Crazy Taxi 2

Overview

Crazy Taxi 2 is a video game develop by Hitmaker and publish by Sega, and released on the Dreamcast in 2001. It was the final Crazy Taxi game to be released on the system. In 2007, a port of the game made its way on the PSP along with the original game in the form of Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars. Crazy Taxi 2 feature two new levels, four new cab drivers, a new gameplay element and new music tracks.

Gameplay

The player has a choice of four or eight (Four characters are unlockables) cab drivers; they're depended on speed and handling. The main objective of the game is to pick up a passenger and take him or her to his or her desire location at fast as possible. Many gameplay elements come into play, making the gameplay giving more depth than originally preceived. A new element was introduced in Crazy Taxi 2, the "Crazy Hop," it's a jump mechanic that helps the player jump over huge traffic jams and get through short cuts. The player will start with fifty seconds, it can be increase once the player starts picking up costumers and dropping them off as fast as possible.  

The game takes place in two cities that are heavily based on New York. Costumers will be hanging around the city, waiting for the player to pick them up and take them to their desire location. There multiple types of costumers to pick up that are categorizes in different colors - it represents their difficulty. New to the series is the ability to pick up two to four costumers at once. A ranking will be to the player once the player drops off the costumers. Depending on how fast the player gets to the location that the costumers wants to get to, will determine the ranking. The "Speedy" rank will give the player an extra five seconds added to the game clock, the "Normal" rank will give the player an extra two seconds, and the "Bad" rank will give the player no extra time.  The player also must be careful on how to approach the costumer, if the player approaches too close, the costumer will run a few feet away from the player causing for a few seconds to wasted on the costumer getting into the cab. As a matter of fact, the cabbie will tell the costumer to hurry up and get in the car.

Stunts can be perform in the game to earn more cash. The "Crazy Through" is a near miss, if the player passes by a car, the amount of money that will be giving to the player will be increase by fifty-cents. It will increase even further if the player keeps it up; as for multiple costumers, the bonuses can be multiple by the number of passengers the player has. The "Crazy Drift" is a drift mechanic that will help the in certain situations, the drift mechanic can be use to turn the cabbie 360 degrees  or earn more cash by drifting. The "Crazy Boost" is a boost mechanic, it will help the cabbie get to its maximum acceleration. Another new mechanic to the Crazy Taxi series, is the "Crazy Hop," it is use to jump over huge traffic jams or jump on top of roof-tops (Short cuts).

The way both cities are built, defiantly makes good use of the crazy hop. An extensive amount of short-cuts all over the the two cities - which consist of jumping on roof-tops or jumping from one highway bridge to another, the player has to use the short-cuts in order to make it to the desire location on time. Memorization plays a big role in Crazy Taxi 2, the green arrow may be there to help the player navigate th e player, but if the player is familiar with the city, the player can take an alternate path to the desire location in order to save some time;  it's also helps when the player picks up multiple costumers.  Short-cuts can be obvious like the arrow pointing at a low roof-top, but it can be more complicated then that.

As soon as the player earns more cash, the more difficult the game will be, more costumers will give the player less time for the player to get the location that the costumer wants to get to, and traffic will increase (Cars will actually be parked on side-walks). Once the player starts receiving normal ranks or gets to the desire location not as fast as the player wanted to (Even when the speedy rank is given), the player will begin a downward spiral to the gameover screen. At first (If skilled) the player can have his or her timer on a strong one-hundred seconds or over, but then it will deteriorate, the player will soon start to struggle to keep his or her time on thirty seconds or less.

Crazy Pyramid

Like "Crazy Box" from the original game, "Crazy Pyramid" is a mode of mini-games that focus on certain techniques (Stunts) of the game. The player starts with one game, and once it's beaten, more games will be unlock. The player can unlock some contain once the mini-games are completed. The original four cab drivers from the original game are featured.

Characters

Slash
Age: 25
Sex: Male
Height: 5'9"
Weight: 152.3 lbs
Blood Type: AB

Iceman
Age: 28
Sex: Male
Height: 6' 1"
Weight: 183.2 lbs
Blood Type: B

Cinnamon
Age: 18
Sex: Female
Height: 5' 5"
Weight: 114.8 lbs
Blood Type: O

Hot-D
Age: 78
Sex: Male
Height: 5' 3"
Weight: 106.0 lbs
Blood Type: B

Unlockables

Axel
Age: 21
Sex: Male
Height: 6' 0"
Weight: 158.4 lbs
Blood Type: B

 

B.D Joe
Age: 25
Sex: Male
Height: 5' 9"
Weight: 149.6 lbs
Blood Type: O

 

Gena
Age: 23
Sex: Female
Height: 5' 7"
Weight: 114. 7 lbs
Blood Type: AB

 

Gus
Age: 42
Sex: Male
Height: 5' 6"
Weight: 187.0 lbs
Blood Type: B

 

PSP Release

After the initial Dreamcast and Arcade release, the game was bundled in with Crazy Taxi and published on Sony's PSP as Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars.