Crazy Taxi 2 by Sega of America
for Sega Dreamcast
Review
by : Russ
Ray
Although
Sega of America dumped the Dreamcast at the prom earlier this
year to go home with Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft's XBox,
they're still releasing games that have been in development
before the Big White Box prepared to walk off into the sunset.
Of those games, the one that has been of importance to me
is Crazy Taxi 2, the sequel to their 1999 arcade smash
hit that went on to become the best-selling Dreamcast game
of 2000. Some companies like to change sequels too much from
the original in order to keep players interested in buying
the game. I guess they figure that a learning curve isn't
too much to ask. However, with Crazy Taxi 2, only the
names and the streets changed. It's destined to be the classic
that the original was.
A brief
overview of the point of the game: the object is to pick up
and deliver as many passengers as possible in the time allotted.
Time bonuses are given for fast trips, and tips are given
for tricks performed (jumps, passes, and drifts). Passengers
have colored icons over their head which represent how far
away the destination is; the farther away, the higher the
fare. The original game took place in a loose interpretation
of San Francisco; this sequel takes place in a loose interpretation
of New York City. The same overzealous product placements
as the original are in this game, which isn't bad because
it gives the game a certain amount of realism. Some of these
stops include the Hard Rock Cafe, Burger King, FAO Schwarz,
and The Gap, as well as typical New York City landmarks given
generic names like the stock exchange, city hall, and the
art museum.
 What's
new? Well, for starters, CT2 has a new move called
the Crazy Hop. Basically it's a jump function to use while
you're driving. It's especially useful for getting around
three blocked lanes of traffic or a busy intersection, although
its primary purpose is to be used to jump up certain buildings
and overpasses as a shortcut. The downside of this is that
the Crazy Jump tips are almost too easy to rack up with this,
because you can usually hit three combos per hop. You can
also do cool things with it like jump onto a pedestrian route
on what I assume is the Brooklyn Bridge, and thus rack up
more points.
Another
new feature is the ability to pick up 2 to 4 passengers at
a stop (represented by dark blue and light blue fares). In
fact, some of these characters are the funniest in the game.
Most of them are represented as cheerleaders, businessmen,
mimes, and (I kid you not) Jackson 5 rejects complete with
the bellbottoms and afros. The neat thing is that they act
as a bonus multiplier for your tips when you do stunts, but
the bad thing is that if you don't deliver them all on time,
you don't get any money, and you end up wasting a LOT of time.
It's best to start out with two at a time until you learn
the streets better, and then start working your way up.
Another
big problem I have with this game is a lack of improvement
on the direction finder. If you don't know where you're going,
a helpful arrow guides you to the destination, and you also
can call up a location indicator that tells you how far away
you are. As in the original game, sometimes the arrow on the
screen doesn't catch up with you as you're driving, and you
end up getting sent off your route. Although I learned to
ignore the arrow in the original game and just drive, the
street layout on this new game is just too tough to figure
out sometimes. I don't want to fault them for making the game
more difficult, but they could have made it difficult AND
easy at the same time. By playing Mini-Games, you can unlock
the map to both of the tracks in the game. Couldn't they just
have put a graphic overlay on the screen to help you out?
In the original, it didn't matter so much because the streets
were mostly linear, but this game is basically all downtown
driving, and it sucks not to have a little help.
Speaking
of the Mini Games, most of them are pretty easy and a lot
of fun to play too. In fact, I almost wish I had a game of
just the taxi golf, which involves hopping into a gigantic
golf ball that's teed up and attempting to drive it 250 yards.
There is also a game where you must drive on a narrow two
lane road with traffic and avoid falling off the track. Another
game has you to drift down a staggered set of platforms without
falling off, and another one involves hopping up and down
a set of stairs in the time allotted. These games are really
cool, somewhat addictive, and necessary to beat in order to
unlock some of the extra features.
You get
new four drivers to pick from in this game: Slash, Iceman,
Cinnamon, and Hot-D. Basically, they're modeled off of Axel,
B.D. Joe, Gena, and Gus from the original (as far as their
skills in the areas of acceleration, drifting/jumping, and
off-road handling are concerned), but a neat feature in this
one is that you can unlock the original characters and play
them in this game as well. The cars are a bit more recognizable
in this one too: my favorite is Iceman's old Thunderbird with
the big bubble in the trunk for the spare tire. Cinnamon's
orange car with pink seats and Slash's leopard-print seats
are pretty cool designs too. The Offspring again provide the
hard-driving and infectious music for this game, along with
intro sequences performed by Methods of Mayhem.
For new
players, one of the best features of both of these games are
the instinctive controls that are the best usage of the Dreamcast
triggers that I've ever seen. The right trigger is the accelerator
and the left is the brake. I did notice though that my hands
get more tired with this game because of the more rigorous
gameplay involved.
Future
Crazy Taxi games for other platforms are supposed to
involve night driving and secret passengers, so I can't wait
to see what they have planned. Nonetheless, I think it's sad
that Sega has already dumped their own system to go make games
for the other companies. Crazy Taxi 2 doesn't beat
the original for me, but it comes pretty damn close. However,
if you're not familiar with the game at all, I would suggest
you go for the original and not pick up this version. You
might be put off by the difficulty, and the original really
is a fun and addictive game once you get used to it. Despite
some of the problems I had with it, CT2 earns a Class
"S" license all the way.
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