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Classic Games (Games) PlayStation (Games) Transportation XBox (Games) Games

Crazy Taxi Arrives For PSN, XBLA Version Coming Soon 56

Posted by Soulskill from the get-out-of-the-way dept.
Today a remake of the Dreamcast classic Crazy Taxi launched on the PlayStation Network, with the Xbox Live Arcade release coming November 24th. The graphics have been updated to 720p, but licensing issues for the soundtrack and some in-game locations resulted in noticeable changes. Quoting the Opposable Thumbs blog: "The Offspring, along with Bad Religion, provided the game's soundtrack in the original release. These songs, along with the sound of that announcer, went a long way toward creating the game's mood. In the new version, they have been replaced by completely forgettable pop-punk tracks, and it's a downgrade. ... That's not the only thing that's missing. The game originally featured licensed locations. Customers would need to be dropped off at the Pizza Hut, for instance. These companies didn't spring for the advertising in the game's rerelease, but the buildings weren't updated to look like anything else; the result is a game that looks like its filled with closed-down fast food restaurants. ... this is an interesting look at what went on to become a cult classic. Still, this is no replacement for my original copy."
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Crazy Taxi Arrives For PSN, XBLA Version Coming Soon More

Crazy Taxi Arrives For PSN, XBLA Version Coming Soon

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  • Oh how terrible (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    They replaced The Offspring with generic pop-punk? Oh, the humanity!

    I think the removal of Pizza Hut is a good thing - either commentary on how games shouldn't be overcommercialised, or else they're just suggesting that in the post-2008 world, lots of businesses have gone under. Don't you like realism?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by acedotcom ( 998378 )
      but then again, thats one of the things that made Crazy Taxi Unique. it had super sharp graphics, decent music and the real world locations added a feel of realism to a completely unbelievable environment. In some way it would be like if they took the Pizza Hut ads out of the TMNT: The Arcade Game on the NES, sure the game would be the same, and not even matter to a new generation of gamers, but its all about the nostalgic feel for some games, and pruning that ruins that experience.

      It should also be note

      • Sweet, it's good that they have that patent. I hate when games move the pedestrians out of the way. Carmageddon and GTA were so much more fun than Driver was in that respect. I played Crazy Taxi at the arcades once, didn't really get why it's such a big deal.

        • Sweet, it's good that they have that patent. I hate when games move the pedestrians out of the way. Carmageddon and GTA were so much more fun than Driver was in that respect. I played Crazy Taxi at the arcades once, didn't really get why it's such a big deal.

          If you only played it once, I'd bet you didn't get the full experience, once you learn the (undocumented in the arcade version) techniques to play the thing, the game's a blast [youtube.com].

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hatta ( 162192 )

      Obviously it's set in the future where Taco Bell has won the fast food wars.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by BigSes ( 1623417 )
      They replaced The Offspring with The Offspring? Thats weird.
  • This was one of my favorite games to play in the arcade growing up and I'm happy to see it coming to the most popular video gaming systems. Of course it is sad not to see the original soundtrack or delivery destinations, however there is a large number of people who haven't played the game before and will love it. It will be a fun inexpensive game for people to play, and if you really miss the music you can download the songs and play them with your Xbox 360. Also, this could be a game that starts off slow

  • Real Life Crazy Taxi (Score:2, Interesting)

    by brillow ( 917507 )
    I've always thought some kids would whip up a real-life version. Hack a car gps onto some random address generator, start a timer, and race across town! The device could calculate how long it should take you to get there, and give you points for getting there sooner. Drivers could compete for points online. Killing peds is of course, extra!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mccalli ( 323026 )
      Hack a car gps onto some random address generator, start a timer, and race across town!

      Welcome to London.

      Cheers,
      Ian
  • If any Dreamcast games should be updated and re-released it's Shenmue I & II. Those were great games.

  • It's all i want
    all I want
    all I want
    all I want
    ya ya ya ya ya

  • I still see these machines at some movie theatres around my area. I'm really disappointed about the soundtrack being nerfed. I kind of miss hearing that announcement, "Hey, hey, hey, come on over and play some Crazzzy Taxi." Good times.

  • Go ahead, stay on my lawn... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wandazulu ( 265281 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2010 @01:39AM (#34251804)

    ...and watch me through the window as I play Crazy Taxi and Jet Set (Grind) Radio on my Dreamcast. After that, I'm going to bring it down a little with some Shenmue.

