Let's Go Make Some Crazy Money! (Crazy Taxi With Guides/Maps)

Crazy Taxi came out a few days ago (along with GT5, but we'll get to that in a minute).  For just $10, Crazy Taxi isn't bad.  Let's get into it.

This is basically the same thing as the Dreamcast version.  You get to pick from the Arcade and Original courses, both of which are drastically different.  The graphics are crisp with the same sense of speed and no slowdown, but the blocky graphics and occasional pop-up are clear as day.  You can tell this is a ten year old game off the bat.  Not a big deal though, still looks good.  As you know, the old logos are gone so no KFC, FILA, Pizza Hut, etc.  No big deal, you get to transport people to the "Fried Chicken Shack" now or something.

Now about the soundtrack.  No Offspring or Bad Religion--we know that.  Instead, you got some new licensed punk bands.  Here's the soundtrack from some guy's post on GameFAQs.  Try to identify any of these bands...

Burn the Fields - Escape Artist
The Hooks - Get Out
Jonny Rumble - Black Radio
Three Against Four - Jump, Sink
Lions, Lions - Radiator
One Light Out - Orange Wednesday
The Juliet Dagger - Flinch
The Juliet Dagger - Taking It Back
The Juliet Dagger - Ragdoll
The Vicious Five - Your Mouth is a Guillotine
Theron Bay - The Chase
The Days The Nights - Radical Sabbatical
We Are Invisible - Spy Chaser

I really don't like any of the music in the game at all, but it's not terrible.  It's filler music--not happy with it but not too bad for me to turn off.  I could put some punk music on a USB drive and pop it into my 360, but I'm too lazy to do that.

Now about the gameplay.  Just like the original--run over to people, pick them up, drive them over.  You do it fast, you get more time.  You pull crazy tricks, people throw money at you.  It's crazy fun and also very difficult.  Now having played this for the first time in years (I owned it for the PC), the handling feels the same as before.  However, it sure is slippery.  Your car can rub off traffic and just bounce all over the place.  Guess the best way to describe it in Grand Theft Auto on major steroids.  I also hear a lot of "phomp" sounds (like an old car exhaust) when you hit jumps and whatnot which kind of got annoying.

Besides the usual arcade mode (get people and drop them off), you have the Crazy Box.  The Crazy Box is just sixteen ghetto little missions where you have to slide around on a few primitive levels and make it to the end in time and whatnot.  They remind me of Gran Turismo license tests but with no purpose whatsoever.

As for the achievements, if you can earn an S-license (make over $5,000) on both Original and Arcade courses as well as pass all the Crazy Box missions, then you have 200/200.  Not hard, I did it in a day.

Come to think of it, this is a fun game and it's worth the money, but it's a shame that there's hardly any changes in the game at all.  Just copy and paste the game from one console to another.  I wish Sega put a little more time in each Dreamcast port they work on to show they really care, but no dice.

DISCLAIMER: This was before I knew how to limit cut which greatly helps your taxi abilities...

Read how specifically to do a Limit Cut here.

Now here, I'm going to offer you some guides.  I'm not that good at it--the most I've made so far is $6,000 which is pathetic compared to others who can go into the six digits*** (read footnote).  I know how to do tricks with the throttle and shifter (such as the Crazy Dash) but I still need help with it.  I can do good and keep my time around 45-50 seconds until I plow head-first into a bus and end up going in reverse which wastes enough time for me to drop off a "Slow" customer which means no bonus time and then it all goes downhill from there.  But you can do better than me, I hope.

Click to enlarge pics...

 Arcade Course, a big loop so a map really isn't too helpful:

Original Course, you're really gonna need a map for this one.  The GPS arrow is horribly off, especially in the NW part of the town:

NEW: Found out about this Crazy Taxi Techniques site.  One of the best around.  I linked to it multiple times in this blog already but hey, knowledge is power...

Also check out MKim's Crazy Taxi guide from GameFAQs.  He already wrote massive guides on Daytona USA 1/2 so this guy has some credibility.  It's for the arcade version, but the 360/PS3 versions are practically the same so yeah.  He tells you how to do tricks like the Crazy Dash (huge acceleration boost from stand-still; just shift from R to D then hit gas immediately after) which are insanely helpful.

And finally, some Crazy Box guide on GameFAQs if you're stuck on one of the missions.

Will talk about other stuff later.

 EDIT: Just got $9,138.78 with Gena (with default settings)!!  May do better someday. (like I said, no limit cuts...)

***EDIT2: Had no idea about this until now.  You can go to Options and increase the amount of starting time as well as reduce difficulty (arcade dipswitches).  And that your score is saved to the Leaderboards anyway (I just tested this).  No way, this is BOGUS, man.  BIG advantage for high scores.  It also makes the achievements easier to unlock...