In 1999, Sega released a fast-paced driving game called Crazy Taxi
in arcades and on their Sega Dreamcast console. The combination of
driving passengers to their destinations, wild and humorous gameplay,
and licensed punk music helped Crazy Taxi find a permanent parking spot
in many gamers’ hearts. Two sequels followed, not to mention a
successful Android port of the original game.
Sensing that Crazy Taxi has even more life on mobile, SEGA has just
announced a new mobile-exclusive sequel called Crazy Taxi: City Rush.
The new game will have everything fans loved about the original, plus a
new touch-friendly control scheme and lots of fresh content. We met with
SEGA to play an early build of City Rush and came away highly
impressed. See our exclusive gameplay footage and interview after the
break!
Crazy driving on the go
Crazy
Taxi has always been a great game to play in short sessions, making it
uniquely suited to mobile play. Just like previous games, the goal in
City Rush is to pick up wacky passengers and deliver them to their
destination before time runs out. To beat the timer you’ll have to drive
crazy, soaring over ramps, through the grass, and pulling off stunts
like Crazy Drifts, Brakes, and U-turns.
City Rush features four brand new city maps to cruise through, with
the promise of new content in the future. Players can now select
individual passengers from the map, which breaks the game up better for
mobile and provides the opportunity for passengers to have amusing
stories. You’ll help a business man ditch the rat race and get back to
nature, deliver a skater to the ultimate trick spot, take a cheerleader
out to find her team’s missing quarterback, and other silly missions.
The best one so far lets players hop into a tank and smash cars out of
the way!
Seeing as how most mobile gamers don’t own a physical controller,
SEGA has given City Rush a brand new control scheme for touch screens.
Players now swipe to the left or right in order to change lands on the
road or make turns. This makes it easier to drive in a straight path,
but still affords plenty of chances to off-road it and discover the
shortest of cuts. That said, it would still be nice of SEGA to offer a
more traditional control scheme and controller support for players who
crave them.
Social and Free to Play
Crazy Taxi has never been a multiplayer game, but City Rush takes a
step in that direction by adding Facebook integration. When browsing the
map screens, you’ll see your City Rush-playing friends available as
passengers. Taxi them around the city or simply compete for the best
leaderboard ratings on the story missions.
City Rush will be free to play, with both a soft and hard currency
for players to earn through gameplay or purchase. The money you earn
from completing missions and performing stunts can be spent on new
taxis, car upgrades, and cosmetic features. The upgrades will improve
your car’s engine, body, power, tires, and provide other bonuses. And
the cosmetic features let you add all kinds of paint jobs and decals
(not to mention physical decorations like bull horns) to your ride. Dare
we hope for Sonic decals?
Coming soon
Balancing an established game for free to play can be difficult –
just look at the reception to Dungeon Keeper. But from what we’ve seen
and played so far, Crazy Taxi City Rush adds a lot of longevity to Crazy
Taxi without losing the gameplay and attitude that made the original
games so special. It will even feature licensed punk music PLUS the
ability to import songs and create your own crazy soundtrack.
Crazy Taxi City Rush has soft launched in a few test regions in order
for SEGA to collect feedback and fine-tune the gameplay. It will go
live worldwide on both Android and iOS sometime between spring and the
beginning of summer. In the meantime, SEGA has just made the original
Crazy Taxi free for a limited time. Follow the download link at top to
grab it and start practicing your crazy driving!
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