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The original 'Crazy Taxi' is free to play on your smartphone
If you've ever wanted to understand the fuss over Crazy Taxi but didn't want to spend money on a piece of gaming history, you now have your chance. Sega has made it free to play both the Android and iOS versions of the original title, giving you a solid excuse to check out its classic mix of open-world racing and over-the-top style. That includes the original punk rock soundtrack, too. However, there's one big catch: ads.
Carmageddon free, The Incident and more on sale
Just in time for the weekend, here's a few apps that have dropped their (already cheap) prices even lower, meaning that you've got plenty to play here for just a few bucks' worth (all prices USD). The PC classic turned iOS port Carmageddon has gone completely free for today only. The Incident is on sale for 99 cents. The Sky Gamblers: Storm Raiders flight-simulation title has dropped down to just a buck. Just a few weeks after release, Sega's dropped The House of the Dead: Overkill to just $2.99. The game's not fantastic, but it does have a really innovative shooting mechanic built for iOS. Crazy Taxi is also on sale for 99 cents. Zach Gage's Halcyon is currently completely free to download. Chillingo has dropped Tiny Troopers 2: Special Ops down to free as well. Velocispider is on sale for 99 cents. NetherRealm's impressive Batman: Arkham City Lockdown is just under a dollar, too. Excellent price to try that one out at if you haven't. Cavern is a roguelike RPG with some good buzz that's on sale for $1.99. Big Fish Games' cute and polished point-and-click adventure title Fetch is only $2.99. That's just a buck off the usual price, but the game's well worth it. Finally, the retro arcade space shooter Plasma Sky is also available for free right now. Personally, I'm still enjoying Firaxis' free Haunted Hollow, but I'm loading up a few of these on my iPad as well. Enjoy!
Holiday iOS game sales: Sega, Square Enix and plenty more
We told you to expect more holiday sales, and here they are. First up, Sega is hosting a round of holiday drops, including Jet Set Radio for just US$1.99, Crazy Taxi for the same price, and the new Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing for just 99 cents. Great prices on those great games, so don't pass those up. Taito's got a sale up, too, with Gardening Mama for $3.99, Space Invaders Infinity Gene for $1.99 and a few more deals on too. Square Enix has the original Chaos Rings on sale for just $4.99 on iPad. Final Fantasy Tactics is only $8.99, too, which I'm pretty sure is discounted from the usual price. djay for iPad is just $9.99, so that should make it fun to play some tunes at the holiday parties this weekend. Words with Friends HD is now just 99 cents, if you haven't already bought it. The great Dungeon Raid is only 99 cents as well. This is a classic, as far as I'm concerned. Capcom's got some deals on as well, including Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and Street Fighter 4 Volt. Bastion is only 99 cents, which makes it a must-buy. Apple's choice for iPhone game of the year, Rayman Jungle Run, is also only 99 cents. Grand Theft Auto 3 and Grand Theft Auto Chinatown are both only 99 cents, which is kind of insane, and Rockstar's also got Max Payne Mobile selling for the same price. Holy moly! Here's the deal: If there's been an iOS game you've been waiting to buy, odds are it's on sale now, or will be so in the next 24 hours or so. Developers are getting nuts with these prices, trying to claw their way into the charts over the holiday break. Go grab some new apps!
Samsung files for patent on safe taxi service, we hope we never fully test it
Anyone who often relies on taxi service to get around, as good as it can be, has likely had a driver who was less than courteous -- and in the worst cases, outright scary. Samsung wants to keep passengers safe, and drivers honest, through a just-published patent application for an end-to-end taxi service. On a basic level, it's a taxi finder with a rating system: the mobile app in the patent can hail a nearby cab based on the driver's "kindness" rating and verify that it's the right vehicle with a short-range wireless link, not unlike an even more genteel version of Uber. It's when passengers hop inside that Samsung's implementation takes on a more distinct shape. If the driver puts customers or the whole cab in danger, a passenger-activated SOS mode flags the car's location to get the police on the scene before it's too late. We don't know how likely Samsung is to implement such a system, although it has been actively developing more advanced backseat technology and filed the US patent in February, a year after its Korean equivalent. We do know this is one of the few patents we'd rather not completely experience first-hand -- the only crazy taxis we're comfortable with sit inside game consoles.
