Taxi Chaos 2 Review: the Crazy New Cab Game
Pick up the passengers, learn the shortcuts, avoid those dastardly TaxiBots. That’s the basic formula of Focuspoint Studios’ latest game, Taxi Chaos 2. A sequel to the original, the new game once again has you play as Vinny, the city-smart veteran cabbie who believes he can outdrive anyone, or anything.
Set in fictitious San Valeda (i.e. California), Vinny is new in town and quickly gets thrust back into the world of taxi-driving by old friend Cleo. Evil taxi corporation HANK is unleashing a swarm of autonomous driving TaxiBots and Cleo is dead set to stop the incursion. Using her own AI software, the cabs driven by Vinny include J.E.A.N. Tech, which is quick to point out all your driving faults, like crashing, driving into the ocean, and losing customers.
Familiar with a Twist
The goal of the game is simply to pick up customers and deliver them to their destinations before time runs out or their happiness meter empties. The premise of the game is familiar to anyone who played Crazy Taxi way back in the day, but there are some twists.
To start, there are two game modes, Story Mode and Arcade Mode. In story mode, there is a chapter-based progression with a full story, cut scenes, and changing difficulty. Arcade mode forgoes a lot of this for basic pick-up and drop-off chaos, trying to achieve the highest scores during a single play session.
A playing session, or workday in Story Mode, consists of a day that’s split into three sections, morning, afternoon, and night. Each session has a 4-minute time limit and various tasks to complete, which randomly change and increase difficulty throughout the story mode.
The city roads are constantly evolving. During each of the three workday periods, the roadways can change in a number of ways, with shifting traffic, road construction, accidents, blocked access gates, closed routes, and other sci-fi-inspired treachery.
Much like the ever changing city, the customers vary greatly and constantly change. There are those with fragile cargo, oversized loads, trailers that need to be towed, ones with TaxiBot annihilating laser guns, and some even have rocket boosters to speed up the drive.
Playing Through Fresh Eyes
Having spent my early 20s playing Crazy Taxi, the basic formula for the game’s mechanics aren’t new to me. But what about someone for who it is? For a fresh perspective, I played the game right from the start with my 10-year-old son. Taxi Chaos 2 is intended to be a fast-action game for the whole family, so why not review it as a family?
My son immediately got into the game. Although a newcomer to any sort of driving game, the intuitive controls, smooth, flowing actions, and movable camera angles had him driving the jalopy cab in no time. He thought the graphics were fun and the cars looked cool.
Once a passenger is onboard, it’s easiest to follow the guide arrows to the destination. After a few days playing, my son and I discovered shortcuts by jumping over fences, from road to road, across bridges, and even on rooftops.
The cars have the ability to jump on command right from the start, and it’s possible through story mode to eventually add power-ups to help unlock gates, drive on water, or blast those pesky TaxiBots into the horizon.
Although this is an easy, pick-up and play type of game, there is long-term payoffs that can be learned over time, like recognizing the different types of customers from a distance and learning where all those shortcuts mentioned above can be found.
Verdict: Taxi Chaos 2
A game with such a simple playing structure could lack longevity. But the story mode allows for lots of progression. There are 10 unique taxis to purchase, countless headpieces to unlock and/or purchase for Vinny to wear, the special ability upgrades for the taxis, and new city game modes.
Not everything about the game is perfect. My son found the difficulty level ramped up too high, too quickly and would get frustrated. The TaxiBots were uber aggressive in no time, and we had to grind some money to upgrade our car to further progress, just to have to do it all over again a few days later. There are also a few points in the game where we would get our car utterly stuck and have to restart our day, as there was no way of getting out.
Otherwise, it’s a fun, simple on the surface, yet hard to master game. After our evaluation period was done and it was time to write this review, I told my son we could move on to another game to play if he wanted. His response was “But we could still play this one, right? It’s fun, I really like this game”. That there might be the best possible endorsement for Taxi Chaos 2.
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A 20+ year industry veteran, Mike rejoins the AutoGuide team as the Managing Editor. He started his career at a young age working at dealerships, car rentals, and used car advertisers. He then found his true passion, automotive writing. After contributing to multiple websites for several years, he spent the next six years working at the head office of an automotive OEM, before returning back to the field he loves. He is a member of the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC), and Midwest Automotive Media Association (MAMA). He's the recipient of a feature writing of the year award and multiple video of the year awards.
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