User:ConCompS/Labs/Script Zone
This is the area I use as scripts for WP:SPEAK. I can lend you this space if you want, just ask me. Note to self: read below this line.
Crazy Taxi (series), from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, located at en.wikipedia.org.
Crazy Taxi is a series of score attack racing video games that was developed by Hitmaker and published by Sega. The first game appeared in arcades in 1999 and was very successful, prompting Sega to port the arcade version to their Dreamcast console in 2000. It is the third best-selling Dreamcast game in the United States, selling over a million copies. The game was later ported to the PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, and PC with sequels also appearing on the Xbox, Game Boy Advance, and PlayStation Portable systems.
Each game has the player assume the role of a taxi driver who must accumulate money by delivering passengers to their destinations in the fastest time possible, earning tips by performing "crazy stunts" before the time runs out. The franchise has been recognized for its innovative gameplay design which is easy to learn but difficult to master, its use of in-game advertising, and its soundtrack music provided by the bands The Offspring and Bad Religion. The core gameplay mechanic has been patented by Sega, leading to at least one lawsuit over similar gameplay in The Simpsons Road Rage, which has since been settled out of court.
Section 1: Gameplay
Crazy Taxi and its sequels are score attack games that all employ the same fundamental rules and mechanics. The player controls one of several taxi drivers in a fictional city, looking for fares and then taking them to their destination in the fastest time possible. The player must perform this while time still remains on an overall gameplay clock. Passengers looking for rides are indicated by an overhead marker that is colored to represent the distance to their intended destination. The color marker ranges from red indicating short trips, to yellow for intermediate distances, and to green indicating long ones. When a passenger is picked up, the player is awarded additional time on the countdown time. Furthermore, a second countdown timer is started, representing how quickly the passenger needs to be at their destination. While a passenger is in the taxi, a large green arrow is shown on the player's HUD that points in the general direction of the passenger's destination to help guide the player through the map.
The player can use special "crazy stunt" moves such as drifts, jumps, and near-misses, and consecutive combos of these, to earn extra money from the passenger during the trip. If the destination is reached in time, the player is paid based on distance driven with a possible time bonus based on how quickly the destination was reached. If the passenger's countdown drops to zero, they will exit the taxi and the player will be required to look for another fare. The game continues in this mode as long as time remains on the clock. Once the clock reaches zero, the game is over, and the player is ranked and rated based on the total earned.
Image: The player picks up a passenger in Crazy Taxi. The image of the passenger's destination is shown to the left, while another potential passenger is shown in the background (with a "$" symbol over his/her head)
Unlike other arcade games, the player cannot continue from where the previous game ended. The game cannot be played indefinitely; while there are hundreds of potential passengers to pick up and deliver, there are only a limited number of fares in the game. The various passengers scattered throughout the city will randomly appear and disappear throughout the game, but once one is picked up that passenger is unavailable for the rest of that game. The core gameplay in the series has been praised as being "deceptively complex"; as stated by the IGN staff for their review of the Dreamcast version of Crazy Taxi:
As you progress through the game's ratings scale by picking up and delivering passengers as quickly as possible, you will slowly but surely realize that there is much more to the game than getting from point a to b.
— IGN Staff, Crazy Taxi (Dreamcast) Review
Starting with Crazy Taxi 2, the gameplay included the ability to pick up a party of passengers, each having a different destination. The number of passengers in the car multiplies the tip bonuses earned from stunt driving, while the total fare can only be earned once the last passenger is dropped off in time. Additionally, Crazy Taxi 2 introduced a new stunt move called the "Crazy Hop" that allowed the player to make the taxi jump to clear some obstacles or reach higher drivable surfaces.
The console games have also featured a set of mini-games that require the player to meet a certain objective using one or more of the various "crazy stunts" within the game. Some of these test the player's handling of a taxi, while others are more exaggerated, such as taxi bowling or pool. Some mini-games require the completion of others before they can be accessed.
Image: The player follows the on-screen arrow to deliver the passenger to his/her destination before the main time (upper left) and the passenger timer (green number in center) runs out. The player can earn extra tips by pulling off stunts.
Section 2: Development
The original arcade game was developed by Hitmaker as a variation from then-current arcade titles. Crazy Taxi producer Kenji Kanno noted that the time extension on gameplay was a breakaway of the current "100 yen for 3 minutes" that persisted at the time for arcade games, and rewarded players with longer playing times by performing well in the game. In addition to providing a game that could be played in short sessions, Kanno wanted a game to explore the "daily life and routine" of a taxi driver. In the development of the Dreamcast version of the original arcade game, the developers included a larger map in addition to the arcade one, as to create a feeling of "being lost" and allowing home console players to have fun "learning the town". Mini-games were developed for this version as to "let the player play longer if he improve[d] skill" by offering challenges that were both fun and educational. Over one hundred different ideas for mini-games were developed by the team but then pared down for the Crazy Box mini-game challenges for the game. The addition of the Crazy Hop in Crazy Taxi 2 came about because the development team noted that "...in New York - where the basic landscape is quite flat - we had to create 3D space by letting the player drive on the buildings" and "We added the Crazy Hop to let the player hop around the roofs of buildings to make short cuts".
