In addition to some geographical tweaks, which lessen the chances of being stuck in a dead end or trapped next to an overpass and offer some new places to visit in the city, the Small Apple offers some significant upgrades to its DC counterpart's graphics. The city itself, on the other hand, is in fact quite different from the one in the Dreamcast incarnation of the game. As with the original set of cabbies, the upgrade doesn't make a dramatic difference but helps freshen the game's look a bit for the Xbox version. The character models for Slash, Iceman, Cinnamon, and Hot-D have all been freshened up and now sport a higher poly count and improved shading. On an aesthetic note, characters now stand to the right of the cabs, as opposed to the left, as in the Dreamcast version of Crazy Taxi2, which gives the game a uniform presentation. If you played Crazy Taxi 2, you'll notice the graphical tweaks on the character-selection screen, just like those found in the West Coast's. From what we've seen so far, the graphical and gameplay tweaks look to make Crazy Taxi 3 the best entry in the series to date. In addition, the Small Apple has undergone some gameplay tightening, which appears to have made the level's feel better than that of its previous incarnation on the Dreamcast. Much like the West Coast city level and minigames we covered in last week's look at the game, this level and its games have undergone some graphical tweaking to take advantage of the Xbox hardware. It suffers from the same problems as the PC version of the original Crazy Taxi, except it’s even worse than before.In our third look at the latest installment of the Crazy Taxi series, we'll be focusing on the Small Apple, the East Coast-inspired city seen in Crazy Taxi 2, and more of the minigames offered in the Crazy X mode. Once again, Activision and Strangelite handled the PC port and yet again was unsuccessful in bringing the game over intact. Nothing new is added to this arcade rendition other than putting difficulty levels on the courses so you know which area is easier than others ( from easiest to hardest: West Coast, Glitter Oasis, Small Apple). The arcade runs on the Sega Chihiro board based on Xbox hardware and plays exactly the same except it actually uses a sterring wheel. Sega would release an arcade version of Crazy Taxi 3 a year later, dubbed Crazy Taxi High Roller without the numeral. Overall, if you’re a fan of the game, you’ll love it for it being more of a collection of the series, but hate it for not advancing the series anywhere. While a lot of tracks by the Offspring, Methods of Mayhem, and Bad Religion return, there are more varied musical tracks with the inclusion of Brian Setzer 68 Come Back Special and Silver Bullit. The best unlock in the entire series from besting Crazy X mode is the ability to play as any character in any course. The usual assortment of unlocks are here including the new horse stroller (?!). The mini games are back in the brand new Crazy X mode, but most of the games are recycled from the previous two. Other than that, this is standard Crazy Taxi fare. The entire stage seems to have been constructed purely to show off the lighting effects courtesy of the Xbox, which is the only major graphical improvement over the Dreamcast games. It’s an incredible shame, seeing how Glitter Oasis has so much potential, but it’s just too aggravating to play compared to the first two games, with its obnoxious canyons and extremely long stretches of road It completely misses what’s actually interesting in the level: the actual city area. The biggest draw for this game instead of being the new area of Glitter Oasis is being able to play the West Coast with the Crazy Hop and the ability to pick up multiple customers at a time. There are no real updates to the game other than a tweaking of the Crazy Dash to make it a bit easy to pull off. While donning the number three, one thing you’ll noticed about this game is that it seems more like a collection of Crazy Taxi 1 (featuring the West Coast Arcade level, but no West Coast Original) and 2 (featuring the Small Apple level, but no Around Apple) with a new area to explore (Glitter Oasis, which is based on Las Vegas and the deserts of Nevada.) Once again, there’s a whole new cast of cabbies.
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