Hey, hey, hey! It’s time to make some crazy money? Are ya ready? Here we go! It’s day 2 of our homage to the Dreamcast.
Released almost right after the launch of the Dreamcast console, developer Hitmaker had a hit on their hands with Crazy Taxi.
Who’d ever thought driving a taxi would be a blast? This game is all about style. Basically you pick up fares and get your customer to their destination as fast as possible. The catch? They tip you better the crazier you drive. This is a game all about stunts. The more you perform, the better your reward. The trade off is that you still have to deliver your fare in a certain period of time. This was an ingenious way to get you to memorize the layout of the city.
In regards to the city, this was one of the first games to have prominent in-game advertising. You’ll make deliveries to Pizza Huts (think about that one), Tower Records (uh, I guess the advertising didn’t work), Levi’s stores, and a couple of other restaurant and clothing stores.
Featuring unprecedented graphics for it’s time, this is one of those early titles where gamers preferred the console port to the arcade. See, arcades were where you went for the power. However, the Dreamcast delivered that with Crazy Taxi.
With lightning fast gameplay, excellent audio, and a great soundtrack featuring songs by Bad Religion and The Offspring, Crazy Taxi went on to become one of the few surefire hits on the Dreamcast. It spawned a sequel for the console that added a few twists on the gameplay and had a different soundtrack, but it didn’t really achieve the notoriety of the first.
It’s the original title that most gamers prefer. Because of it’s status, it’s one of the easier games to find on the system, but it can also be found on every other major system at that time.
If it was an XBLA or PSN title it would be a best-seller.