Arcade Passenger Delivery Racing Game Review: Crazy Taxi

Crazy Taxi was the first title in Sega's long-lived franchise of the same name. It brought a fast-paced rush against the timer style-game that is less of a taxi simulation and more of a racing game with marked stops to pick up and drop off passengers. That style of game worked wonders in the arcade.

The game starts with an attract mode featuring the very 1990s skate punk music of The Offspring and Bad Religion, assuming the venue has attract mode music on. My local Walmart always had the attract mode off, which is understandable, as it would drive the cashiers crazy after a while. After a quarter is inserted, the deep-throated voice of DJ Bryan Burton-Lewis, a tokyo-based disc jockey, tells you to pick a car and driver. 

There are four drivers to choose from, each with their own convertible-modified taxi. The charaters included the green haired maniac Axel, the funky cool B.D. Joe, the calm and cool Gina, and the slick open-shirted Gus. My friends, family, and I always went with the same characters. My friend would choose Axel, with his New York-city style taxi, my sister would choose B.D. Joe with his taxi with an elongated hood, and I would choose Gina, with her taxi with white paint down the front and back. No one I ever knew chose Gus. He did have a pretty cool car though, with its classic 1950s-style curved hood. 

The characters would pick up passengers, who lines based on your skill at picking them up including "watch it, you nearly killed me", your performance such as "I'm gonna be late", or indicating their destination, such as "take me to the KFC". In regards to the latter, the original arcade version of the game included several real-life American brands including the aforementioned KFC, Levi's, and Pizza Hut.

Each person requesting pick up has a circle at their feet which indicate how far their fare will take them. Red indicates short fares, yellow indicates medium-distance fares, and green indicates the longest fares. The farther the fare, the better the pay, but it will also run out your timer if you aren't careful. If you make it to the destination quickly, you can earn bonus time, so it's smart to pick up a bunch of red fares if time is running short. You can also make more money from your passengers by doing stunts such as drifting.

As this is an arcade game, your money is added up when the timer runs out. Your score indicates your license rank. If you get $0 at the end, you get no license, and the licenses go up from there by every thousand. The ranks range from E to A, then to S, with E being the worst and S being the best. If you do better than that, you will get an "Awesome" rank at fares above $10,000, and a "Crazy" rank at scores above $20,000. Ranks S and above will get you to the rolling credits. After the game is over, or the credits are over in the cases of high ranks, the player will be able to add their three letter name to the leaderboard.

Crazy Taxi has always been a fun game to play in the arcades, as it is another feeling altogether playing with a physical steering wheel, brakes, gas pedal, and a drive to reverse shifter. However, more than a quarter century later, it is a bonefide arcade classic. From the 90s skate punk music, to the deep tones of the announcer, and especially to the smooth and addicting gameplay, Crazy Taxi is a game anyone can enjoy.

Final Verdict:

4½ out of 5

Open World Action-Adventure Delivery Simulator Shooter Review: Death Stranding

Hideo Kojima has made a career out of making games with way-out-there storylines that somehow remain enjoyable despite their concepts, and often, despite their convoluted nature. Death Stranding is the most decisive of the games by Kojima Productions, but it still have all of the hallmarks of a Kojima title.

The game world takes place in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. An organization named Bridges is attempting to bridge the new cities of the land together into a reconstituted United Cities of America under the former president of the United States, Bridget Strand. 

The world has returned to the caste systems of olde, where people stay in the professions they had before the United States blew up as a result of the titular death stranding, which merges the world of the dead together with that of the living. Explosions known as voidouts take place when corpses blow up in a phenomenon known as necrotization which can only be prevented by cremation. 

The game follows a man who goes by the name Sam Porter Bridges, who is a legendary porter who works for the Bridges organization.  His profession is based on real life Japanese bokka, who transport packages over mountains and across rivers using nothing but their feet and wooden ladders. 

Sam is the only person known as a repatriate, which means that he can return to the world of the living after dying. He carries an unborn fetus known as a Beached Baby or BB that was taken from a brain dead mother and placed in a pod full of liquid that simulates the conditions in a mother's womb. BBs are treated as mere tools, as they can allow the holder to view the souls trapped between the living and dead world.

These souls, known as Beached Things or BT, appear in rain known as timefall. The timefall ages anything with which it comes into contact, meaning any vehicles or structures used by porters will quickly rust and will eventually collapse if they are not regularly repaired or upgraded.

The part of the game that makes it the most divisive is in its main gameplay. Sam is regularly given jobs to port packages to places throughout the former USA. The jobs that are marked as for Sam are those that are needed to be delivered in order to unlock more of the story. There are others marked as standard deliveries which are used to gain more stars at each delivery point. Alongside deliveries are long fetch quests, which require retrieving lost or stolen packages and returning them to their owners.

When not dealing with BTs or fighting or fleeing from enemy thieves known as MULEs, the game works essentially like a twisted Animal Crossing, minus the home building and collecting. It also lacks the decorating, except for the ability to craft and decorate Sam's backpack. The rest is there though, as Sam befriends neighbors, does favors for them and delivers their packages. This makes it a mostly relaxing game, especially when playing it after the end of the story.  The large open world, however, can be detrimental to its playability factor, as trips can be excessively long.

The character models and animation are top notch. Given Kojima's well-known love of Hollywood films, his studio employed well known personalities to portray the game's main characters. Two of the most publicized were those who were slated to work on Kojima's Silent Hills that was scrapped after he was unceremoniously fired from Konami. The main character of that game was slated to be played by Norman Reedus and it was to be co-directed by Guillermo del Toro. Reedus plays Sam Bridges, both in facial capture and voice, while del Toro provides the face of Sam's guide Deadman. Jesse Corti provides Deadman's voice. The actors are fantastic, and help suck you into the game's world.

Music is sparse, as it only occurs during specific points in the game's world, in some cutscenes, and in music played when upgraded structures are activated. Once a song is heard, it is added to the music list and can be played in the menu or inside Bridges shelters. Most of the time, the only sound heard is sound effects, which adds to the desolate feel of the game. The sound effects, whether they be from Sam's feet or the humming of vehicles such as dirt bikes or trucks, are well done.

Death Stranding is a hard game to rate. It is a very divisive game as its gameplay is not for everyone and music is sparse. However, it has a unique story, excellent acting and fantastic character models and animation, and it is a unique take on a delivery game. It is worth playing for anyone who doesn't mind games that consist of long deliveries and fetch quests.

Final Verdict:
4 out of 5