Taxi Chaos Review #NintendoSwitch
Summary: Overall for £30, Taxi Chaos is too limiting to really recommend picking at the minute. Even on sale I could not recommend it unless you are a mega fan of arcade taxi games. The framework is there for a good game and it unfortunately feels incomplete in its current state. If further additions are added later down the line then I will make a part two to this review.
1.8
Taxi Chaos
If we all cast our minds back to the late 90’s arcade, what do we see Stars Wars Podracer, Street Fighter and of course Sega’s seminal Cab driver Crazy Taxi.
Taxi Chaos tries to give this genre another shot with a Crazy Taxi revival of sorts. But don’t order this taxi just yet as this game is a Bumpy Ride!
First point that needs to be made about Taxi Chaos is its very lacklustre resolution and scaling, yes I understand that this the Nintendo Switch version and I should expect some cutbacks so that it will play in Handheld mode, but this does take the biscuit. Everything has a blurry feel, almost as if the image is trying to upscale to fit the resolution on the Nintendo Switch and has somehow got stretched. Though this can be overlooked and is not so distracting that you would be thoroughly distracted by this. Though it does not give off the polished feel you would expect from a game in 2021.
You have three choices for game modes in Taxi Chaos:
Arcade: Player against the clock, get the fairs and drive to the destination and keep looping until you run out of time which unfortunately is too short and the additional time gained for completing a fair is woefully small. Adding further to the issue is running out of time even with an active fair going. This is also the only way to unlock “Pro”Mode.
Freemode: Freemode is a way for the player to learn the map and get a handle of the controls. Also the mode I played the most as I said above the Arcade mode is lacking.
Pro Mode: Is a basically a challenge mode, where you have no mini map and you must use your map knowledge to complete fares. Sounds simple enough, but with most of the assets being reused learning the map is more a process of tedium rather than an enjoyable experience.
When you complete challenges you will be rewarded with additional Taxis each with their own design and small attribute changes. Unfortunately there are no additional skills you can learn except boost and jump which you have at the start of the game. Really limiting replay ability and progression that this game could really do with to pad out the meagre gameplay loop.
Additionally the characters in the game do add spice but due to the short nature of most fares the added dialogue can get lost and become unfinished which is a real shame as that was a real missed chance for some hilarity like in the Original Crazy Taxi Series.
Final Thoughts?
Overall for £30 ($40USD, $55AUD), Taxi Chaos is too limiting to really recommend picking at the minute. Even on sale I could not recommend it unless you are a mega fan of arcade taxi games. The framework is there for a good game and it unfortunately feels incomplete in its current state. If further additions are added later down the line then I will make a part two to this review.
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