Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller Review

Crazy Taxi 3 offers the two cities from the first two Crazy Taxi games along with an all new city, some new moves, and a ton of minigames to produce a fairly well rounded package. There is a lot to see and do here and the gameplay is as fun and addictive as ever. Crazy Taxi vets have seen most of this already, but there is enough new here that vets and newcomers alike will definitely get a kick out of it.

Features and Gameplay

Crazy Taxi 3 is made up of the West Coast city from CT 1, the Small Apple city from CT 2, and a brand new city called Glitter Oasis that is based on Las Vegas. In addition, the four drivers from each of the first two games meet up with four new cabbies to up the total roster to twelve. Also of note is that the upbeat rock soundtracks from The Offspring and Bad Religion are present and accounted for. There are also a number of minigames in Crazy Taxi 3 that see you jumping around on moving platforms, hitting baseballs, and bowling just to name a few.

Crazy Taxi 3 also tweaks the gameplay a little bit by introducing some new features into the first two cities. The biggest change is that you can now make your car hop which allows you to get on top of buildings in the West Coast and take shortcuts that weren’t possible before. Another change is that you can now pick up groups of people and take them to their destination rather than just one person at a time. The levels have been slightly altered to make these changes work, but nothing too much. These changes give the earlier cities a fresh feel which keeps things interesting even if you have played Crazy Taxi to death already.

The Cities

The objective of Crazy Taxi is to pick up passengers and deliver them to their destination as fast as possible. Some cities are designed better than others and are more fun, but the game is still very fun to play no matter which city you are in.

West Coast – The West Coast is the first Crazy Taxi city and is arguably the best. There is lots of room to maneuver and the city just flows together really well. The terrain varies from a beach area to a busy downtown section to some absolutely massive hills. This is easily my favorite city.

Small Apple – Small Apple appeared in Crazy Taxi 2 and is modeled after New York City. That means the traffic is thicker and the city streets are a little tighter than in West Coast. This is another city that is really fun to play in because, despite its size, there are lots of landmarks and shortcuts to help you find your way around.

Glitter Oasis – Glitter Oasis is a new city that is based on Las Vegas. It features the neon lights of the Strip along with a stretch of desert and even the Grand Canyon. This city isn’t nearly as fun as the other two because the roads out in the canyon are fairly hard to navigate quickly and it always takes place at night. Still good, just not as fun.

Graphics and Sound

Visually, Crazy Taxi 3 isn’t going to blow you away. It looks good, but there are much nicer looking driving games these days (remember that Crazy Taxi 3 came out in 2002). There are also games with much bigger cities now. That said, Crazy Taxi 3’s graphics are more than adequate and the West Coast and Small Apple cities have been given a coat of polish that wasn’t found in the Dreamcast versions.

Crazy Taxi 3 isn’t going to impress you much with the sound, but this is an arcade game at heart so the music and sound effects are appropriate. There isn’t support for custom soundtracks, which is a pretty big issue because I think this game would be more replayable if you could cruise around to your own music, but the soundtrack from The Offspring and Bad Religion isn’t too bad.

Bottom Line

The Crazy Taxi series has always been one of the most fun and accessible games out there, and with Crazy Taxi 3 you get everything that made the series a hit and more. The gameplay is intact and as solid as ever, and the new tweaks to the older cities make them feel fresh and fun and new again. Something I really like about Crazy Taxi is that since you can play it for 3,5, or 10 minutes at a time, it is super easy to just pick up and play and then put down again. You don’t have to invest a lot of time into it and the little time you do play it is very enjoyable. I like games like that. And with Crazy Taxi 3 you get all three cities in one package, so I think it is worth having in your collection. You can find it for around $15 or less these days, and whether you are new to the series or played the heck out of the first two games on the Dreamcast, there is a lot to like here and I highly recommend it.