Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars Comments by Ellie Gibson

Indeed.

To be expected really, a crazy taxi game needs more and they wouldn't put that elusive 'more' into a PSP game would they?

I was sold on Crazy Taxi back in the early days of PS2 (yeah, that's right, I skipped the DC and I'm not sorry about it!), but I recently picked up the game again for a very low price. I have to say, it hasn't aged well at all.*

And before someone asks, yes, I've played the DC version as well at a later point (I got one to see what all the fuzz was about).

* Might be because I didn't really try that hard to get back into it.

Loved the Dreamcast game (only played the original version) and still have a go on it from time to time these days.

Will be buying this because I would love to play it on the train to work :)

Thinking of the dreamcast brings back fond memories of Skies of Arcadia, now that was a game !

Even though I don't have a psp, it's a shame to see it's not too good hear- loved it on the Dreamcast. I used to play it loads, until I got to the stage where a game would end up lasting an hour or so, and so I eventually stopped playing it as it would last too long..

Wow, this is a shame. Was planning on getting this :(

An Ellie Gibson review scoring 4/10? Now that's a novelty; why couldn't she have reviewed Halo 3?

Some may not be sorry about missing Dreamcast, I would be sorry if I never had the pleasure of owning and playing some great titles on Dreamcast!! There were some great titles at the time, even it shown up superior PS2 console with some games! Mainly jaggies illustrated the difference.

I also own PS2 so can see the difference but yes Dreamcast died and we now have Sega publishing for all consoles, Lost Planet and Dead Rising are couple of great titles from them.

Crazy Taxi could not last, its too simplistic and narrow but great fun while it lasted. First iteration was enough really.

EDIT: Caught with my pants round the ankle! Yeah was kept up through the night by sick daughter and I shoulda known better than to mix up Capcom and Sega!

Dude.. You can *jump* in Crazy Taxi 2. That's a pretty big difference between the two right there.

It turned out as bad as I had expected.

Are you guys willing to review the japanese version of Crisis Core? I'd love to read a review for that one, but written by a FF VII fan. :)

we now have Sega publishing for all consoles, Lost Planet and Dead Rising are couple of great titles from them.

O_o

hmm its identical to the dreamcast version i thought plus you can load in your own music plus it has extra features like adhoc multiplayer and you can unlock maps of the cities its an easy 6/10 or more if you liked the dreamcast version loading times when ripped to ms are fast and quicker than the dreamcast pop up and jaggies are identical as well its a perfect port like powerstone more dc ports please ikuragua would be nice

I've been playing it and the review is harsh. There are 2 sets of controls in the game, and if you use control set b and use the d-pad (not the analog pad which is rubbish in many psp games) then there are no problems with the controls. Sure the pop-up in the graphics is lazy from Sega, but when you can pick this up from around £15 it's not a showstopper.

>" Lost Planet and Dead Rising are couple of great titles from them. "

O_o

LP & DR are Capcom...

Why did they bother?

What about Daytona USA?

@ GamesConnoisseur.

I think it needs to be said again - Lost Planet and Dead Rising were both by Capcom.

After buying Crazy Taxi 1&2 for Dreamcast, and Crazy Taxi 3 for Xbox, I think i've had all the Crazy Taxi I can take. I don't see how this could work on a handheld either, CT needs a large open city on a big TV. Unless there are some new ideas, SEGA should leave this series alone. o_O

Because Halo 3 had to get a 10 duh.

Or maybe because, *gasp*, Halo 3 deserves a 10? (I don't even have an XBox 360 =)

It seems that now we'll have to deal with a whole new line of "not as good as Halo?" (as opposed to "better than Halo?", since you can't top a 10) comments on EG, even in the most absurd situations...

How long before it's ported to the Wii?

"I don't agree so the review is utter bollocks," screamed the idiot.

Hey! I was born in 1987, and I knew the words and moves to 'Bring me sunshine' in first school, dammit!

Well there are better ways to start a review than pissing on a true classic that despite what the review says, stacks up really well even today. I have no idea how the PSP game performs, and I'm not terribly keen to find out even, but it's the discrediting of the original Crazy Taxi that leaves a pretty bad aftertaste.

