Crazy Taxi Talk - IGN (original) (raw)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah! The PSP developer of Crazy Taxi: Fare Wares peels through our questions.

Crazy Taxi remains a fan-favorite nearly 10 years after its 1999 arcade release. As part of Sega's Professional Series of sim-esque job games, Crazy Taxi featured a San Francisco-inspired city. The player assumed the role of one of a few taxi drivers, trying to cart patrons around the city. With a soundtrack from The Offspring and Bad Religion, you probably still have the lyrics stuck in your head, "It's all I want! It's all I waaaaaaant!"
The series made the move to the venerable Dreamcast system, but has finally resurfaced, courtesy of Sega and Sniper Studios on the PSP. Best of all, it's not only Crazy Taxi, but the lesser-known sequel, both with multi-player functionality. We had the opportunity to sit down with Jeff Hasson, one of the founders of Sniper Studios—the developer responsible for Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars, which, incidentally, is available today.

IGN: How did the relationship between Sniper and Sega come about?

As usual in business, it's not what you know, but who you know. We had been talking to our friends at SEGA that we have worked closely with over the years. They were looking for support for their PSP business and we were passionate about the Crazy Taxi franchise. We had a few meetings concerning other possible titles in their catalog, but in the end we were really focused on Crazy Taxi. Out of all the great properties that SEGA owns, we wanted to work on Crazy Taxi the most.

What are the differences between Crazy Taxi on PSP and the original arcade games?

Overall there are barely any differences between Craxy Taxi and Craxy Taxi 2 from the Dreamcast versions onto the PSP. The main difference is the addition of the multiplayer modes that we had to build from scratch. Also we added a Custom Music Player that allows the user to stream MP3 music off their memory stick. But for those hardcore fans that must have The Offspring playing, they have that option with the Custom Music Player. Other than that, all the original art, maps, characters and modes are all in the PSP versions.

How are car physics different than making physics for a character-based game or even a motorcycle?

Speaking generally, car physics are very different than character physics. Cars physics take into consideration momentum, weight and velocity more than character physics do. Also, tire rotation and road surface affect the physics of a car. Lastly cars require steering with specific input limitations compared to character physics, which do not "steer" and are much less limited in movement. Character physics are based on movement and bone structure and are much less affected by velocity.

Did you make any changes to any of the vehicles in Crazy Taxi, including the actual taxi? Was that vehicles inspired by any vehicle specifically?

No. As far as the core game and gameplay was concerned, we wanted to create the exact same experience from the Dreamcast on the PSP. No additional changes were made to the vehicles.

Can you tell us about some of your past games and if they're car-related, what capacity you worked on them?

I was the Associate Producer on The Simpsons Road Rage and Cel Damage. I was the Line Producer on the first two TY the Tasmanian Tiger games. Both TY and TY2 had cart racing games as part of the minigames inside the main game. Also, I was a tester on Mario Andretti Racing.

Do you see yourself making other driving and racing games in the future?

Sure, it's always a possibility.

What are some of the challenges of bringing two games onto the PSP for the first time?

The biggest challenge of all was dealing with two complete games co-existing within the same game. We actually have two complete games that operate off the same front end, thus we needed to have three separate executables for the game to work properly. Not only was this a bit unusual, but it needed to be transparent to the user too.

Was the design of the game(s) changed at all to accommodate the PSP? If so, can you tell us about it?

No, the basic gameplay design wasn't changed at all for the single player modes. We did add the multiplayer modes of the game and these were designed and built from scratch. The goal was to take advantage of the PSP's Ad hoc mode to allow two players to go head to head for the first time. Both Crazy Taxi and Crazy Taxi 2 have three multiplayer game modes (Head to Head, CRAZY, Time Trial) that are based off the same gameplay that the single player modes use.

Do you have a Crazy Taxi arcade machine for reference? Did you all play the game heavily before?

No, we looked at buying one off of eBay a couple of times, but the shipping charges were horrendous. Plus we based the game off the Dreamcast versions and not the Arcade version. So we had both Crazy Taxi and Crazy Taxi 2 on Dreamcast running almost all the time in the office. I think all of us had played quite a bit of both the Dreamcast and the arcade machines over the years.

What other genres do you want to get into? Do you want to stick to driving and racing games?

I really like driving games, but by no means do I consider myself to be any kind of expert or only want to make driving games. I think that the industry puts too much focus on being an expert in one genre. This can be a vicious cycle and lead to burnout even for the most hardcore fan of a particular genre. Although I've worked on all kinds of genres over the years, I would love to work on a character based action/adventure game or even get lost in a really deep FPS for a few years.

Since your name is Sniper Studios, do you plan on making a FPS or Sniper game anytime soon?

Our name is not any kind of foreshadowing for games to come, but has more to do with ideals about game development. With our team of industry vets, we are able to adapt to any development environment and attack our objectives with deadly accuracy.

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