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Crazy Taxi Arrives For PSN, XBLA Version Coming Soon

Posted by Soulskill on from the get-out-of-the-way dept.

Today a remake of the Dreamcast classic Crazy Taxi launched on the PlayStation Network, with the Xbox Live Arcade release coming November 24th. The graphics have been updated to 720p, but licensing issues for the soundtrack and some in-game locations resulted in noticeable changes. Quoting the Opposable Thumbs blog: "The Offspring, along with Bad Religion, provided the game's soundtrack in the original release. These songs, along with the sound of that announcer, went a long way toward creating the game's mood. In the new version, they have been replaced by completely forgettable pop-punk tracks, and it's a downgrade. ... That's not the only thing that's missing. The game originally featured licensed locations. Customers would need to be dropped off at the Pizza Hut, for instance. These companies didn't spring for the advertising in the game's rerelease, but the buildings weren't updated to look like anything else; the result is a game that looks like its filled with closed-down fast food restaurants. ... this is an interesting look at what went on to become a cult classic. Still, this is no replacement for my original copy."

56 comments

  1. Oh how terrible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    They replaced The Offspring with generic pop-punk? Oh, the humanity!

    I think the removal of Pizza Hut is a good thing - either commentary on how games shouldn't be overcommercialised, or else they're just suggesting that in the post-2008 world, lots of businesses have gone under. Don't you like realism?

    1. Re:Oh how terrible by acedotcom · · Score: 3, Interesting

      but then again, thats one of the things that made Crazy Taxi Unique. it had super sharp graphics, decent music and the real world locations added a feel of realism to a completely unbelievable environment. In some way it would be like if they took the Pizza Hut ads out of the TMNT: The Arcade Game on the NES, sure the game would be the same, and not even matter to a new generation of gamers, but its all about the nostalgic feel for some games, and pruning that ruins that experience.

      It should also be noted that CT hasnt had music from the offspring OR KFC, Levi's, or Pizza Hut ads since 2006 (roughly) none of the portable versions have the orignal ads or music, so i dont know why this would be much of a surprise.

      and with that said, it should be noted that CT has one of the most significant patents in console game history. Its still a fun and groundbreaking game, but ill keep playing it on my Dreamcast for now.

      --
      they say it is often more relevant then the comment above, all we know is its called the Sig!
    2. Re:Oh how terrible by somersault · · Score: 1

      Sweet, it's good that they have that patent. I hate when games move the pedestrians out of the way. Carmageddon and GTA were so much more fun than Driver was in that respect. I played Crazy Taxi at the arcades once, didn't really get why it's such a big deal.

      --
      which is totally what she said
    3. Re:Oh how terrible by Hatta · · Score: 1

      Obviously it's set in the future where Taco Bell has won the fast food wars.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    4. Re:Oh how terrible by BigSes · · Score: 1

      They replaced The Offspring with The Offspring? Thats weird.

    5. Re:Oh how terrible by basscomm · · Score: 1

      Sweet, it's good that they have that patent. I hate when games move the pedestrians out of the way. Carmageddon and GTA were so much more fun than Driver was in that respect. I played Crazy Taxi at the arcades once, didn't really get why it's such a big deal.

      If you only played it once, I'd bet you didn't get the full experience, once you learn the (undocumented in the arcade version) techniques to play the thing, the game's a blast.

      --
      http://crummysocks.com
  2. May take some time, Crazy Taxi 2? by msuspartan11 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This was one of my favorite games to play in the arcade growing up and I'm happy to see it coming to the most popular video gaming systems. Of course it is sad not to see the original soundtrack or delivery destinations, however there is a large number of people who haven't played the game before and will love it. It will be a fun inexpensive game for people to play, and if you really miss the music you can download the songs and play them with your Xbox 360. Also, this could be a game that starts off slow and then when the sequel Crazy Taxi 2 comes out it will catch on, and hopefully bring back the old feeling of the original game. At the end of the day it will be a fun game to play, especially when you have a group of people together.

  3. jaklumen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If anything, hopefully some of the newcomers will flock to the original and see how good it really was, either on original hardware or emulation. Then the proprietary commercial Madison Avenue contributors either eat shit (say, the modding community serves it to them on a plate again) or they wake up and decide they might make a buck after all. Sure, licensing's a bitch, but, y'know, we'll see.