Pffft, Crazy Taxi 1 and 2 will always be classics - anyone who says otherwise is WRONG.

Fact.

Complaining about a 7 year old game having 'pop-up' is like complaining about Doom using 2D sprites, or bitching about the fact that the original Pac-Man is not some kind of HD 3D beast.

Powerstone collection got a very favourable review on Eurogamer, so I can't believe that the games have aged that badly. ;P

its identical to the dreamcast version its aged by the same amount its still as it was but with multiplayer now

I played this on PSP a few weeks back and thought it was great, pretty similar to the DC versions, no problems on the small screen, the controls are not as comfortable, but then I used a wheel on the DC back in the day anyway.

Treat it for what it is, a port of a 8-year-old arcade game and judge it as such, if you think you are buying the next Burnout (however unlikely!), then you will be disapointed.

Love the line 'The problem is arcade-style racing games have come a long way since Crazy Taxi' nothing like that 9/10 you lot gave the arcade-stlye racing game that is advertised all over your site at the moment - maybe this got four to get redress the Sega scoring balance!

Hasn't Crazy Taxi been made pretty obsolete by the taxi missions in GTA, which basically were a carbon copy of the game concept?
So, if I had a PSP and wanted to play such a game, I'd rather pick up one of the GTAs, given they still got the taxi missions in them.

@ the_tellurian.

The short answer is "No".

The long answer being "You can fire a gun in GTA, does that make Halo worthless ?". A taxi mission in GTA, although the same concept, isn't much like Crazy Taxi at all.

Crazy Taxi is identical to GTA taxi missions to people who burnt the game, didn't have the manual and completely missed the fact that the maneuvers in the game are absolutely essential.

Sure, Sega could've done a better job with tutorials and stuff - a pretty consistent problem with their games is that nobody knows how to play them. Well, it used to be the problem, now nobody wants to play them period, for rather good reason most of the time.

But yeah, Crazy Taxi gets suitably crazy compared to any other take on its base concept. Midtown Madness 3 is prolly the closest you'll get to CT without actually playing a Crazy Taxi game.. but again that's without the "crazy maneuvers".

@ dabo

Not quite as retarded as calling a review "utter bollocks" simply because you don't agree with it. Grow up, child.

@ SimonM7.

A consistent problem with SEGA games is that nobody knows how to play them ? Are you mad ? If you don't know how to play a SEGA game, you probably shouldn't be playing games at all.

I've not got a PSP and I don't intend to... I agree a game of this type probably works better on a big screen.

But Crazy Taxi always felt slow until you got good at it. You need to learn the Crazy Dash to boost off from a standing start, and then you need to be repeating the Crazy Dash whenever you're on a straight to keep up your speed.

Although the dash is pretty difficult to learn, it does mean that the game has two paces - relaxed for newbies who are just learning the map, and super-fast for more experienced players. It's a nifty device that gives the game longevity.

When it's played well, you know the routes, you're in the zone, it looks as fast as Burnout and onlookers are flabberghasted.

"You can earn extra money for driving dangerously and performing stunts." doesn't really emphasise enough the importance of drifts, "throughs" and jumps -- if you don't get these, you'll never make a decent score, and you'll never get all the way around the city.

The essence of CT for me is hurtling towards my passenger's destination at impossible speed, sideways, using a wall to bring me to an abrubt stop, so that I finish off pointing away from said wall ready for a dash-start towards the next fare.

At least in my circles, Crazy Taxi is regarded as one of the greatest arcade games of all time. It jars a bit to see what appears to be a faithful port described as "fundamentally rubbish".

@ arcadiian

I've barely seen a video review, barely read a preview or review by someone who played Gunvalkyrie, NiGHTS, Shinobi, Crazy Taxi, Panzer Dragoon Orta or Jet Set Radio the way they're meant to be played.

Have you actually seen anyone playing Shinobi and properly and consistently performing "Tates" in that game, which is basically the core gameplay mechanic? Lemme guess, they're hitting buttons trying to play it like a hack and slash. Gunvalkyrie video reviews all show people running around on the ground trying to strafe and shoot things.

