One of my favorite video games was released in 1999 in arcades everywhere. That game was called Crazy Taxi and it was a taxi driving game developed by Hitmaker (now part of Sega AM3). A year later it was ported to the Dreamcast and later to the Playstation 2 and Gamecube.
The object of the game was to pick up passengers and deliver them to their destination. It was possible to earn cash bonuses along the way by performing various driving stunts and by narrowly missing other cars. The game was fairly unique in the fact that it used product placement rather heavily. Passengers in the game would request to be taken to places like KFC, Pizza Hut, Tower Records and the FILA store.
At the top of the screen there was a large green arrow which always pointed to your passengers destination. This made it really easy to know which direction you should be heading in. Taking a passenger to their destination in the fastest time was always advisable as this would give you the largest amount of cash once the passenger reached their destination.
Early versions of the game had as many as sixty unique levels. This helped to make Crazy Taxi very addictive and unique. The popularity of the game grew and eventually gave rise to several sequels by Sega. There were also some Crazy Taxi clones based around the idea of delivering passengers to their destination.
These copies meant that Sega had to take legal action. A lawsuit against Fox Interactive was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. The most well known Crazy Taxi like game is probably The Simpsons Road Rage which is similar to Crazy Taxi in many ways.
A lot of the latest driving games owe some features to the Crazy Taxi game series. Thing we take for granted nowadays such as directional arrows and time limits. Crazy Taxi had a lot of really great features. I still enjoy playing the game today, although thesedays it’s not in the arcade like back then.
You can find out more about Crazy Taxi and play a Crazy Taxi Game online for free right now.