For our last entry in what seemed like a day that went by way too fast at Sega Summer Showcase, we dived into the hilarious insanity of Crazy Taxi: World Tour. For the uninitiated, the Crazy Taxi franchise works pretty much exactly as you would expect it to, driving passengers to destinations in over the top ridiculous and funny scenarios. Think of it as Grand Theft Auto without the gritty real-world violence and gang scenarios. Kind of a colorful and chaotic—yet forgiving—driving sandbox. But interestingly, this franchise (which started as an arcade cabinet) has largely been dormant since Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller in 2002, apart from some handheld adaptations and ports.
What lands here is just how joyously fun and intuitive the title is. It takes all but a few seconds to be under the wheel and picking up passengers and jetting them along the city smashing into things left and right. The driving is forgiving in a good way and it doesn’t feel like it takes much to understand how to traverse the city without being a rolling disaster area entirely. There are all kinds of mini quests in this game, and one we got to try out was picking up a woman brandishing some kind of incredible trash vacuum cleaner and helping her remove all trash from the city’s dumpsters by literally, painstakingly crashing into them for her. The city also features numerous mini race quests where you trigger them by driving over a marker and then have to race to a certain spot as quickly as you can. What’s great about that mechanic is that they are blissfully shorter than most open-world games that feature races.
We then did one of the game’s main pickup quests, picking up an arrogant lothario who seemed to want to skip town quickly. We sped across every aspect of the landscape while fun licensed songs by bands like the Offspring played, driving home the tongue-in-cheek fun of the title. Turns out this Romeo was literally being chased by the fuzz and was trying to skip town at the last possible second. We had to drive on the airport tarmac and then he jumped off the car right onto the wheels of the ascending plane. This is probably a small piece of what’s to come, but if you’re looking for a driving experience without oppressive realism, this will probably be for you.