Who knew that driving over other cars was an option? In the Flash game Crazy Taxi, your mission is to get your passenger to the destination of their desire in record time. Forget waiting in heavy traffic spread across the streets of San Francisco – now you can use your taxi’s special ability to climb over the heap of cars in your way! Get your customer to where they want to go or face dire consequences!
Another day, another dollar. Taxi drivers spend countless hours driving the public around, only to get little thanks for their job. All customers can do is complain about fares and taxi conditions. It’s time to give your all and prove that you are the best taxi driver the world has ever seen and that you’ll get your customers to their destination on time… no matter what.
It’s called Crazy Taxi for a reason: your character is a downright lunatic! Forget everything you knew about the rules of the road. You’ll be tasked with taking whatever crazy maneuvers you need to in order to beat the clock. If you do it particularly fast, you’ll earn bonus points that you can use to upgrade your beat up piece-of-junk vehicle.
The control setup is pretty laid back. Up/down are used to accelerate/deccelerate, while left and right let you change lanes accordingly. The space bar lets you jump over other cars. You get extra points for every time you play this bizarre leap-frog move. There’s also the ability to bump other cars and flip them off in a majestic display of roadrage.
Navigating is easy when you have a bright green arrow hanging over your head. Take a wrong turn, and it will reroute you without losing a beat. It’s a darn sight better than GPS. Unfortunately, players lose a portion of their fare or bonus points for taking wrong turns. The game requires an amount of skill, one that rewards players more for driving carefully than carelessly.
It makes us a bit sad to learn that the game rewards you more when you drive like a sane person instead of when you pull outrageous maneuvers. The game is called Crazy Taxi, isn’t it? Shouldn’t the goal be to drive as crazy as possible? But we digress.
The graphics are a bit of a disappointment and look like an early version of the Sims games. They’re not absolutely horrible, but they could use some improvement. The controls are incredibly easy to learn though, so even the worst drivers can get a handle on this game pretty quickly.
Through all of it, Crazy Taxi still manages to crash into our hearts as a delightfully ludicrous game that provides endless entertainment. It’s easy to get lost in the wonderful feeling of destroying buildings and smashing up bridges in a virtual world when you can’t in reality. This game will have you coming back time after time for more zany antics and crazy taxi driving!
Crazy Taxi Android
What if we told you that for $5 you could purchase your own taxi cab and use it for mindless vehicle violence while earning a steady paycheck and large bonuses? You’d call us crazy, we know. That’s what the game Crazy Taxi is for. Drive your passengers to their destinations using hilarious new road rules and win bonuses for upgrades!
Crazy Taxi brings the fun of the old-school arcade game back to life in its new Android app. It’s your task to pick up as many fares as possible and drive them to their destination before time runs out, earning bonus points to upgrade your taxi.
The controls from the PC version have transferred surprisingly well to the touchscreen in the form of on-screen buttons (Drive, Reverse, Left, Right). You can double tap controls to either gun the engines or initiate a drift. Traversing the streets of San Franciso is a bit more difficult since the Android app doesn’t have the jumping capabilities anymore, but you get more bonus points for driving safely despite the game’s title. The option for tilt-screen controls may be viable for some, but for most it’s a hassle.
The graphics are still nothing to write home about, but the game runs fairly smoothly on Android devices, even the older ones. The biggest complaint is that the “jump” feature is missing from the game. It was one of the things that made Crazy Taxi so, well, crazy. There’s also the matter that the app is $5, which seems way overpriced to us. It’s best to just stick with the PC version.
Crazy Taxi iPhone
The citizens of the Bay Area are terrified, and it’s not because of a tsunami. It’s because of a fresh wave of insane drivers in the game Crazy Taxi for the iOS!
The rules of the road don’t apply to you in this arcade favorite for the iOS. Passengers must be picked up and driven to their destination before the on-screen clock runs out. Bonus points are awarded for quick runs and zany moves.
While the control scheme is simple enough, the jumps just aren’t what they used to be. Players can use combinations of the left/right and forward/back buttons to initiate a slide or speed boost, but the mobile app lacks much of the charm of the arcade game. The great thing about the game is the soundtrack which features Offspring and Bad Religion, if you’re a fan, that is. Navigating narrower streets and pulling off tighter turns can get a bit hairy, but the game pulls through as highly playable.
When all is said and done, Crazy Taxi isn’t worth the $5 price tag unless you like mindless fun and don’t care about storyline or responsive controls. The PC version has superior gameplay and features when compared to its iOS companion, but the mobile version still has better graphics than the arcade station from the 90s. We recommend saving your money and playing the free version for Flash.