    Sigh, even if I'm modded down to oblivion, I've got to say it: the Dreamcast was probably the best console ever created, in terms of graphics quality (Soul Calibur just like it played in the arcade!), awesome games (see above, plus Marvel vs Capcom), and experimental "what were you smoking when you came up with that???" games (Pen Pen Trilcelon, Seaman, Space Chanel 5). It was the console that really breached the chasm between the old school Nintendo-era sprite games and the $50 million mega sequels of today. It was the last console where big publishers could take a risk insofar as they were going to have to actually put it on a disc and sell it in the stores, as opposed to just downloading it to the console today. Plus not only did it have the modem/nic attachment, it also had those mini games that doubled as memory carts. I remember playing Tetris on one waiting for the train.

    From the description above, it sounds like going home to discover main street's all boarded up and tumble weeds roll down the sidewalk. Sigh...you can't go home again, even with video games.

    Oh, wait, yes you can....I'll just fire up my Dreamcast!

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by nightmareci ( 1941884 )
      Real risk-taking game development (all games that strongly adhere to established genres do not fit this category of games) is still happening today. Just check out indie games (some indie games do adhere to established genres closely, however, but there's no "$50 million mega sequels"). The platform(s) is/are different, of course: It's some non-empty subset of Windows, GNU/Linux (and maybe even Linux sans GNU, on some embedded systems) and the Mac, and pirating of indie games is actually very often possible

    • Re:Go ahead, stay on my lawn... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by plasticsquirrel ( 637166 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2010 @05:12AM (#34252332)
      I watched the whole sad story unfold. It was clear that Sega's Dreamcast had an innovative design, compact form factor, and all sorts of great games. The graphics were also far better than anything on the previous systems (PSX, N64), and the Sonic demos alone were to die for. I just felt the whole time that Sega deserved the comeback and their new system was really impressive. Unfortunately the timing was bad, because Sony had been working on its PS2, and it was set to be released just as the Dreamcast should have been coming into its own. Unlike the Dreamcast, the PS2 had a large and clunky design, controllers that were the exact same as the last system's, and memory cards that looked exactly the same as well. In terms of its games and developers, they were essentially holdovers from the PSX days. They really offered nothing great in the way of innovation. What they did offer was higher system specs. Rather than the GD-ROM of the Dreamcast, the PS2 had a DVD player, so much more storage for textures and media. Of course, the big thing was better performance for 3D graphics, and Sony wowed everyone with all sorts of contrived demos that no real PS2 game looked even half as good as (It's rendering the FF8 ballroom dance CGI in realtime! Yeah right...). Sony then released this ugly black cube for a hefty $300, which was $100 more than the Dreamcast had been released for at launch.

      The result of all these factors? Of course the PS2 destroyed it. The system performance and developer loyalty were what mattered. The Dreamcast had all the makings of a great system, and it seemed like Sega did everything right in its design, but the timing just killed it. With the death of the Dreamcast and the emergence of new and expensive next-generation consoles, the magic seemed like it was gone, so I left gaming behind. I have fond memories of the old PSX days, though, when quality Japanese RPG's were being released left and right, and each action game wasn't a grizzled spacing marine walking down drab hallways.

      • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        History is full of gaming consoles with a superior spec being destroyed by lower-spec competition. The Atari Jaguar and Lynx, the Amiga CD32, of course the Dreamcast, and to some extent even the PS3 (Sony have pulled it back but basically by removing a lot of launch features to get the price down). I'm sure there are a lot more that have slipped my mind. It seems to me that there is a sweet spot in every console generation of spec vs price. Underspec too much and you won't sell even if you're dirt cheap (I'

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sznupi ( 719324 )

          Jaguar and CD32 were certainly underspecced, for their generation - in practice only slightly better from the gen they were meant to "replace", and declassed by sweet spot arrivals. That might have been partially the case with Dreamcast, too - if only because of the DVD.

          And Lynx...I would say battery life is an important spec in such system.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sznupi ( 719324 )

        Leaving gaming behind - and if sometimes returning, often to the games of youth - is also part of getting old, though.

    • in addition to that,it is one of the few consoles to be able to boot from a normal CD (without DRM).
      initially done to enable demo CDs or extra multimedia content on audio CDs, it saw a massive usage on the homebrew scene (i think its the first console with such a massive succes on that point), spuring also patch CDs (for example,using a special boot CD for games which don't enable the VGA output of the console), and also low quality piracy (booting a pirated game on a CD-R is a lot less difficult when there

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sznupi ( 719324 )

        BTW do you remember was indy...2D sidescroller...with some teen witch...kept mostly in purple palette...if I remember correctly...(?)

