Taxi Chaos

Let me ask you a question: Do you want to play a new Crazy Taxi game? What about one that doesn't add anything new or interesting to the formula? Are you still in if I tell you that it is actually a big step backwards from Sega's most recent sequel, a game that came out almost twenty years ago? If you answered yes to all of these questions, then you're the target audience for Taxi Chaos. It's a Crazy Taxi clone so blatant that developer Orange One decided to get Sega's approval. And if you're the type of person who desperately wants a new Crazy Taxi game, no matter the imperfections, then this review may not be for you. Go, buy Taxi Chaos and bask in the nostalgia. Everybody else should buckle up, because this is going to be a bumpy ride.

Before we can talk about Taxi Chaos, we first need to take a look at the game that inspired it. In many ways, Crazy Taxi was the ultimate late '90s arcade machine. The concept was instantly understandable and the rush of picking up and dropping off passengers gave the game a sense of urgency that set it apart from all the other driving games. It was also short and sweet, with most sessions lasting no more than a few minutes.

Unfortunately, all of the things that made Crazy Taxi great in the arcade ended up being a problem when it got ported to home consoles like the Dreamcast, PlayStation 2 and GameCube. Those exciting four-or-five-minute sessions didn't translate well, leaving gamers with a disappointingly shallow experience that became boring and repetitive after only an hour or two. Sega would attempt to update the formula with both a 2001 Dreamcast sequel and Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller on the Xbox, but by that point the industry had moved away from the short attention span arcade experience and towards long-form, open-world games like Grand Theft Auto III. Only three years after becoming a smash arcade hit, Crazy Taxi was out of a job.

Although its potential was never fully realized on home consoles, there are still a lot of people who have fond memories of Crazy Taxi. Including me. That's why it's so easy to get your hopes up for a game like Taxi Chaos, a clone that, in theory, should be able to take what worked in those classic installments and update them with all of the modern enhancements. It's a chance for a new developer to show up Sega by making the sequel we've always wanted. This is the promise of a game like Taxi Chaos.

Just like Crazy Taxi, the goal is to speed around the fictional New Yellow City picking up and dropping off passengers. Each fare will need to go to the theater, construction site, skate park, Chinese restaurant, subway station, hospital, art gallery, heliport and other notable NYC locations. Your job is to get them there as quickly as possible, preferably while racking up combos for speed, near-misses, shortcuts and even jumping over oncoming traffic. The trick is to earn as much money as possible while picking up time bonuses, which will go a long way to prolong the game and allow you to pick up more passengers, which translates to making more money. You do this loop until time runs out, and then you do it all over again.

If you're looking for anything deeper than that, then you've come to the wrong place. About the closest thing you get to depth is picking up some of NYC's more famous inhabitants, such as a mascot character, rock star or weird alien tourist. These unique passengers will add new collectables to the map, which you will need to pick up in order to unlock the next part of their story. This is something, but it's not much.

Click For the Full Picture Archive

A lot of the game will come down to completing a handful of challenges in order to unlock all seven different taxis. This involves driving a certain number of miles, collecting 100 fares, earning star ratings and more. The problem is that there isn't a lot of balance to the cabs. You'll be okay with the slower taxis early on, but once you unlock the later vehicles, there's no looking back. In fact, it's nearly impossible to climb the leaderboard and earn those high scores with anything other than the two fastest taxis, which is just one of the many ill-conceived parts of the scoring system.

There's also a frustrating lack of modes to play through. I suspect most of the time will be spent in the regular Arcade mode, which is basically a carbon copy of Crazy Taxi. Pro mode is basically the same as the Arcade mode, only without the arrows and indication of where to go. This is made so much worse by the lack of an on-screen map or even a compass. You really have to memorize every part of the medium-sized city in order to even stand a chance, which will require playing the other modes for hours on end.

The easiest way to do this is in the Free Roam mode, which is the game's biggest missed opportunity. This mode ditches the aggressive timer and lets you explore New Yellow City at your own pace. This is the best way to search out those celebrity passengers and locate the collectable items, as well as jump on roofs and find shortcuts. It's great being able to explore the city without worrying about picking up fares, but there's not much to do here. Tracking down collectables isn't a fun primary activity and ultimately shows the weakness of Taxi Chaos as both a Crazy Taxi clone and a modern game.

This is a game that had the potential to revitalize a long-dead franchise and add something new to the formula, but instead what we get is a game that feels like a remake. And it's not just that it's a lateral move, but rather that in a lot of ways this is a big step backwards from Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller. That's a game released in 2002, yet it somehow still feels fresher than the brand-new Taxi Chaos. Even the console ports of the original Crazy Taxi had more modes and features than this.

Click For the Full Picture Archive

It's especially frustrating when you think about all the amazing things you can do with Crazy Taxi as a starting point. They could have created a whole story mode where the taxis are constantly at war with Uber and Lyft. Perhaps they could have added a bunch of mini-games to the Free Roam mode. Maybe the developers could have used that open world to create individual missions and challenges. They probably could have added more than two characters who can't stop saying their annoying catchphrases. Or, better yet, perhaps just turn the fight for fares into an intense multiplayer experience. There's so much they could have done by just adding a second player to the mix. Or, really, adding anything new and interesting. Anything at all.

Because they didn't think to innovate or update the formula in any meaningful way, Orange One has created a game that falls into the same trap that ultimately brought down the earlier Crazy Taxi games. It's the kind of arcade experience that is fun for a half hour or so, but quickly runs out of gas. Once you've unlocked all the cars and found your place on the leaderboard, there's not much to do beyond collecting hidden items. Taxi Chaos so desperately wants to be something else that it ends up having an identity crisis. And that makes me sad.