Key Preview Takeaways:
- The core gameplay hits that nostalgic Crazy Taxi note.
- Visuals are a bit bland.
- There’s not enough of the specific around-the-world locations built into the maps.
One of the defining games of Sega’s Dreamcast back in the day was the arcade driving game, Crazy Taxi, first released more than a quarter of a century ago. With its fantastic soundtrack and its frenetic driving, it is about as quintessential “early 2000s” as you can get with a video game, and it has been 12 years since the last game released bearing the Crazy Taxi banner and double that since the last console release. Recently, Sega had us out to get a little hands-on time with the brand new entry, Crazy Taxi: World Tour, that was first announced back at Summer Game Fest earlier this summer. With The Offspring screaming YA YA YA YA YA at me, I slammed down the pedal and off I went to pick up my first passenger, mostly happy with what’s here but wishing it did more to put the “world” in “World Tour.”
Revealed just recently at GamesCom was a brand new level making its debut: Germany. The new level has most of those ingredients that you would want from a fast-paced arcade game like Crazy Taxi. I was dropped onto the tarmac of a large airport, a great place to get used to how the cab controls and feels while pulling off some sick donuts. The large size of the hazards also made them easy to avoid… most of the time. Once I was done taking passengers from one side of the airport to the other, it was off to explore the rest of the level.
The region is divided into five areas: the airport where you start, the City, the Walled City, the Mountains, and the Autobahn that connects them all. I’m not entirely sure about how an airport screams “Germany”, but the other areas, especially the city areas, did give off at least a little bit of a Deutschland vibe. One of the niftier additions to World Tour, though, was being able to at any hop into a menu and change the time of day, with my options including being able to pick from morning, afternoon, evening, or night.
Outside of simple visual aesthetics, I didn’t really notice this time shift affecting the gameplay at all, be it the number of passengers that were out, the density of the traffic, or what odd jobs appeared. I also didn’t notice time passing naturally, but that could just be due to having so little time with World Tour. Hopefully in the final game, the sun will rise and set on its own as you drive around, because each time of day featured its own distinct beauty, and I wouldn’t mind the time of day impacting how the areas behaved. Regardless, driving around during the golden hour of evening or while surrounded by the lights of buildings at nighttime was pretty neat.
Speaking of driving, as it’s the pillar that the Crazy Taxi series is built upon,World Tour controlled really well, letting me pull off tight turns, sick boosts off ramps, and quick dodges around oncoming traffic. Acceleration felt right, and managing to utilize the fast break right on cue feels damn good. I’ve always gravitated more towards arcade racers than driving sims, especially those from the era that Crazy Taxi comes from. Where acceleration is fast, there are shortcuts sprinkled all over for you to discover, and mastering its movement and maps almost becomes an art form. I didn’t have enough time to really regain all my cabbie instincts, and my reaction times are a bit slower than when I was in my teens; it still seems to be on the right track to nail what I remember the old games not only feeling like, but hearing like, too.
The moment those first few chords of The Offspring started, though, it was like I hopped in the back seat of Axel’s taxi and was whisked away back to the early 2000s, where I just wanted to turn my brain off and zip around trying to beat my personal best records and listening to sweet tunes. It really makes me smile that the team understands just how closely linked Crazy Taxi is to the music. I associate the “All I want” and its signature YA YA YAs to Crazy Taxi just like I connect Tony Hawk with Goldfinger’s “Superman” track, and to hear it back in World Tour really helps tie it together.
But my time in fictional Germany wasn’t spent just vibing to late ‘90s skate punk and taking passengers to their destinations. Other activities, including various odd jobs and skill tests, were available to check out, giving me a little break when I wanted to take a rest from delivering passengers. These all required me to drive fast, of course, but were usually nice breaks from the typical getting from point A to point B.
During one of these jobs, I had the environmentally crucial task of driving into neatly stacked piles of nearby paper so that the worker in the backseat, equipped with a vacuum, could suck them all up. The one I probably had the most fun with, though, was where I had to slam on my brakes and send a guy in a wingsuit flying, trying to rack up the most distance. At least up until my demo crashed and I had to call it quits (but hey, it’s a pre-release build; it happens).
The whole time I was zooming around picking up fares and boosting off ramps, and even though I was having a fun time doing it, there was a nagging thought in the back of my mind, like a bug buzzing around inside while you’re driving – things just looked sort of, well, generic? While the cab itself looks pretty fly, the various other cars on the roads and especially the NPC passengers lacked detail or much personality. Largely coming off as something pulled off an asset store.
The fact that I was driving around what was supposedly Germany, outside of the map telling me, and colorful arched buildings (which, had I not been told, I would have just attributed as “generic European town” I would have just assumed it was a random place. I would love it if Sega leaned into the culture a bit more. Have the passengers speak with a German accent or have the occasional townsperson swap their shorts for some sick Lederhosen. I get that the vast majority of people don’t wander around like that anymore, but taxi drivers don’t have green flames bursting from their tires either. And I’m still trying to figure out what about the airport is supposed to make me feel like I’m in Germany, aside from the occasional sign in what I assume is German alongside the ones that are still in English. Why take me around the world if you aren’t going to represent the people as well as the scenery? This is a game where you drive a taxi; if I’m driving around in Germany, shouldn’t I be picking up German passengers, or at least folks that sound like they’re German?
Still, even in this early state, as I was drifting and boosting around Germany, I settled into that peaceful, serene sort of state when I could see myself just doing it for hours. The whole loop, while simplistic, was just fun. There is a reason that the Crazy Taxi series is beloved by so many who grew up with it, calling for its return for so long. It has been a series I’ve always checked out from afar, and only occasionally getting behind the wheel myself, but I get it now.
Playing Crazy Taxi: World Tour, even briefly, was just that simple-yet-exciting sort of fun that arcade games excel at, that makes you want to just keep playing. An almost refreshingly uncomplicated palette cleanser free of skill trees, crafting systems, and the other chaff that seems to be in every game you play nowadays. I just hope they manage to make the levels worthy of the “World Tour” moniker this new ride has.
While you’re here, check out these previews of other big upcoming games we’ve played recently!
Scott White is a freelance contributor to IGN, assisting with tabletop games and guide coverage. Follow him on X/Twitter or Bluesky.
