I didn't even know Crazy Taxi had sequels until a few months ago. If you look for the game on any current digital games distributor you're only going to find the original, and I never saw any of the others in arcades, so I assumed that Crazy Taxi was just... Crazy Taxi, that's it.

For some reason, Crazy Taxi 2 is only on Dreamcast and PSP, and this game is only available either as a shitty 2004 abandonware PC port that was never released outside of Japan and Europe, or on the original Xbox. Neither game has been re-released in about 15 years. I didn't want to bother with the apparently awful controller setup for PC, or modding in the original soundtrack, and I already had an original Xbox, so I figured I'd go with that version.

My Xbox had been sitting in an attic for at least 2 years at this point, and it had some issues. For one thing, it had a disc stuck in it; it wouldn't eject, and it wouldn't read either. It had been owned by a smoker at some point and though it was pretty clean (all things considered), what little debris was inside the drive had settled and clung tight to the optic, and it was stuck in place. After some cleaning the disc would read, but it still wouldn't come out without manually hitting the lever inside, so it also needed a new drive belt for the eject mechanism. The component video also had a bad Pr cable, though I'd wanted an S-video cable to use it on my CRT anyway so that wasn't a huge loss.

It didn't really impact the ability to play games, so I didn't think much of it at first, but the system also immediately powered on as soon as it was plugged in, and the power button didn't do anything at all; the only way to turn it off was to remove the plug. What this indicates is likely that a trace in the corner of the board has been broken by corrosion, and the source of that corrosion is the capacitor for the system's clock. Almost every original Xbox has this issue.

So the only way to play what is arguably the definitive version of one of the most iconic late arcade releases from one of the biggest video game publishers can only be played by either settling for a bad version that you'll have to fix yourself, or by using a machine that's basically shitting itself to death, which you will also have to fix yourself.

I say "definitive version" because the Crazy Taxi sequels aren't really "different" games, they don't have alternative content, they have new content. Each new game still contained the maps and drivers from the old games, while adding new mechanics. Crazy Taxi 3 has Crazy Taxi 1 and 2 in it, it should have rendered previous games obsolete, it should have become the standard, and yet it's been almost completely forgotten outside of a tiny number of hardcore fans.

The main additions that the sequels made in terms of gameplay, aside from the new levels, is the ability to jump and the option to pick up groups instead of just single passengers. Jumping naturally allows for both more movement altogether as well as some crafty shortcuts. Picking up groups introduces a greater deal of risk/reward: groups offer much higher fares, but you won't get any of the money unless you make it to every stop. If you fail, you not only lose out on the money, you've also lost a lot more time than if you had picked up a single person.

Why hasn't this game had a modern release? Maybe it's because of its nature as an Xbox exclusive. Maybe it's because of the licensed music from major rock acts. Maybe it's all of the product placement. Maybe it's because after three different versions of Crazy Taxi, critics at the time had gotten bored of it. Checking Metacritic, Craxy Taxi 2 and the PS2 port of the original were the only versions that were received particularly well around the time this game released.

Whatever the case, it's bizarre that a genuinely good installment from a major series has been relegated to more or less the same fate as shovelware.