Hitmaker had tried to develop an on-line version of Crazy Taxi, to be called Crazy Taxi Next exclusively for the Xbox, which, besides multiplayer game modes, would have included night and day cycles, each with a different set of passengers and destinations, while reusing and graphically updating the maps from Crazy Taxi and Crazy Taxi 2. Ultimately, both multiplayer and day/night cycles were dropped and work on Crazy Taxi Next was transferred to Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller, which included some of the nighttime driving concepts suggested by Next.
Kenji Kanno has noted that the gameplay in the Crazy Taxi series has otherwise not "evolved" with each new game "because basically the whole point of the game is to have a lot of fun in a short period of time, and it's a very concentrated game. So instead of trying to evolve the series necessarily, it's more like taking that concept and putting it in different places—seeing how it works."
Section 2.1: Setting
Through the series, the cities used within the Crazy Taxi games have been influenced by real-world cities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, and Las Vegas. Certain versions of the Crazy Taxi game include in-game counterparts of real-world businesses, including Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken, FILA, and Tower Records; these were often destination targets for the passengers. Although this is one of the most prominent examples of product placement in video gaming history, it is generally looked upon relatively favorably amongst gamers, perhaps because it gives a sense of realism to the fictional cities in the game. These establishments have been replaced with generic businesses in later games due to licensing difficulties.
Section 2.2: Soundtrack
The soundtrack of the Crazy Taxi series has typically been licensed hard rock and punk rock music. The arcade and initial home console versions include selections from punk rock bands The Offspring and Bad Religion, though these have been removed in both the Game Boy Advance and the PlayStation Portable remakes because of licensing issues. In the case of the Game Boy Advance Catch a Ride, the game uses instrumental music instead of recorded songs.
Section 2.3: Legalities
Sega applied for and was awarded U.S. Patent 6,200,138–"Game display method, moving direction indicating method, game apparatus and drive simulating apparatus" – in 2001. The mechanics in the "138 patent" describe an arcade cabinet similar to Sega's previous arcade game Harley Davidson L.A. Riders (1997), but also describe the arrow navigation system and pedestrian avoidance aspects that were used in Crazy Taxi.
Image: An image from U.S. Patent 6,200,138, demonstrating the navigation system used in Crazy Taxi that Sega had patented.
In 2001, Electronic Arts and Fox Entertainment released The Simpsons: Road Rage, which has been labelled a rip-off of the Crazy Taxi formula by game reviewers. In this game, the player controlled one of The Simpsons characters as they drive about Springfield, taking passengers to their destinations in the same manner as Crazy Taxi. Sega sued Fox Entertainment, Electronic Arts, and developer Radical Games Ltd. over infringement of the 138 patent. The case, Sega of America, Inc. v. Fox Interactive, et al., was settled in private for an unknown amount. The 138 patent itself remains valid, and is considered to be one of the most important patents in video game development today.
Image: Another image from the patent illustrating several aspects of the system.
Section 3: Games
Section 3.1: Crazy Taxi (arcade)
The arcade version of Crazy Taxi was released in 1999, and featured only the San Francisco-inspired map (known as "Arcade" in the first console game, and later as "West Coast" in sequels). The "Standard Version" arcade cabinet included a cockpit seat, steering wheel, a gear shift lever (for forward and reverse gear) and a brake and acceleration pedal; a more compact "Naomi Cabinet Version" also existed without the cockpit seat. The arcade game was one of the first to use the Sega NAOMI hardware processor, which later would be used in the Sega Dreamcast, and was unveiled as part of Sega's exhibition at the 1999 Amusement Operators Union exposition in Japan.
Image: The Crazy Taxi arcade cabinet.
Section 3.2: Crazy Taxi (console)
The console/home version of Crazy Taxi was released for the Dreamcast on January 24, 2000. The Dreamcast and the cabinet arcade version share nearly identical processing hardware, and porting the game to the home console was only made difficult due to the limited internal memory size on the Dreamcast. Sega used Crazy Taxi to show the power of the Dreamcast's graphical processor, capable of maintaining 60 frame/s throughout play. In addition to the arcade map, this version included the Los Angeles-themed city (entitled "Original"), as well as additional mini-games ("Crazy Box") that can be used to hone the player's taxi handling skills. The new map, much larger than the arcade version, was designed to let the player experience the feeling of "being lost" and allow for exploration, something that could not be done on the arcade version, as well letting "the player enjoy all 3 dimensions."
Once Sega left the hardware market, other companies began to take up some of the franchises, including Crazy Taxi. Acclaim brought the game to the PlayStation on May 21, 2001 and GameCube on November 18, 2001, while Activision and Strangelite ported the game to the PC in 2002; none of these ports were as successful as the Dreamcast version. Currently, the Dreamcast version of Crazy Taxi can be played through emulation via Gametap on PC systems.
Section 3.3: Crazy Taxi 2
Crazy Taxi 2 was released for the Dreamcast on May 28, 2001. The game introduced four new characters, two new maps inspired by New York City ("Around Apple" and "Small Apple"), and added two gameplay features: the mechanics of collecting multiple passengers from a single spot, and the "Crazy Hop", allowing the taxi to clear traffic and certain obstacles with short jumps. Additionally, the "Crazy Box" mode in the first game was expanded into a "Crazy Pyramid" mode.