Pros: Presenting a greater challenge; new features/characters; more is good.
Cons: Slow-down at times.
The bottom line: A must-own title for the Dreamcast. I recommend it because it has a tremendous fun factor and provides challenge. There is also very good replay value.
Sega pleased Dreamcast owners with the home version of "Crazy Taxi" for the system which not only gave us a better-looking version of the arcade game, but new modes that were made specifically for this game. The same cabbies (Axel, B.D. Joe, Gena, and Gus) were there as well. "Crazy Taxi" is a game in which you play as one of four cabbies while doing your best to deliver as many customers as you can earning large loads of money in the process. Now, just driving and dropping them off wasn't going to get you those huge fares. You had to know a series of tricks and maneuvers to dodge cars and find shortcuts. The faster you traveled, the better. You earned a series of rankings in licenses, the highest honor being the Crazy License. "Crazy Taxi" was great because it was more than what the arcade game was with upgraded graphics, lovely details on the cities, and some good music from Bad Religion and The Offspring. The city from the arcade version was there along with a new 'original' city for the home version. The Dreamcast version also had the Crazy Box: a series of mini-games where you do your best to break records in a series of insane games such as Crazy Bowling. Beating them all earned you a nice surprise. This game is a good example of how to bring arcade games to the home.

Well, the "Crazy Taxi" company has set up a division in New York City known as "Crazy Taxi 2." This time the race takes place in the Big Apple as you control one of four new cabbies (Slash, Iceman, Cinnamon, and Hot-D). The concept remains the same, but there is more than what the first one was. The ranking system returns in both Around Apple and Small Apple modes: two different parts of NYC. I must admit that the difficulty has risen, and the ability to tone it down is gone. An example is the arrow. The arrow's job is to show you the fastest way there, but now it can trick you and it would be up to you to decide where to go. Maybe that is one drawback, but I don't feel it's major. Increased difficulty in a sequel is something to take advantage of. You deliver whole new passengers and, get this, groups of passengers which is a new concept. A group of two to four will want to go to different locations of the city. Another new feature is the Crazy Hop that allows the cab to jump, more or less, to reach higher levels of the city that are inaccessible through ramps. I should point out the new commercial destinations such as the Gap and Burger King, in case you were interested. KFC's gone, folks.

Now that I've covered Small and Around Apple Modes, let's get down to the new set of mini-games dubbed the Crazy Pyramid. There are much more games in the Pyramid than in the first one, and what's great is that they go from easy to hard to bring on the challenge. They range from simple things like the Crazy Jump (which measures how far you can fly) to the difficult puzzles like the Crazy Arches and the Crazy Tour. While the "Crazy Taxi" mini-games rewarded you with one prize, "Crazy Taxi 2" offers many like maps and new vehicles, and even one big surprise for completing the Pyramid. You'll be spending time with these puzzles as you go for the record-breakers over and over.

The controls are the same from the first game. Use the R trigger to drive, L to brake, A for reverse, and B for the gas. Now Y is used for the Crazy Hop. You must figure out the certain combinations that allow you to perform various tricks to earn your bigger fares. I don't think you should have any trouble figuring out the basics because, after all, they're the basics. Learning tricks won't be any trouble as long as you read the manual. It should take you no less than an hour.

The graphics are the same, but I don't feel that is really a bad thing. Sure, maybe we could have used an upgrade, but I am still impressed with the graphics of this game. The details of the cities are great. I guess one of my problems with the graphics is the slow-down. Sometimes when performing jumps or flying off bridges, the game will slow down and make it hard to control the vehicle to avoid the large buses while we fly like eagles. Another problem I have, but it doesn't bother me too much, is that when driving on distances, it will look like there's no traffic ahead. Everything is clear when suddenly you're speeding and you smash into a bus or a dump truck. I felt that Hitmaker could have learned from Rockstar Games (and "Midnight Club Street Racing") and at least tried to fix a problem like that. But it still adds to the difficulty factor, which I'm still for, nonetheless.

In the first game, The Offspring and Bad Religion provided songs like "Ten in 2010" and "All I Want." The Offspring has returned along with Methods of Mayhem with songs like "Walla Walla," "No Brakes," and "Americana." Strangely enough, I don't hear too much from MoM if not at all. But the music is still enjoyable, but not better than the first game's soundtrack.

As mentioned before, there are four new characters. While I consider Iceman to be the coolest, I feel that these characters don't carry that same attitude that Axel, B.D. Joe, Gena, and Gus did. However, their cab characteristics remain. One car would be the fastest while another would be most maneuverable. They can still be enjoyable, but I am not too sure about Hot-D...

"Crazy Taxi 2" is definately a must-own title for the Sega Dreamcast. If you've played the first one, I'm sure you'll enjoy the second one.