  4. Real Life Crazy Taxi by brillow · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've always thought some kids would whip up a real-life version. Hack a car gps onto some random address generator, start a timer, and race across town! The device could calculate how long it should take you to get there, and give you points for getting there sooner. Drivers could compete for points online. Killing peds is of course, extra!

    1. Re:Real Life Crazy Taxi by mccalli · · Score: 1

      Hack a car gps onto some random address generator, start a timer, and race across town!

      Welcome to London.

      Cheers,
      Ian

  5. Do you know of any places where sailors hang out? by elliottsb · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If any Dreamcast games should be updated and re-released it's Shenmue I & II. Those were great games.

  6. The original soundtrack by roachdabug · · Score: 1

    It's all i want
    all I want
    all I want
    all I want
    ya ya ya ya ya

    1. Re:The original soundtrack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nothing changes 'cause it's all the same...

  7. Where is warehouse number 8? by notandor · · Score: 1

    I absolutely agree. It is astonishing how much attention Yu Suzuki and his team put into all the details that make Shenmue such an experience. It would be nice to see it ported to modern consoles.

    The Yakuza series is probably the best that we can get in the meantime http://www.sega.com/yakuza/index_us.php and Yu also posted that he has been working on Shenmue City for Mobage-Town of Yahoo! Japan. http://sunsoft.jp/shenmue-gai/index2.html

    Hopefully we will see Shenmue III one day.

  8. Still see these... by citoxE · · Score: 1

    I still see these machines at some movie theatres around my area. I'm really disappointed about the soundtrack being nerfed. I kind of miss hearing that announcement, "Hey, hey, hey, come on over and play some Crazzzy Taxi." Good times.

  9. Go ahead, stay on my lawn... by wandazulu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...and watch me through the window as I play Crazy Taxi and Jet Set (Grind) Radio on my Dreamcast. After that, I'm going to bring it down a little with some Shenmue.

    Sigh, even if I'm modded down to oblivion, I've got to say it: the Dreamcast was probably the best console ever created, in terms of graphics quality (Soul Calibur just like it played in the arcade!), awesome games (see above, plus Marvel vs Capcom), and experimental "what were you smoking when you came up with that???" games (Pen Pen Trilcelon, Seaman, Space Chanel 5). It was the console that really breached the chasm between the old school Nintendo-era sprite games and the $50 million mega sequels of today. It was the last console where big publishers could take a risk insofar as they were going to have to actually put it on a disc and sell it in the stores, as opposed to just downloading it to the console today. Plus not only did it have the modem/nic attachment, it also had those mini games that doubled as memory carts. I remember playing Tetris on one waiting for the train.

    From the description above, it sounds like going home to discover main street's all boarded up and tumble weeds roll down the sidewalk. Sigh...you can't go home again, even with video games.

    Oh, wait, yes you can....I'll just fire up my Dreamcast!

    1. Re:Go ahead, stay on my lawn... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

      It was also the most pirated console ever. Most people I've known will make up the mmost elaborate stories as to how and why the dream cast was best, but in reality they really loved it because they got free burned copies of games from their friends that is now a leaning tower of burned dream cast CDs.

    2. Re:Go ahead, stay on my lawn... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Boo hoo fuck you. The Dreamcast failed because Sega had a dicey history with retailers and Sony pulled a bunch of shenanigans leading up to the launch of the PS2. Piracy had nothing to do with it you corporate whore.

    3. Re:Go ahead, stay on my lawn... by nightmareci · · Score: 1, Troll

      Real risk-taking game development (all games that strongly adhere to established genres do not fit this category of games) is still happening today. Just check out indie games (some indie games do adhere to established genres closely, however, but there's no "$50 million mega sequels"). The platform(s) is/are different, of course: It's some non-empty subset of Windows, GNU/Linux (and maybe even Linux sans GNU, on some embedded systems) and the Mac, and pirating of indie games is actually very often possible (as implementing DRM always increases development costs and higher costs are not very tolerable for indie game developers, with some individuals thinking it leads to greater profits, but I'm not here to claim whether or not that's true), but developers still see profits; I have to guess the reason why profits are seen is that gamers realize game-development-effort/time/talent is scarce (not copies of games; progressively cheaper-to-make-and-distribute, perfect copies, or "digital distribution," shatters the idea information is necessarily scarce), as resources must be given to these developers for continued development and support to happen. (the source of such resources may not necessarily be the individuals that enjoy the benefits, however; for those crazy self-driven developers, their economic support comes from their occupation unrelated to such development and/or resources simply provided to them by someone that doesn't enjoy the benefits, like their parents)

