Worthplaying reports:
''The year was 2000, and the Sega Dreamcast was still living large, innovating within the home console market and really shaking things up with titles like Soul Calibur and Jet Grind Radio. The racing game genre had been well and truly plumbed, with two camps generally making up the bulk of the audience; there were the specialists who wanted to tweak every little thing and gravitated toward Gran Turismo, and there were the people who just wanted to get out there and gravitated toward Ridge Racer.
Suddenly, along comes a title where crashing had no actual consequences; you could hit as many people, cars and objects as you wanted, if you didn't mind a bit of a slowdown, and this was principally because, whereas other titles had been linear and pitted you against other vehicles, the new Crazy Taxi was an exemplary example of what a free-roaming title could be. With an exceptional soundtrack and adrenaline-pumping, physics-defying maneuvers, players could suddenly become invincible tanks that took the taxicab business to a whole new level. It is a true shame that the title never really hit its stride in terms of game sales, but this hasn't stopped a few other companies from trying to follow the example that was set forth and attempt an open-world gameplay style. To date, no company has managed to assemble an offering with quite the panache of the original title, and Emergency Mayhem for the Wii is a perfect example of a valiant attempt gone horribly, horribly wrong.''
