Back in March, SEGA Networks announced the development of Crazy Taxi: City Rush for iOS. Now, the big release day has arrived and players can jump behind the wheel of their very own taxi, speeding through city streets causing mayhem, all in the name of dropping off patrons as fast as possible.
Crazy Taxi: City Rush comes from SEGA's Hardlight Studios, alongside Kenji Kanno, the creator of the original Crazy Taxi arcade game. While the control scheme has been streamlined for mobile devices, the game also retains the chaos of the original experience. Players complete missions by picking up patrons and dropping them off across town before time runs out, but completing those tasks will test players' reflexes along the way.
In each mission, players are guided to their final destination by a GPS arrow at the top of the screen. Taxis accelerate automatically, and users swipe left and right on the screen to change lanes, collecting bonus coins or avoiding traffic collisions in the process. When approaching a turn, the GPS arrow turns in the appropriate direction as a warning, and players tap and hold on the screen to force their car into a drifting turn. It is possible to miss turns, in which case players lose precious time, but can take a different turn to get back on track.
Gamers have access to nitrous boosts to plow through unavoidable traffic and obstacles, and most every task within the game gives players bonus cash that can be used to upgrade their taxi between missions. These upgrades may be visual, and relate to bonus currency being earned on future missions, or functional. For instance, upgraded tires help players turn around corners more easily, while an overall chassis upgrade reduces the negative impact a collision has on the taxi's speed.
Missions become more complex over time, but users tend to have multiple missions (of varying difficulties) to choose from at any one point in time. Some of these see users dropping off their Facebook friends for social play, while another may place users at the controls of a tank, with the goal of crashing into as many obstacles as possible before running out of time.
Eventually, players will unlock the ability to travel from downtown to the beach and uptown sections of the map, which feature their own sets of missions. Gamers can also purchase new and better taxis when their bank account allows.
Crazy Taxi: City Rush is available to download for free on iOS devices. An Android version is also in the works. The game is monetized via premium currency, which can be spent on speeding up the wait time between "special" missions, or on premium items in the store, as examples.