      I'm also guessing that in that era of the Dreamcast, fewer gamers (or none, but the statement preceding the first comma in this sentence is redundant, as is this, and this whole sentence in parentheses and the parentheses around it) were aware of what's actually scarce (and many may have thought that there really is nothing scarce connected to the creation of Dreamcast game discs that work in a Dreamcast, the discs containing fun-to-play games), and the necessity to support what's truly scarce for game development of games gamers want to play to perpetuate.

      I realize this post is somewhat difficult to read. You can try harder to understand it all or ignore it as you might think it's not worthwhile to understand.

    4. Re:Go ahead, stay on my lawn... by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      it was a console that brought homebrew to console users easily as well.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    5. Re:Go ahead, stay on my lawn... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dreamcast was probably the best console ever created, in terms of graphics quality (Soul Calibur just like it played in the arcade!)

      Soul Calibur is much much much better looking on Dreamcast than on the arcade. The arcade version runs on souped-up playstation 1 hardware.

    6. Re:Go ahead, stay on my lawn... by plasticsquirrel · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I watched the whole sad story unfold. It was clear that Sega's Dreamcast had an innovative design, compact form factor, and all sorts of great games. The graphics were also far better than anything on the previous systems (PSX, N64), and the Sonic demos alone were to die for. I just felt the whole time that Sega deserved the comeback and their new system was really impressive. Unfortunately the timing was bad, because Sony had been working on its PS2, and it was set to be released just as the Dreamcast should have been coming into its own. Unlike the Dreamcast, the PS2 had a large and clunky design, controllers that were the exact same as the last system's, and memory cards that looked exactly the same as well. In terms of its games and developers, they were essentially holdovers from the PSX days. They really offered nothing great in the way of innovation. What they did offer was higher system specs. Rather than the GD-ROM of the Dreamcast, the PS2 had a DVD player, so much more storage for textures and media. Of course, the big thing was better performance for 3D graphics, and Sony wowed everyone with all sorts of contrived demos that no real PS2 game looked even half as good as (It's rendering the FF8 ballroom dance CGI in realtime! Yeah right...). Sony then released this ugly black cube for a hefty $300, which was $100 more than the Dreamcast had been released for at launch.

      The result of all these factors? Of course the PS2 destroyed it. The system performance and developer loyalty were what mattered. The Dreamcast had all the makings of a great system, and it seemed like Sega did everything right in its design, but the timing just killed it. With the death of the Dreamcast and the emergence of new and expensive next-generation consoles, the magic seemed like it was gone, so I left gaming behind. I have fond memories of the old PSX days, though, when quality Japanese RPG's were being released left and right, and each action game wasn't a grizzled spacing marine walking down drab hallways.

      --
      Systemd: the PulseAudio of init systems
    7. Re:Go ahead, stay on my lawn... by drej · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm pretty sure the PSX was worse in that respect. Much worse.

    8. Re:Go ahead, stay on my lawn... by luther349 · · Score: 1

      the filer of the dc was lack of a dvd drive at that time when ps2 launched dc sales pretty much halted. pre ps2 the dc was selling like mad. if they whent for dvd at that time they would have kept in the game in terms of sales. and it was make or brake for sega with that system due to there last failer.wile the dremcast was not a commercial failer it was a encomic one for sega. sega just didn't have the money to be number 2 in the market. and i love people blame piracy when that hack wile known was never released to the public until the dc was dead. so even the pirates gave sega all the room to survive.

