Crazy Taxi was not my favourite Dreamcast game (please don’t ask me to choose between the triumphant rhythm triptych of Rez, Space Channel 5, and Samba de Amigo, however), but there’s a specific bit of it that’s forever seared into my brain: the giddy thrill of cresting over that one San-Francisco-inspired hill and barreling down toward the ocean, all while The Offspring’s All I Want ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah’ed me into a state of gaming nirvana.
As a moment, it’s the kind of perfect melding of style and blissful arcade purity that seemed to define so much of Sega’s Dreamcast-era output. And my recent half-hour hands-on with the upcoming Crazy Taxi: World Tour at Gamescom suggests the original’s 90s skate-punk spirit and taut arcade thrills are – if perhaps not equal – alive and well in this, Sega’s long-awaited revival.
Crazy Taxi poster boy Axel is back (hair still green, shirt still Hawaiian, attitude less abrasive, and six pack now demurely hidden), as is the music of The Offspring and Bad Religion. Meaning that in terms of pure vibes, World Tour feels a lot like 1999 never left.
And as for the action, it all starts, obviously, with a big, yellow – and improbably agile – taxi. Axel’s Cadillac-inspired cab is once again augmented for excess, featuring a quick speed-boosting Crazy Dash, brake-slamming Crazy Stop, and, of course, Crazy Drift. It’s the latter, more than anything, that ensures World Tour’s free-roaming driving action retains the series’ chaotically carefree, staunchly unserious spirit, letting you – with a stab of the shoulder button – swing wildly around corners and into slippery turns as you race back and forth in your never-ending quest to shift passengers from point A to B.
Sega’s Gamescom demo focused solely on World Tour’s Crazy Rush mode, mirroring the original’s sandbox-y solo taxiing (World Tour also features multiplayer, and a closed beta is on the way). As such, pick-ups and drop-offs, all against the clock, are still very much at the heart of it all, trick combos once again serving as a final fare multiplier. But what’s most promising about this revival is the way it smartly expands on the original series’ exhilaratingly knockabout arcade core without ever overcomplicating it. And World Tour’s newly revealed Germany map feels like a great statement of intent in that regard.
As the demo begins, I slam on the gas and rocket out of an airport underpass, immediately swinging into a satisfyingly freewheeling drift. That’s quickly followed by a sharp gasp as I find myself hurtling down a runway, suddenly forced to slalom between the wheels of a jumbo jet as it thunders my way. And once free of that sweaty palmed surprise, I’m lost in a busily chaotic mess of sprawling tarmac and tight turns as I wind between airport terminals and control towers – desperately trying to settle into the slapstick driving rhythm as I swerve to avoid baggage carts snaking across the concourse, slam through stacked luggage, and, of course, keep watch for potential passengers waiting for a pick-up.
And once you start ferrying passengers – wild with delight as you chain together tricks and rack up the points – it’s not long before they’re sending you to destinations further afield. Soon enough, the airport makes way for the clock towers, quaint pastel houses, and picturesque storefronts that form World Tour’s cartoonish take on a German tourist town. Here, tight tarmac bends give way to cobbled streets opening out into busy plazas, where market stalls and restaurant tables await a reckoning with your front bumper. On the outskirts, a pumpkin festival is in full swing, leading up toward winding mountain roads, a secluded lodge with scenic views, even a hilltop castle crowning it all. Aesthetically, I’d say it’s colourful, slightly bland business as usual for the series, albeit enlivened with environmental variety and a sense of chaotic life.
Streets and roads are busy enough with people and vehicles that they feel lively without hampering your momentum, and there’s enough environmental clutter ready to explode at your touch – those restaurant tables and market stalls, roadsigns, and rubbish bins – that your presence feels like it has an impact on the world. And here’s what I mean about elegant expansion: it’s not just about shifting people around.
Mini-games have now been incorporated directly into the map, meaning you’ve new distractions as you tear across Germany in search of your next job. You can initiate brisk driving challenges like checkpoint time attacks by passing through gates, giving you something new to do without breaking the taut arcade loops. Even better are the Odd Jobs; challenge-based passenger missions building on the core driving action in daftly surprising ways. Each map has a number of these, which you can set a waypoint arrow to at any time, and they’re a riot.
During one Odd Job, I pick up a man in a squirrel suit who wants me to utilise Crazy Stop in order to fling him as far as possible. Another sees me picking up a city worker who needs to clean up the rubbish in the area. She clambers into my cab, stands on the back seat armed with a vacuum, then it’s up to me to smash through as many bins and boxes as possible before the timer runs out so she can hoover up the trash as it explodes into the air.
Toward the end of the demo, I meet a young man named Pierre – a bouquet of flowers clutched firmly in his hands – who insists I take him to the airport as fast as I can. And as soon as we’re off, a seemingly straightforward taxi job suddenly transforms into a messy high-speed chase through the countryside – although I mostly ignore the hairpin bends and just bound ludicrously down hills and across fields, dodging nitro bombs and using my own nitro boosts to escape our pursuers. And it all ends – with pleasing symmetry for my Gamescom hands-on demo – back on the runway. Only this time, it’s me desperately trying to catch up to a plane as it hurtles toward takeoff so that Pierre might escape.
It’s silly, exhilarating, and a load of fun, which is pretty much exactly what I want from my Crazy Taxi. It’s just a shame that a potentially jubilant comeback has been somewhat marred by all the controversy around its use of generative AI. But did I enjoy my time with World Tour? Am I thrilled to see such a treasured classic make a seemingly solid return after all this time? As The Offspring famously sang, “Y-” – well I think you know where I’m going with that one.
