Simulation games within the last decade have entered the pantheon of gaming greats. Smaller indie titles have always maintained the simulator space, but in recent years, larger publishers and developers have begun to enter the fray. Taxi Life: A City Driving Simulator is – on paper – perfect simulator fodder. An in-depth simulation cockpit environment, life-filled game-world and a separate but integrated business management element. Not to mention coming to us from Publisher Nacon – who have seen recent success with the Robocop: Rogue City game – and developed the World Rally Championship games. Developer, and developed by simulation gaming experts, Simteract.
With all this going for it, the possibility is surely extremely high that Taxi Life will go down in history as one of the best simulation games on the market. Or at least it would be, if not for everything working against it.
Issues before you even hit the road
Before you can embark on your pay-per-trip adventure, you must first pass your driving test. The driving test takes place in a small car park, and tasks you with carrying out familiar driving techniques to the car-operating population. These range from three-point turns, to parallel parking manoeuvres. The training exercise is simple enough, and can be completed in a matter of minutes. The exercise rates and passes are based on the end result, not the overall technique. As was evidenced as I flew at high-speed into a parallel parking spot, which should have been done at a steady pace.
Once you complete the test, you select your driver, their name, and the name of your eventual taxi-operating business. This is where the issues first emerge. When selecting the driver, you encounter a very limited number of options, all of which are male. This immediately furthers a stereotype that I believe is harmful to driving careers the world over – that women shouldn’t drive. This is alleviated somewhat later, when you are able to establish your own taxi company and hire female drivers. Again, this is still slightly problematic, as it implies women may be able to drive for a man, but cannot employ a man to drive as their employee. Definite grounds for criticism of gender roles here.
The name and logo of your company are basic to say the least, but are serviceable for their purpose, if their purpose is to merely offer a facade of customisation.
Once you’ve completed all the minutiae of setting up the business, you can dive head-first into your new career. You receive a car and are assigned the task of picking up a customer to fulfil the final requirements of the training and finally set out on your own.
‘Taxi Life: City Driving Simulator lives and dies on the reality of the driving experience’
From the minute you accept this first job, the cracks start to show. Taxi Life: City Driving Simulator lives and dies on the reality of the driving experience. The cockpit boasts all the main features that one would typically use within a car. Unlike in Euro Truck Simulator and Train Simulator games, players can exclusively use these features through an in-game overlay, avoiding cumbersome toggles and buttons on-screen while managing the camera to avoid collisions with pedestrians and other vehicles. However this will still happen, owing to the freezes, screen-jumps and lag, which plague the experience.
The freezes can often lead to collisions, which in turn have a negative impact on the customer’s ‘patience’ meter. The patience meter is also affected by the speed of the vehicle, and the time it takes to complete a mission. During each journey, the customer may request things such as “turn on the radio”, “put the wipers on” or even, “wind the window down/up”. Completing these seemingly trivial objectives can lead to large XP boosts for each customer.
Completing your jobs in Taxi Life: City Driving Simulator are all part of a bigger plan, the plan to start your own company. Once you do this, you are then able to employ people to drive for you, with one caveat. The drivers of your company will not drive while you are not driving.
The minimal enjoyment which you can have playing Taxi Life: City Driving Simulator is found entirely in completing the jobs, however this is constantly marred by technical issues and glitchy AI.
Time to hit the emergency brake…
This game showcased immense potential but failed to deliver on many fronts. With its poor AI, persistent technical problems, and absence of universal driving wheel support, Taxi Life: City Driving Simulator is destined for the bargain bin. While there may be some enjoyment to be found, sadly, the scenic 286 miles of Barcelona aren’t sufficient to rescue this dismal simulator game from obscurity.