    9. Re:Go ahead, stay on my lawn... by Rikiji7 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      and ikaruga!

      --
      slashwhat?
    10. Re:Go ahead, stay on my lawn... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      History is full of gaming consoles with a superior spec being destroyed by lower-spec competition. The Atari Jaguar and Lynx, the Amiga CD32, of course the Dreamcast, and to some extent even the PS3 (Sony have pulled it back but basically by removing a lot of launch features to get the price down). I'm sure there are a lot more that have slipped my mind. It seems to me that there is a sweet spot in every console generation of spec vs price. Underspec too much and you won't sell even if you're dirt cheap (I'm excluding Wii from this as it essentially caters to a wholly different audience), but over-spec at too high a price and people will go with the competition no matter how amazing your device is. It's surprising that console manufacturers are still learning this valuable lesson even today.

    11. Re:Go ahead, stay on my lawn... by Raenex · · Score: 1

      Sigh, even if I'm modded down to oblivion

      Please stop with the mod-whoring.

    12. Re:Go ahead, stay on my lawn... by karnal · · Score: 2, Funny

      You successfully caused my eyeballs to bleed with that.

      --
      Karnal
    13. Re:Go ahead, stay on my lawn... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      PS2 being higher-specced than the Dreamcast may be technically true, but it is undeniable that at the time every DC game looked better than PS2 ones. I thought this was common knowledge.

    14. Re:Go ahead, stay on my lawn... by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 1

      ... but in reality they really loved it because they got free burned copies of games from their friends...

      Oh, please. This was 1999. Nobody but a herd of nerds had CD burners and broadband connections. 'Most people you know', which I'd be willing to bet could be counted on one hand, did not represent a large group of people.

      Meanwhile, Sega needed to produce 10 million more DC units to compete against the 'Toy Story in real-time PS2'and didn't have the funds for it. Their reserves were tapped dry by trying to support several ailing consoles. The president of Sega at the time even returned his ~$70 million worth of stock, not something you hear of in the states.

      The 'piracy killed the Dreamcast' myth keeps turning up despite numerous corrections and the fact that many of DC's games sold over a million copies.

      --

      "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

    15. Re:Go ahead, stay on my lawn... by sznupi · · Score: 1

      Jaguar and CD32 were certainly underspecced, for their generation - in practice only slightly better from the gen they were meant to "replace", and declassed by sweet spot arrivals. That might have been partially the case with Dreamcast, too - if only because of the DVD.

      And Lynx...I would say battery life is an important spec in such system.

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    16. Re:Go ahead, stay on my lawn... by sznupi · · Score: 1

      Leaving gaming behind - and if sometimes returning, often to the games of youth - is also part of getting old, though.

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    17. Re:Go ahead, stay on my lawn... by sznupi · · Score: 1

      BTW do you remember was indy...2D sidescroller...with some teen witch...kept mostly in purple palette...if I remember correctly(?)

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    18. Re:Go ahead, stay on my lawn... by sznupi · · Score: 1

      To be fair, lack of broadband wasn't a problem - copies were mede from disk to disk. And "sold" often.

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
  10. Anonymus Coward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Watch out for patents...
    If this isn't licensed by Sega the developers might be in for a lawsuit.
    http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/5197/Sega-sues-Fox-EA-over-Crazy-Taxi-Clone/

    1. Re:Anonymus Coward by RoFLKOPTr · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yes. Somebody has ported Crazy Taxi and will be selling it on PSN and XBLA without Sega's permission. That's definitely what's happening.

  11. Original 2, remake ? by meerling · · Score: 1

    My brother is mental for Crazy Taxi. He wore out two controllers playing that on the Dreamcast, but from what I've heard of the remake, even he won't touch it.
    Guess we'll see.

    1. Re:Original 2, remake ? by walshy007 · · Score: 1

      Get the gamecube game, you can play it on a wii with the gamecube controller and it has everything intact.

  12. Why not a relicense of the music? any ideas? by KingAlanI · · Score: 1

    I can kinda understand that Megacorps like Pepsi Hut didn't want to readvertise, but I'd have thought it would have been easier to negotiate with Epitaph instead of the RIAA. (Then again, I don't know much about Crazy Taxi - did they use any stuff from Bad Religion's Atlantic Records era or Offspring's Columbia Records era? Then the RIAA *is* involved)

    --
    I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
    1. Re:Why not a relicense of the music? any ideas? by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      if the psn download sells for say 10 bucks.. and the download licenses for the original songs cost 10 bucks..

      originally they probably had a deal for the music at a bulk price, probably tied to the original release amounts.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  13. Wii by brucmack · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The original Crazy Taxi was also ported to Gamecube, so if you can find a copy, it's playable on the Wii as well.

