Game Title: Super Taxi Driver
Company: Microforum
Game Platform: J2ME
Tested Version: 1.0.0
Phone Reviewed: N95
Where do you want to go today...?
Ever dreamt of cruising through the city in your car, not obeying the law but making the big money by bringing various people to their destination? Ever wanted to be a reckless taxi driver? Then Super Taxi Driver is your best choice!
At the beginning you select your preferred language and your car (you have more than one at your disposal - three for the start, eight in all) and are thrown directly into the streets. There is no more story, but has there be be one?
Design:
There are five locations (St. Moritz, St. Monica, Istanbul, Tokyo and Cairo) with three different weather conditions (normal, fog, night), which look very good! This gives you fifteen different combinations - after that the stages start repeating.
In the left bottom corner the clock starts ticking down - but you can gain extra-time by completing a job. According to the selected level of difficulty you have to bring a certain number of passengers (two or more) to their destination before you continue in the next city. Unfortunately you can't selct the cities by yourself and there is no mini map to guide you when you find yourself in a dead-end street.
The whole scenery is drawn in superb looking 3D, there are different surfaces on the roads and various smaller obstacles, which you can send flying by driving over them (dustbins, benches, telephone boxes, post boxes etc.). This won't cause any damage to your car, but accidents or touching other obstacles will do. You can see your car (and other cars if you hit them) wreck, if you crash. You can drive on after an accident - but with a more and more bruised car (you get a new one at the start of each stage). This gives you a really good feeling of driving - and adds an important touch of reality!
Gameplay:
You have to pick up and 'deliver' passangers to their destination as fast as possible. An arrow at the top of the screen always points to your destination and you can see the distance in the top right corner.
But there are so many shortcuts, where you just zoom over a patch of grass, cut a corner tight or even splash throuh a small lake to be a few seconds faster. And always you must keep one eyes on your speed and the other cars travelling on the streets. So its sometimes better to drive on the sideways and overtake one or two slower cars, which block your way.
Unfortunately there is only one type of mission, a few more (like 'bring this item to point X' or 'my wife is pregnantplease hurry') would have been good and added a few more points on the gameplay.
Conclusion:
Especially the possibility of damaging your and other cars, the nice looking 3D graphics (with different obstacles on the streets) and the different cities with different conditions are the best, I've seen in an Java-game to time. The unlockable content (five more cars ranging from a VW Beetle to a mini van) will tie you to your cellphone for a few days and you will find yourself exploring the cities again and again. Only the repeating missions and the fact that you can't choose the city you are driving in reduces the score a bit.
But after all it's worth more than just a quick look. Super Taxi Driver will surely stay on my phone for a very long time!
Scores:
Story - 75
Design - 95
Gameplay - 87
Total - 86
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