How’s your driving record? Clean?

It’s clean, real clean. Like my conscience.

Some years ago that might have been true, but then I found Crazy Taxi when it was first ported to the Dreamcast back in 2000.

Coming back to it now it’s strange how the city is still so familiar and the music, much like THPS2, is just embedded within my grey matter.

The basic premise of Crazy Taxi was a short burst arcade driving game; pick up a passenger from the side of the road and get them to their chosen destination as quickly as possible, you gain time and money etc. if you get them there. Simple. But not boring, oh no.

Crazy taxi is an adrenaline fuelled barrage where cars, trucks and other people pose no object in getting to your destination. Power-sliding, grabbing air and near misses all gain you more money through the passenger loving it – at least, that was how I always understood the game, perhaps they were trying to bribe me to slow down…

This is also one of the shortest games I have ever completed. After playing for about 5-7 mins on Arcade mode and attaining a not too disrespectful 20 Rank – I was awarded with the credits rolling and video footage of me dropping off my fares.

After… 5 … minutes.

This again shows how faithful the port is, and after spending a good amount of my childhood shut away in a room playing Crazy Taxi (this was before I could actually drive too) I later tried the Arcade version and found it very similar.

One of the most blatant parts of the game is the advertising that goes on within, whether it’s ferrying some young red-head to Tower Records, or the local fat guy to Pizza Hut or KFC there’s no shortage of real-world brainwashing in the game.

To square things though, they did add quite a lot of black priests that want to go to church.

My experience with Crazy Taxi has now spanned over a decade, and I still enjoy the fast paced pick-up-and-play style it offers and would rate it among my top driving games, if only for the different style it offers to most others.

In short, play the game if you get a chance.