Hands on with Crazy Taxi on PlayStation 2
Strange but true. Sega games on Sony machines
Acclaim Entertainment’s studio chief Harvey Elliot invited us over to play Crazy Taxi 2 on the PlayStation 2. How could we refuse?
As the debugged PlayStation 2 Test unit was unveiled, everyone was excited, even the Acclaim staff who had practically taken the day off work to play Crazy Taxi.
The version we played was the latest build to come out of Cheltenham, and unfortunately the lighting dynamics had not been applied.
As the game booted up, and the screen changed from Sony Computer Entertainment to a Sega logo, everyone exchanged glances. It does seem really strange.
Now to set the record straight, there has been absolutely no change to the gameplay at all. The only improvements or alterations were graphical. The PlayStation 2 version has improved draw distance over the arcade and Dreamcast games and there is a higher polygon count.
We made the most of our time with Crazy Taxi, setting it to the “Work For 10 Minutes” mode and exploring the city. It looked a little strange with no lighting physics, but ironically retained some of the Dreamcast’s inherent brightness. The city was exactly the same, with the baseball stadium and tramlines included. Due to a glitch in the code we also managed to hit a pedestrian. Yes, at last!
All in all, playing Crazy Taxi on the PS2 was a strange experience. We were left feeling excited at the prospect of Sega games on the PlayStation 2 and a little sad that we had to from now on.
Acclaim will release some screens from the final build soon. Any screens you see at the moment are from early builds and should be ignored.
As the debugged PlayStation 2 Test unit was unveiled, everyone was excited, even the Acclaim staff who had practically taken the day off work to play Crazy Taxi.
The version we played was the latest build to come out of Cheltenham, and unfortunately the lighting dynamics had not been applied.
As the game booted up, and the screen changed from Sony Computer Entertainment to a Sega logo, everyone exchanged glances. It does seem really strange.
Now to set the record straight, there has been absolutely no change to the gameplay at all. The only improvements or alterations were graphical. The PlayStation 2 version has improved draw distance over the arcade and Dreamcast games and there is a higher polygon count.
We made the most of our time with Crazy Taxi, setting it to the “Work For 10 Minutes” mode and exploring the city. It looked a little strange with no lighting physics, but ironically retained some of the Dreamcast’s inherent brightness. The city was exactly the same, with the baseball stadium and tramlines included. Due to a glitch in the code we also managed to hit a pedestrian. Yes, at last!
All in all, playing Crazy Taxi on the PS2 was a strange experience. We were left feeling excited at the prospect of Sega games on the PlayStation 2 and a little sad that we had to from now on.
Acclaim will release some screens from the final build soon. Any screens you see at the moment are from early builds and should be ignored.
Games:
Crazy Taxi
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