Those games were awful at actually telling you what you were supposed to be doing, instead trusting the player to find out. They both had attract modes that played after a while on the title screen showing a VASTLY different game than the one on display in video reviews, but few people even knew about those.

But sure, dismiss what I'm saying if you want. How many crazy dash moves did you perform by simply picking up the controller in Crazy Taxi may I ask? Unless you're psychic I'd say none.

@ukslim

Completely agree with you. Crazy Taxi plays at a completely different pace once you've mastered the crazy dash and mastered sliding to a halt. The other thing that makes a difference is how you place the car to pick someone up, vital seconds disappearing if you get it wrong. Part of the appeal of Crazy Taxi is trying to nail all of these elements all in one game because it's tough not to make a few mistakes along the way.

It seems harsh marking down a retro game when they've done a faithful remake (yes complete with pop-up), given you 2 games instead of one and done it at budget price. On this basis, no retro remake should ever score more than 5/10 as the graphics will be invariably rubbish.

My mate managed to get a score of 60'000 on the Dreamcast one back in the day, he had crazy skills on it, it was awful when he'd come over to have a go, his one go would last fucking hours.
It was a grand game back in the day, but also one of the most infuriating, nothing beat racking up a huge score over an hour and then losing 30 seconds off your clock because you get stuck on a tree or something.

@ SimonM7.

I understand what you're trying to say, but think of a football game, like Fifa. The casual player will chase after the ball and try to kick it into a goal, right ? While the casual CT player drives around picking up fares. But the "psychic" player learns the skills needed to progress further in the game.

Nearly every game does this. It has nothing to do with SEGA, and nothing to do with psychic power. It's called learning how to play a game properly, and people either do it, or they don't.

What's this with needing to be psychic to play CT? The crazy dash is in the manual or is being able to read a dying art?

lol at gta taxi missions being the same as crazy taxi

Well Arcadiian, it would be the same if there weren't absolutely WRONG ways to play the games I mentioned.

Say there's a game where you're supposed to fly, but you're just running around because you don't even know. You're still shooting baddies and sort of semi-completing what you're there to do, enough to keep the levels rolling.. but you were really meant to be flying.

Imagine that game exists.. no in fact, it does exist, and is called Gunvalkyrie.

The same is true in Shinobi, and the same is true here. You can play this game completely oblivious to the crazy dash stuff and think it's like GTA taxi missions. There's barely anything in the game except the attract mode to suggest otherwise.

Ah yeah, I forgot about the joy/skill of stopping/crashing in to walls by new fares, to get quick stops/facing the correct direction. & also there was the fun of learning a routine you liked- i.e. pick up that person who will be a long fare to over there, then get that person to such and such a place, and so on- trying to perfect the combinations of fares that would give you (hopefully) the highest score possible, with the least time wasted.

Shouldn't these games have a back in the day score and a post Morcambe and Wise score - just to keep everyone happy.

@Goffee

I know what you're saying, but I don't think so. Either a game is playable or it isn't. Playability and addictiveness should always make up the major part of any review score unless you are comparing two very similar games that are only distinguishable by the sound and graphics. CT is good arcade gaming and doesn't have a lot of direct competitors on the PSP (I don't think so anyway).

I think the EG review was seriously flawed and I can back this up by shooting down some of it's major criticisms (rather than just calling it bollocks), such as dodgy controls - use control set B and don't use the analog stick cos it's rubbish, and dismissing CT2 is a serious error. The addition of the crazy hop/jump is more than just cosmetic, opening up a whole heap of short-cuts to explore. I've not even looked at the multiplayer modes yet, so they might be good too. Given that EG rarely give scores below 4/10, they're effectively saying that CT is one of the worst PSP games ever released, again nonsense. I think a fair score would have been around 7/10 (as awarded by most review sites) and as a fan of the series it's worth an 8.

Crazy Taxi is one of the greatest arcade games of the last 10 years. I can't take a review seriously when it disses it's subject matter so as to make me assume the reviewer does not understand the game in question. It looks a bit ragged now, but the gameplay is still better than most games released today.