Together Retro: Crazy Taxi

[Hatta]

Sweet. I actually have the steering wheel for the DC, so this should be fun.

[DaGamingMonkey]

Have this game, never played it. I'm in.

[weasels]

well boys i have to do the extra credit but as so i will not be posting my scores

[DaGamingMonkey]

Ok... lol tried it out. I suck at this game lol
Hopefully can get better :-/

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

Ok... lol tried it out. I suck at this game lol
Hopefully can get better :-/

Try switching the controls so that the face buttons are for gas and brake, and the shoulder triggers are for shifting between forwards and reverse. I find that it can really hep new players adjust to the game by playing this way, the only downside is that you no longer get analog throttle control and are always flooring the gas pedal due to using the face buttons but I guess I'd be doing that anyway as it's Crazy Taxi.

[DaGamingMonkey]

thanks for the advice
I can't seem to break 3,000 averaging around 2,800.
I'm sort of getting hang of the speed boosts, the power slide seems impossible to handle
One of my biggest problems is peeling out after i pick someone upand losing time because of it.
Any tips with fares? short ones or long ones better for your overall score?

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

thanks for the advice
I can't seem to break 3,000 averaging around 2,800.
I'm sort of getting hang of the speed boosts, the power slide seems impossible to handle
One of my biggest problems is peeling out after i pick someone upand losing time because of it.
Any tips with fares? short ones or long ones better for your overall score?

The power slide can be a little tricky, but give it some time and you should be doing it regularly in about a day or so.

To prevent peel outs either push the trigger gently and gradually slam down on it as you pick up speed, or if you're using the face buttons tap the gas a few times to pick up speed them mash down on it to pick up the slack it can sometimes cause.

Fares can be pretty straightforward, as soon as you start go straight for the closest customer and pick them up, later on though once you drop them off and get paid look for a moderate to long distance fare and alternate accordingly until you run out of time. This way you get to drive for a good period of time and can hone your skills for immediate short fare or long fare hops later on in the game.

[Niode]

You guys should just give up now. I literally pwn at this title. In my hayday (back when Crazy Taxi first came out on DC) I could get upwards of 43K.

If I can get it set up I'll video a few runs of me playing tonight to give some of you newbies an insight in how to get the most out of those initial 60 seconds.

What's the rules for the high score then? Is it the same as Twin-Galaxies?

Timer difficulty is set to '1', which is easiest. Traffic difficulty may be set to ANY VALUE from '1' (easiest) to '8' (hardest) at the discretion of the player. Twin Galaxies does not dtsinguish between difficulties...it is up to the player to choose the one that best meets their play-style. Starting time is set to the highest possible value in terms of seconds.

[Niode]

Actually since I have some spare time I'll list some tips for you guys.

Don't pick up orange or yellow-green (as in the ones that aren't Yellow or full Green, sort of in between colour) fares. These aren't particularly rewarding and are generally tight on time. So unless you have no option you should avoid these fares.

Don't change the button layout, you need the analogue control for throttle, despite what it seems like. It feels like you should put pedal to the metal for the entirety but you will find that you have more control if you feather the accelerator when turning (without drifting) or during Crazy Drifts.

Make sure you master switching between reverse and drive in quick succession. Once you master the move you will find Crazy Drifts, Crazy Dashes, Crazy Stops, and even Crazy Jumps (yes you can crazy jump in the first game without using a ramp, you have to be very very good at throttle/gear control) are much much easier. The trick is to let go of the accelerator hit reverse and then as you press drive again, hit your accelerator at the same time. This should be done in less than half a second to get the best results.

To get the most out of your runs you need use a technique called over-revving, which involves doing a Crazy Dash (pressing drive and accelerator at the same time) and then immediately doing the same move outlined previously to initiate Crazy Drifts but without steering. You'll see the car jolt forwards and go even faster. Getting a good rhythm of Dashing and then over-revving is the key to achieving and maintaining high speeds and it's the ONLY way to keep playing for longer than a few minutes. On my longest arcade run I played for nearly an hour using the above methods.

IF you can manage to do it, complete the Crazy Box mode, it gives you access to the Rickshaw, this vehicle is a beast and it can literally turn on a dime. It goes just as fast as the particular car the driver you are using has, but it has enhanced handling. If you get good you can seriously just pull 360's at the end of a fare to eek out the last couple of tips.

Driving flawlessly is key to this game but don't get too disheartened if you crash a lot. If you use the above methods of over-revving you'll be going so fast that most cars literally just fly out of your way if you hit them and if you do get stuck, over-revving will have you back up to speed in seconds.

Don't take unnecessary risks. Getting the fare to the destination is your highest priority, I know it sounds obvious, but I saw people showboating with drifts pointlessly for a measly 50 dollar tip. If you get your fare to the destination with 10 seconds to spare, you've just gained 10 seconds on your timer, but also 5 seconds for being a good driver as well. This adds up. I've had a timer say well over 2 minutes despite starting at 70 seconds (and that's during idle time when not with a far, there's a few particularly long fares in arcade mode that give you way too much time, especially if you know the shortcuts). It is possible to play this game for a relatively long time, when you get good, the timer isn't the limiting factor, it's the layout of the fares thats the problem and when you've done two round trips of the city you start to run out of decent fares to pick up.

Hope these tips are useful for people.

[racketboy]

I know this is sort of nit-picky, but what's with the super brief TR introduction article this month? I have never played this game before, so I would have loved one of those articles with tons of background on the game. Again, I know I'm being nit-picky, but I'm just saying that this article mainly just makes me want to go look up the game on wikipidia or other sites. And that would be fine if I haven't seen far better TR articles introducing games in the past. (don't mean to poop on anyone, seriously).

'Cause I wrote it instead of fast
Seriously though, I've had a lot of personal things going on lately so I haven't had much time, plus I'm trying to prep some other Dreamcast pieces to publish before 9/9