Bonus cash is awarded for narrowly passing an oncoming vehicle (called “Crazy Through”), jumping off well-placed ramps and getting the passenger to their destination while the timer is still green. Also included in this re-release is the original arcade ruleset where time is added for each successful passenger delivery but also the “5 Crazy Minutes”, “10 Crazy Minutes” and “Crazy Box” challenge missions that were added in the Dreamcast port as well.
This isn’t the first time Crazy Taxi has been ported to other platforms – it appeared on the PS2 in 2002 during SEGA’s early days as a 3rd party publisher. It was ported to the PlayStation Portable as Crazy Taxi Fare Wars in 2007 with support for custom soundtracks and even in-game recording with up to 80 seconds of video recorded. Now players can get their hands on Crazy Taxi for free, as CT is available for free with in-game advertisements right now. Optionally you can pay the low price of $2.49 CDN and have the advertisements removed forever. The latest update even brings back the original 2000 soundtrack featuring The Offspring and Bad Religion (as good.. or as bad as that may be, depending on your tastes and how they’ve evolved in the subsequent 17 years.) Sadly the real world advertisements for Tower Records (RIP), Pizza Hut and KFC have all been removed, now you’ll just drive the customers to a “chicken restaurant” :(.
It’s a nice mobile treat to play such a throwback to the dying days of arcades – CT was one of the first (and last) arcade machines I’ve ever played (I was 13 when CT released). For those concerned that the touch controls might run the experience – they don’t. All the little tricks you might have picked up on the Dreamcast like Crazy Starts and the Rickshaw are still there.