Android Dreamcast emulator nullDCe gets early video preview, still a work in progress
Never underestimate the power of Dreamcast to live on long past its intended expiration date (which, if you ask Sega, would have been around September 2007). The final flagship console from the Haus of Sonic is survived by a multitude of emulators propagating across a multitude of platforms... and well, here's another. Drk||Raziel has posted some videos showcasing the work in progress of nullDCe for Android (on what we make out to be a AT&T Samsung Captivate). The footage ranges from buggy (Soul Calibur) to pretty smooth (Crazy Taxi), but again, no one's calling this a finished product. See it for yourself after the break.
Dreamcast resurrection: classic Sega titles coming to XBLA and PSN later this year
The Dreamcast lives on! Crazy Taxi and Sonic Adventure are reviving Sega's final console, only this time on Microsoft and Sony's hardware. They are the two inaugural titles that will hit the Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network later this year, to be followed by other classics from Sega's better days. As the now software-only company tells it, you'll basically be getting the original games, replete with (slightly) higher-res visuals, surround sound, online leaderboards, and Trophy and Achievement integration. We don't know what pricing will be like just yet, but Sonic Adventure will be coming at us in time for the 11th anniversary of the Dreamcast's original launch in the US (September 9, 1999).
Gamasutra dissects open world games
Following up on his recent look at difficulty in game design, Gamasutra's John Harris is at it again, this time offering an ample look at what he calls 'open world games' -- titles, according to Harris, where a player is dropped into a larger world and left to figure things out on his or her own. Like his difficult games feature, the lion's share of the article is spent looking at specific examples of games he feels fit this mold, from arcade and 8-bit classics to more contemporary examples like the Grand Theft Auto series.Interestingly, despite GTA's inclusion in the list, Harris concedes that most of the article is spent talking about older games, an observation for which he makes no apology. According to Harris, older games feature "more elemental designs," meaning they don't get all caught up in trying to be more than just a game. Even so, the list is pretty random, with nods to titles such as Cadash, Crazy Taxi, and even Warren Robinett's Atari 2600 classic Adventure, while MMOs go strangely ignored. This last bit seems more peculiar given that that author himself spends time writing scripts for Second Life, but it is an interesting read nonetheless.[Disclaimer: I wrote for Gamasutra from March 2006 to August 2007.]
Developing Crazy Taxi made producer, well, drive crazy
Don't play Crazy Taxi for too long, folks. In a recent interview, Crazy Taxi's Keiji Kanno revealed that while making the original Crazy Taxi games, he found himself driving a bit more insanely. One time, he started driving down the center lane in traffic, realizing that the real world followed different rules. Ouch. Yes, it's a slow news day.
New Crazy Taxi screenshots get wet
Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars is coming to PSP in just a few weeks: August 14th, to be precise. Sega recently sent us some screenshots showcasing some of the crazier environments you'll be driving in the upcoming PSP revival. We won't comment on the graphics this time around -- we'll leave that up to you. At the very least, we hope the game will maintain the same fun and charm of the Dreamcast originals.%Gallery-3231%
One more look at Crazy Taxi
Unlike Crush, Sega's other PSP title, Crazy Taxi, is still a ways off. This Dreamcast port combines the thrills from the first two Crazy Taxi games for the go. Although we've made fun of the game's graphics, we have to admit that this new trailer from Sega shows off some good times. It might not be technically impressive, but we're hoping it'll be entertaining nonetheless. Check out new images in our updated gallery:%Gallery-3231%
SGD '07: Crazy Taxi Fare Wars
When in the shadow of gaming titans such as Silent Hill and God of War, this PSP Crazy Taxi port doesn't seem too hot. Although it may not be pushing the eight billion polygons that Chains of Olympus may be pushing*, the game still has a lot of potential to be fun. Check out Sony Gamers Day pics in our gallery.%Gallery-3231%*Untrue
The bounciest Crazy Taxi trailer yet
They say white guys can't jump ... but what about yellow cabs? Crazy Taxi's revival on PSP might not be the prettiest game on the block, but it certainly looks like a lot of fun. The newest trailer released by Sega shows the game's bouncy personality. Do you dig it?
Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars minigame drives us mad
We commend the effort, Sega. But this is NOT how you should be promoting your upcoming PSP game, Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars. Just like Crazy Taxi, this frustrating Flash game has you driving around town, picking up passengers and dropping them off. However, the controls and level design are so nonsensical that the game becomes more of a frustrating exercise of self-ridicule. Maybe the intent behind this game was to make the player say: "Gee golly, that game sure was un-swell. I know Crazy Taxi will do a better job than this! Let me buy it now!"Unlikely. Honestly, Crazy Taxi looks to be a lot of fun on PSP. It's too bad this Flash game does such a poor job of selling the title.[Via PlayStation Boards]
Battle of the ports: PaRappa versus Crazy Taxi
Battle of the ports: which do you want more? PaRappa the Rapper Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars Neither: PSP doesn't need any more ports! Free polls from Pollhost.com If you haven't noticed, the PSP Fanboy team is totally "t3h b145!!!1" We've been bashing Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars for its sloppy Dreamcast-era graphics. However, we've been going totally gaga for the barely enhanced PaRappa the Rapper. Isn't that unfair? We're going to let you, the PSP Fanboy reader, tell us which of these hotly anticipated PSP ports we should be more excited for. Just check out the videos after the cut, and tell us which one you want more. If you're digging both of them, feel free to vote for both. Of course, if you're feeling particularly jaded today, you can also admit that maybe we shouldn't get so excited over ports--don't we have too many already?
Crazy Taxi still looks crazy bad
Sega's upcoming PSP version of Crazy Taxi has come a long way. The very first video of the game ran at a sluggish rate, featured nearly deserted streets, and had textures worse than the original Dreamcast version. It appears that some significant progress has been made, but is it enough? We say no. A new gameplay montage on IGN reveals greatly improved visuals, but the textures and polygon count still fall short of what we expect from our handheld. While the gameplay looks fun, we can't help but remember playing the taxi cab mode of Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and being far more impressed.At least we won't be charged an arm and a leg for this technically shallow Dreamcast port: releasing at a budget price makes sense to us. But still, wouldn't we love to see a game that truly takes advantage of PSP's capabilities?
Craaazy Crazy Taxi interview
1UP interviewed Kenji Kanno, the Chief Game Design Manager of the upcoming Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars. Amazingly, the interview doesn't really ask many questions about the PSP game. Instead, it focuses on general industry and Crazy Taxi series questions. When asked about the most important part about the evolution of the series, Kanno answered, "I wouldn't use the word 'evolution' for this series because basically the whole point of the game is to have a lot of fun in a short period of time." Sounds like the perfect kind of game for a portable! [Thanks Jonah]
Crazy Taxi trailer doesn't get us too crazy
We heard that the upcoming PSP version of Crazy Taxi needed some graphical polish: and now we can see how much work it truly needs. IGN has the latest trailer, and it's riddled with Dreamcast-era visual quirks, from poor textures, to annoying pop-in. It certainly looks quite weak compared to what the PSP is easily capable of. In addition to revamping the graphics, let's hope that Sega will reconsider doing the sound in the game: the soundtrack and voice work looks to reek of cheese. Certainly, there's a lot more work to do before the game's release in June.
Interview with Sega on new Crazy Taxi
We revealed the new Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars yesterday. Our source was German, so it's nice to see the US associate producer answer some questions to Gamespot ... in English. Some noteworthy highlights: The game is indeed, a compilation of Crazy Taxi and Crazy Taxi 2. Enhancements come in the form of a new multiplayer mode, and updated sound and visuals. "There might be additional changes by the time the game hits store shelves, but details about that will be released at a later time." There will be a multiplayer mode that will utilize a single system. Most likely, you'll pass around the system, trying to outdo each other's score. The exciting movie mode feature will record up to 80 seconds of gameplay and then save onto the Memory Stick. More games should use this feature.
Relive Crazy Taxi with PSP rehash
Forget PSone, Sony should have worked out a deal with Sega to emulate Dreamcast on PSP. Instead, we're starting to see some attempts by publishers to revisit some of their Dreamcast titles using the UMD format. First, Capcom did Power Stone Collection, and now, Sega has announced Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars, built from Crazy Taxi 1 & 2.While Fare Wares offers a new *Ad Hoc* multiplayer mode, we'd gladly trade the additional content for straight-up ports; if it meant we'd be downloading the games and playing them via emulation. Is this just wishful thinking?[Via press release]
Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars revealed
Sega's really starting to ramp up their PSP support. As if After Burner and Full Auto 2 wasn't enough, they recently revealed a new version of their popular Crazy Taxi series for the PSP entitled Fare Wars. GameFront has pictures of the game, and unfortunately, they don't look too sharp. Thankfully, the game has a lot of time to shape up until its expected Summer release (in Europe).The game will feature 2 player ad-hoc multiplayer, and content from Crazy Taxi and Crazy Taxi 2. We're not sure if it'll have new content, but it will have a cool feature that allows you to record videos from the game and save it to Memory Stick, so that you can share your craziest fares.[Via IGN]See also:Power Stone Collection producer wants more Dreamcast ports
