Update: Sega has since denied it is involved with Taxi Chaos.
Original Story [Thu 17th Dec, 2020 12:40 GMT]: Sega's Crazy Taxi is one of those titles which is begging for a revival of some kind. The arcade original was a revelation upon release and was followed by two excellent sequels, as well as a GBA version, of all things. However, since then, we've had a smartphone spin-off and not much else.
That looks set to change thanks to Team6 Game Studios, Lion Castle and GS2 Games, who are teaming up to release Taxi Chaos on Switch, PS4 and Xbox One on February 23rd, 2021.
Described as "a fresh and modern take on classic taxi games where drivers can earn big fares by successfully picking up and dropping off customers at the destination of their choice," Taxi Chaos offers unlockable cars and a massive, sprawling city to ride around. Just like Crazy Taxi, the objective is to get your passengers to their drop-off point as quickly as possible – and you don't need to worry about trading paint along the way.
While this looks like pretty blatant plagiarism, Taxi Chaos – which will be getting both a digital and physical release – is actually being distributed by Sega in Japan and Asia, in conjunction with Epicsoft. The North American retail version will be published and distributed by GS2 Games, while the European retail version will be handled by Mindscape.
Will you be giving this one a go? Let us know with a comment.
Comments 50
Just hook it up to my veins.
@SuperKMx It actually looks pretty good, right?
Crazy Taxi? Time for them to get some of that cra-zy money from my wallet!
I only discovered Crazy Taxi in the past couple of weeks, but I'm loving it on PC. A (spiritual) sequel would be amazing!
...it also looks weirdly good? Were did this budget come from?
Let's go make some crazy money!
Those screenshots look pretty good. If it plays like the original, I'm 100% in.
Ooooh, as long as it's semi decent this a day one buy for me. I'll put on loads of 90/00s California punk as I play it to trick me into thinking it's Crazy Taxi.
It does look quite good, but I really wish they'd release the original on Switch.
It's on mobile, you'd think the hugely successful Switch would also be worthwhile.
Oh man i remember playing crazy taxi on the gamecube for hours!
If Sega are publishing it I wonder why they didn't just let them call it Crazy Taxi. 🤔
@Franklin I'd love that. In my eyes Crazy Taxi is like Super Monkey Ball in that the sequels Sega put out always disappointed and failed to surpass the original... I'll wait and see how this one turns out.
Looks great. Would love this. Still play the original every so often
This... actually looks pretty good! Definitely one to keep an eye on.
@Franklin Sega Ages would have been our best shot at a decent port, but maybe we'll see it at some point.
YES PLEASE. I've been playing a bunch of Burnout 3 recently, one of my favorite games of all time.
I spent many hours with Crazy Taxi on both Dreamcast and GameCube/PS2. Hearing that Offspring song will never not bring me instantly back to that game.
The jumping mechanic looks really off putting to me. I don't know, it's not that difficult to play Crazy Taxi today thanks to the digital releases, not sure this is really needed, but I'll keep an eye on it.
Bring it on! Spent many hours playing on dreamcast
gasp it's the odyssey taxi!
Definitely going to wait for your review on this one. I'll remain cautiously optimistic.
As great as Crazy Taxi was, Simpson's Road Rage took it to a level (and franchise) I could never come back down from and I couldn't quite enjoy Crazy Taxi as much again. Remaster that and we can talk.
Oh hell, yeah!
This is great news. I'd love a new Crazy Taxi type of game.
Played this for ages on PS2. Then I got GTA3 and realised that what Sega had sold as a full game was an optional minigame to Rockstar. Still fun to go back and revisit.
I loved crazy taxi, but I loved the Simpsons Road Rage knock off even better. I would love to see a remake of that. In the interim I will be scooping this up.
While I would love a proper Crazy Taxi remake or sequel, I'll be keeping an eye on this. I doubt it will have licensed music, and while the gameplay shown looks fast, the environments appear kind of bland in comparison to the original CT. Definitely waiting for the reviews on this before deciding.
I'm not blown away by that trailer, but I will wait until we have more footage to make any decisions about it.
It's not super photo realistic and it really doesn't need to be. If they can use a cartoony art style to make it look colourful and fun at a high resolution while keeping the framerate high to keep things responsive (Crazy Taxi was always about that 60FPS target) then I'd say they'd have a winner on their hands. Why that trailer isn't 60FPS though, I really don't know. I hope it's not a bad sign
The grahics are perfectly fine for an arcade racer like this. It already looks far better than Crazy Taxi ever did, especially the cars themselves.
They should make a game called "Uber Chaos" where you pick up drunk passengers then they throw up in your car and you charge them a $50 cleaning fee.
I love all of these devs putting in the work to make official and unofficial sequels that SEGA won't bother to make themselves... Hope this turns out well.
But will I be able to listen to “All I Want” by the Offspring in-game though?
the car doesn't look heavy
I will grab this one. Its a perfect homage to the blending of Nintendo and Sega adjacent. It also looks like it will be a good game.
YES PLEASE!!!
I've been waiting for a new Crazy Taxi for a long time.
@SorridoSnake Came here to say just that! It's not a successor without it
Loved Crazy Taxi. Played it all the time on my PS2 back in the early 2000s (weird how long ago that is now). Hopefully this one keeps that same fun attitude and a similar late 90s-early 2000s SoCal punk soundtrack.
Looks like a good throwback title, if it plays and retain all the fun like the game series it tries to inspired from the Dreamcast and GameCube days I'll definitely check it out.
Looks promising. Not a single light post, garbage can, or sign hit. I see a huge missed opportunity. No?
EDIT: I take that back. At 0:08 they hit two traffic light posts.
As great as spiritual successors are, I wish the original developers would just be more active with their classic IPs... oh wellz, I’ll take what I can get.
Y'know...this doesn't look half bad! Reckon we are all waiting with baited breath lol.
If it gets a physical release it's a day one purchase from me.
It's all I want! Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!
The problem is that half of Crazi Taxi is the music. Would it be the same without the bombastic "YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH!"?
Will I give this one a ride? Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!
Edit: Having now noticed the two comments above, I now feel a deep spiritual connection to those people.
I always played the original without music so I would not miss it. The voices got old after a while.
This one just looks like a rip off but since Sega wont bother.
I'd need to see more. There's some hidden depth to the original games that homage/spiritual successor games rarely capture, mostly in the physics and game mechanics. Also, 60FPS would indeed help this game out tremendously.
Sorry if I sound picky. I've played the original a couple of times and I kinda like it, so I wouldn't want to see a spiritual successor fail.
@superderper This was the first thing I thought of too after watching the trailer, the soundtrack better BRING IT!!! A huge amount of the adrenaline rush from Crazy Taxi came from the stellar soundtrack.
Looks like the graphics used in New Donk City. Too bad the US gets the shaft but to Nintendo we don't exist like people in Portland Oregon think nothing exists between them and Sacramento.
Another stupid blunder by sega! Ending the Sega ages line when games like Crazy Taxi are begging to be on the Switch! I just don’t get their logic!
The soundtrack to Crazy Taxi, as dozens of people have already mentioned, is definitely part of its success. I remember downloading the game on the PS3 digitally from the PSN and it did NOT include the Offspring song, due to licensing issues I suppose.
I had a really hard time enjoying the game.....
Let’s hope this game’s mechanics are the same!
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