It's your first time playing Crazy Taxi. After just a few playthroughs you already have the layout of the map down, at least of the areas you have gotten to in that time. Maybe not entirely memorized but you understand the world. I'd say even after just one single playthrough you could have no problem remembering all the locations you drove through like a madman, guiding arrow or not. The trolleys, the beach, the church, the bus terminal, the Pizza Hut, etc. If you can't remember the route you can at least approximately guesstimate those locations in your mind. It's a living world. That's why we can at least approximate locations across the map and that's the main problem with Mile High Taxi a futuristic-Fifth Element take on Crazy Taxi with skyscrapers as high as the eye can see. I've played this for over an hour (stretched out over 3 months since it first came out in March) and I can't name you a single location in this game. It's all high-rises and weirdo billboards (the bad kind of weirdo, sadly) and they might as well just be solid pillars of concrete for the entire world completely lacks locations, structures: a personality. Compared to the world of Crazy Taxi this feels like an unintended commentary on the horrors of a bland dystopian future cityscape. Where everything is exactly the same.

I could probably ignore the bland, yet overall nice looking(ish), world had the gameplay been of any value. Like it’s inspiration, it can be fun zipping around the world going as fast as humanly possible while picking up passengers but the entire game is way, way, WAY too easy. There is absolutely no challenge or risks you can take here. Unlike Crazy Taxi where you are planted on the ground and can only go left, right, forwards, and backwards, here you are in a flying car and can go literally anywhere. Really not okay that you can just clip through other cars here. This game needs WAY more actual obstacles (not just signs you can plow right through without a scratch) and it needs a health bar. Every time I've played the normal/endless mode I usually just let the timer run out because I'm so bored from flying around for so long without anything getting in my way. You have to go around buildings, sure, but with how small and condensed the map is and with nothing else causing you trouble you’re basically driving in a straight, boring line. The fact that this isn’t Steam Early Access is a legitimate crime. There is potential but it still needs so much more work.

It REALLY pains me to say this but I really dont like Mile High Taxi at all.... I think the loop of crazy taxi formula is still there! They achieved that, and the concept is really cool.. flying a futuristic taxi to pick people up sounds like a movie concept thatd be conceived back in the 90s or something
But thats as far as it goes for me, the playable drivers you have absolutely pale to any of the charm the dipshits you play as in crazy taxi have. HELL, they even made them have like alt skins that change up their palettes and skin colors which honestly just gives me more of a feeling like theyre blank slate avatars rather than ppl with a side gig trying to make ends meet for the summer or something

This Also unfortunately extends to the design of.. well.. everything for me :(
I think the design of the map is nice it just also feels like EVERYTHING is boxed in even though it's open
And youd think youd get like maybe a sick twirl in the air or maybe a dope boost button thing to take better advantage of being able to move up and down and not just on a flat surface but honestly i dont even think that wouldve saved it for me, I genuinely just wasnt vibing with the presentation, the crazy taxi formula feels like its Almost there but the controls and the dimensions you navigate are so much different that its not hitting the same adrenaline or tension for me
You also dont really seem to even get bonus fare for dodging shit in this game, which is fine because youre gonna be bumping into shit a lot in this anyways. And I see what they were going for with the music but I feel like the two tracks that normally play are so vastly diff in vibe
final thoughts:
I think at the end of the day the most disappointing thing I can say about the game is that even if this was it's own thing that came out and crazy taxi didnt exist for me to have chaffing feelings about, I still would have a lot of the same criticisms but appreciate what it's Trying to be.. I think maybe some patches and QoL adjustments can make it better.. but I don't think ill be around to see it myself. Im very disappointed

I mean it's hard to go wrong with the Crazy Taxi formula, but at the same time it kinda just doesn't do anything that made Crazy Taxi so good. A forgettable map with barely any landmarks, no tricks or maneuvers, and boring characters are just a few issues I had with this game. It's pretty much just a really cool concept for a Crazy Taxi game made by an amateur low budget developer. I would normally be hesitant to trash on a game if the devs were at least good people, but every bit of promotional material for this game seems really suspicious with a lot of it just not looking like the final product at all.