Crazy Taxi: World Tour Revives Arcade Spirit at Gamescom

Crazy Taxi: World Tour aims to recapture the chaotic arcade spirit of the original Dreamcast hit. A recent hands-on demo at Gamescom showed the game expanding its core taxiing action with new maps and mission types while retaining its signature driving mechanics and punk soundtrack.

Core Gameplay and Feel

The upcoming revival brings back series mascot Axel in his yellow cab, complete with classic moves like the speed-boosting Crazy Dash, brake-slamming Crazy Stop, and the key Crazy Drift. According to the preview, these mechanics ensure the free-roaming driving retains the series' chaotically carefree and staunchly unserious spirit. The music of The Offspring and Bad Religion also returns.

The Gamescom demo focused on the Crazy Rush mode, which mirrors the original's sandbox solo play. The core loop remains picking up and dropping off passengers against the clock, with trick combos serving as a final fare multiplier. The driving action is described as a slapstick rhythm of swerving to avoid obstacles like baggage carts and slamming through stacked luggage.

New Germany Map and Environment

A newly revealed Germany map served as the demo's setting, offering environmental variety from an airport to a tourist town. The preview described a journey from airport tarmac, where players slalom between jumbo jet wheels, to cobbled streets opening into busy plazas filled with market stalls and restaurant tables. The outskirts feature a pumpkin festival, winding mountain roads, a secluded lodge, and a hilltop castle.

The environment is busy with people and vehicles, feeling lively without hampering player momentum. Environmental clutter like roadsigns and rubbish bins explodes on impact, making the player's presence felt. Aesthetically, it was called colourful, slightly bland business as usual for the series, but enlivened by this variety and chaotic life.

New Odd Jobs and Mini-Games

World Tour introduces more structured distractions directly into the map. Mini-games like checkpoint time attacks can be initiated by passing through gates. More significantly, the game features Odd Jobs, which are challenge-based passenger missions that build on the core driving in surprising ways.

The preview detailed several Odd Jobs. In one, a passenger in a squirrel suit asks the driver to use the Crazy Stop move to fling him as far as possible. Another involves picking up a city worker who stands on the back seat with a vacuum; the player must smash bins and boxes so she can hoover up the exploding trash. These missions provide new objectives without breaking the core arcade loops.

A Sample Chase Mission

Toward the end of the demo, a passenger named Pierre, clutching flowers, requested a fast trip to the airport. This seemingly standard fare transformed into a high-speed chase through the countryside. The player dodged nitro bombs and used nitro boosts to escape pursuers, mostly by bounding ludicrously down hills and across fields instead of following hairpin bends. The chase culminated back on the runway, with the player desperately trying to catch up to a plane hurtling toward takeoff.

The experience was summarized as silly, exhilarating, and a load of fun. However, the Eurogamer report notes that this potentially jubilant comeback has been somewhat marred by controversy surrounding the game's use of generative AI. Despite this, the hands-on preview concluded that the classic's spirit appears alive and well in this long-awaited revival.