Sega’s Crazy Taxi: City Rush is leaving its soft launch period and releasing worldwide on July 31st, this Thursday. For those unfamiliar with the game, it’s a free-to-play take on the Dreamcast classic Crazy Taxi (Free), which the price tag should indicate is also on mobile. It’s still a classic, and it appears to be sticking around on the App Store even with the free-to-play version now. Take notes, EA. City Rush is a lane-based take on that “pick up passengers in a taxi, and weave through traffic to get to the final destination as quickly as possible" gameplay that made it so famous.
Kenji Kanno, the credited creator of the original game, worked as a designer on this game alongside Hardlight Studios, who are responsible for Sonic Dash (Free) and Sonic Jump Fever (Free).
Just how will the soft launch period have affected the game and its monetization over the past few months? It’s a level-based game, with plenty of upgrades, customizations, and of course an energy mechanic, to deal with. So hopefully it’s wound up being tuned better than what we thought of Sonic Jump Fever‘s monetization in our review. But the game itself does a solid job at keeping the spirit of the series alive at the very least.