    1. Re:Wii by MemoryDragon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Call me late to the game, I once bought Crazy Taxi in the gamecube version and could not find out why the game was so popular. It just was a drive from a to be as fast as possible without any variations. It might have been the time, I played it three years ago, but I still cannot understand the fuzz about it.

    2. Re:Wii by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 1

      If you thought the best way to score points was simply A to B as fast as possible, you missed the concept of the game.

      You got more points for being an unscrupulously DANGEROUS driver and JUST making the time than you did by getting there asap.

    3. Re:Wii by BitZtream · · Score: 2, Informative

      The ORIGINAL crazy taxi was ported to the Dreamcast, then to other things.

      The ORIGINAL Crazy Taxi was an arcade game, the Dreamcast port came second.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    4. Re:Wii by psydeshow · · Score: 2, Informative

      The beauty of the game only started to emerge after you played it long enough to learn how to *really* drive the cab. And by really drive, I mean spend more time going sideways or in the air than straight-ahead driving. Also, as you began to learn the map, you could do even more stunts using the environment and shortcuts.

      It definitely rewarded a zen-like combination of skilled precision and absolutely bat-shit insane risk-taking. Until you built up the chops to be able to do that, it was just a point-a to point-b driving game with pretty graphics.

  14. homebrew by DrYak · · Score: 1

    in addition to that,it is one of the few consoles to be able to boot from a normal CD (without DRM).
    initially done to enable demo CDs or extra multimedia content on audio CDs, it saw a massive usage on the homebrew scene (i think its the first console with such a massive succes on that point), spuring also patch CDs (for example,using a special boot CD for games which don't enable the VGA output of the console), and also low quality piracy (booting a pirated game on a CD-R is a lot less difficult when there's no DRM, though fitting 1+ GB worth of GD-ROM data on a CD-R requires reducing the quality of everything. Not to mention that game creator embed lots of other protection in it).

    still, i feel that the homebrew capabilities where a big (unintentionnal) revolution, that was only paralleled by the PS3's OtherOS.

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
    1. Re:homebrew by sznupi · · Score: 1

      BTW do you remember was indy...2D sidescroller...with some teen witch...kept mostly in purple palette...if I remember correctly...(?)

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
  15. Bummer by davidbrit2 · · Score: 1

    Crazy Taxi just isn't Crazy Taxi without "Hey honey, take me to Pizza Hut!" over top of "TENNNNNNN IN TWEEEEEENTYYYYYY TENNNNNNNN..."

  16. Nostalgia by killthom · · Score: 1

    I just can't see this experience being the same if things are changed. Nothing was more fun than flying around the city with all the goofy advertising and The Offspring boosting your adrenaline level. Will they still have all the mini-games too? I don't know about you guys, but if I really want to play Crazy Taxi again, I'll bust out my Dreamcast and play until I want to break my controller in frustration!

  17. 720p is nothing by Magius_AR · · Score: 1

    720p is possible now on the Dreamcast with the VGA adapter cable.

  18. Get off my lawn... by snookums · · Score: 1

    .. and come back when you've got a port of Space Taxi.

    --
    Be careful. People in masks cannot be trusted.
  19. Install Emulators by Genorok · · Score: 1

    I loved those old ps2 (or Dreamcast) games such as Crazy Taxi. But I wish that Sony would just release an emulator for the ps3 so We can play our old PS2 games on their newer, slim consoles. It was just too costly to fix the 60GB ps3 every time it got a YloD or overheated (even when giving it 5 feet on each side of space on a hard surface). even if Sony sold the emulator it would be better than having to buy games I already own just to play them on an updated system.

  20. Emulators by Genorok · · Score: 1

    I loved those old ps2 (or Dreamcast) games such as Crazy Taxi. But I wish that Sony would just release an emulator for the ps3 so We can play our old PS2 games on their newer, slim consoles. It was just too costly to fix the 60GB ps3 every time it got a YloD or overheated (even when giving it 5 feet on each side of space on a hard surface). even if Sony sold the emulator it would be better than having to buy games I already own just to play them on an updated system.