    • the filer of the dc was lack of a dvd drive at that time when ps2 launched dc sales pretty much halted. pre ps2 the dc was selling like mad. if they whent for dvd at that time they would have kept in the game in terms of sales. and it was make or brake for sega with that system due to there last failer.wile the dremcast was not a commercial failer it was a encomic one for sega. sega just didn't have the money to be number 2 in the market. and i love people blame piracy when that hack wile known was never re

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Rikiji7 ( 1182159 )
      and ikaruga!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Raenex ( 947668 )

      Sigh, even if I'm modded down to oblivion

      Please stop with the mod-whoring.

    • .. and come back when you've got a port of Space Taxi.

    • I loved those old ps2 (or Dreamcast) games such as Crazy Taxi. But I wish that Sony would just release an emulator for the ps3 so We can play our old PS2 games on their newer, slim consoles. It was just too costly to fix the 60GB ps3 every time it got a YloD or overheated (even when giving it 5 feet on each side of space on a hard surface). even if Sony sold the emulator it would be better than having to buy games I already own just to play them on an updated system.
  • My brother is mental for Crazy Taxi. He wore out two controllers playing that on the Dreamcast, but from what I've heard of the remake, even he won't touch it.
    Guess we'll see.

    • Get the gamecube game, you can play it on a wii with the gamecube controller and it has everything intact.

  • I can kinda understand that Megacorps like Pepsi Hut didn't want to readvertise, but I'd have thought it would have been easier to negotiate with Epitaph instead of the RIAA. (Then again, I don't know much about Crazy Taxi - did they use any stuff from Bad Religion's Atlantic Records era or Offspring's Columbia Records era? Then the RIAA *is* involved)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )

      if the psn download sells for say 10 bucks.. and the download licenses for the original songs cost 10 bucks..

      originally they probably had a deal for the music at a bulk price, probably tied to the original release amounts.

  • Wii (Score:3, Insightful)

    by brucmack ( 572780 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2010 @06:30AM (#34252538)

    The original Crazy Taxi was also ported to Gamecube, so if you can find a copy, it's playable on the Wii as well.

    • Re:Wii (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MemoryDragon ( 544441 ) on Wednesday November 17, 2010 @08:38AM (#34253014)

      Call me late to the game, I once bought Crazy Taxi in the gamecube version and could not find out why the game was so popular. It just was a drive from a to be as fast as possible without any variations. It might have been the time, I played it three years ago, but I still cannot understand the fuzz about it.

      • If you thought the best way to score points was simply A to B as fast as possible, you missed the concept of the game.

        You got more points for being an unscrupulously DANGEROUS driver and JUST making the time than you did by getting there asap.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by psydeshow ( 154300 )

        The beauty of the game only started to emerge after you played it long enough to learn how to *really* drive the cab. And by really drive, I mean spend more time going sideways or in the air than straight-ahead driving. Also, as you began to learn the map, you could do even more stunts using the environment and shortcuts.

        It definitely rewarded a zen-like combination of skilled precision and absolutely bat-shit insane risk-taking. Until you built up the chops to be able to do that, it was just a point-a to p

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by BitZtream ( 692029 )

      The ORIGINAL crazy taxi was ported to the Dreamcast, then to other things.

      The ORIGINAL Crazy Taxi was an arcade game, the Dreamcast port came second.

  • Crazy Taxi just isn't Crazy Taxi without "Hey honey, take me to Pizza Hut!" over top of "TENNNNNNN IN TWEEEEEENTYYYYYY TENNNNNNNN..."
  • I just can't see this experience being the same if things are changed. Nothing was more fun than flying around the city with all the goofy advertising and The Offspring boosting your adrenaline level. Will they still have all the mini-games too? I don't know about you guys, but if I really want to play Crazy Taxi again, I'll bust out my Dreamcast and play until I want to break my controller in frustration!
  • 720p is possible now on the Dreamcast with the VGA adapter cable.
  • I loved those old ps2 (or Dreamcast) games such as Crazy Taxi. But I wish that Sony would just release an emulator for the ps3 so We can play our old PS2 games on their newer, slim consoles. It was just too costly to fix the 60GB ps3 every time it got a YloD or overheated (even when giving it 5 feet on each side of space on a hard surface). even if Sony sold the emulator it would be better than having to buy games I already own just to play them on an updated system.

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