Taxi Chaos Reviews
If someone never heard of Crazy Taxi, played Taxi Chaos, and then tried Crazy Taxi; they would think that Taxi Chaos was some sort of rudimentary precursor to the series. It's not a terrible game but it's certainly not nearly as enjoyable as its 22 year old counterpart.
If all you want is a facsimile of Crazy Taxi that you can play without dusting off your old Dreamcast then Taxi Chaos just about fits the bill. But that's all it does. For anybody coming into this without the benefits of nostalgia or more money than sense, Taxi Chaos is just a dull arcade driver with precious little to offer other than the dubious pleasure of chasing a high score. Send this one to scrap yard.
The danger of playing with nostalgia and doing it injustice means that the high bar that was set before it is the bare minimum that needs to be achieved to be even deemed worthwhile. There are a lot of call backs to Crazy Taxi in this review and that is due to the derivative nature that Taxi Chaos borrows its concept from. The sub-par graphics, generic map, bland soundtrack and lack of new ideas or the ability to even replicate what came before it has destined Taxi Chaos to the copycats of shame bin. If, even after reading this review there is still some urge to play Taxi Chaos then it is highly recommended to go and track down a copy of Crazy Taxi and Crazy Taxi 2 and play these instead.
Taxi Chaos has aspirations to be something far grander than it ever achieves. It lacks a personality of its own, a reason to keep coming back to its flat city, and really anything memorable. This is simply a pale imitation of Crazy Taxi, and just doesn’t do anything new or inventive for the genre in the 20 years since that game debuted. Taxi Chaos isn’t a spiritual successor, it’s a mundane offspring.
Overall for £30 ($40USD, $55AUD), Taxi Chaos is too limiting to really recommend picking at the minute. Even on sale I could not recommend it unless you are a mega fan of arcade taxi games. The framework is there for a good game and it unfortunately feels incomplete in its current state. If further additions are added later down the line then I will make a part two to this review.
An utterly pointless remake of Crazy Taxi which adds nothing new to an ageing arcade game and somehow manages to remove what made the original so playable in the first place. A missed opportunity to improve or update the gameplay renders this instantly moribund.
Between the scant content, absent personality, and dry gameplay loop, it's not worth the outrageous fare.
No more advanced than Crazy Taxi was back when it debuted all those years ago, and without the same trademark attitude, Taxi Chaos is a real missed opportunity to modernise an arcade favourite.
While some additions to the old formula provide value, particularly the ability to leap onto buildings to shave time on fares and online leaderboards, falling short on all the other parts of the experience drags the entire game down. The lack of Crazy Box-style minigames further reduces any replay value. Crazy Taxi succeeded by offering players the feeling of chaos and excitement, either through its then-novel gameplay mechanics or its untouchable sense of style. Taxi Chaos brings neither to the table and offers only minimal appeal to folks who might have missed all the hoopla twenty years ago. 3/10 beaded seat covers
This is not the Crazy Taxi you're looking for. Move along.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
While it may satiate the urge to dive back into the wild environment that had gamers enamoured for generations, it will only fulfil a temptation for a short period, while becoming a quick afterthought.
Taxi Chaos sought to emulate a 22 year old classic, thus having 22 years to learn what made Crazy Taxi great. Despite this, Taxi Chaos falls flat and fails to recapture the thrills and high-speed gameplay of its progenitor. At its high price point on the Nintendo eShop in relation to the content within, I cannot recommend Taxi Chaos in its current, shallow state.
If you somehow never got to play Crazy Taxi or you no longer have access to play it, then Taxi Chaos is a decent pick and play an arcade game to enjoy in small gaming bursts. It’s a valiant effort but it kinda lacks the magic of the game it’s inspired from. Lacking memorable characters, pumping music and that atmosphere I used to feel in the arcade feels absent here. Taxi Chaos also doesn’t try anything new with the formula. For myself I found myself wanting to dig out Crazy Taxi and play that instead. But I guess when I’m too lazy to do that I’ll probably still give Taxi Chaos a drive-through.
Now, that does not mean you should not give Taxi Chaos a single thought. It just means if you were hoping for the spiritual successor to Crazy Taxi, you would be better off going back and playing the original.