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MiLE HiGH TAXi out now blending Crazy Taxi with The Fifth Element

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The Fifth Element and Crazy Taxi are both classics, so one developer decided to try and combine them together into a game. What they've done is make a modern Crazy Taxi-like experience, with the flying cars and style found in The Fifth Element movie. Note: the developer sent over a key for review.

Not exactly a game that needs a big introduction and explanation really: you choose a player, then fly around a big city picking up passengers and dropping them off, making as much money as you can against the timer. Having to fly up and down to particular levels, based on where you need to drop off adds a nice element to the gameplay and it does initially feel quite fun. Annoying your passengers as you fly through signs and other things and hearing them scream is also somewhat amusing.

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Offering up a few different modes to play from including Standard where you fly around and pick up who you want, Sequential where you have a specific order and Free Roam with no goal — where you just fly around to try and learn the map. Plus either Easy or Normal difficulty modes. The idea is nice, and I think on the basics it gets a fair bit right and is initially fun.

As great as the idea is though, it doesn't take long for the fun to wear off. I'll be clear: it's not a bad game, and if you're after something to just race around in for a while here and there, to scratch a missing Crazy Taxi fix with the added verticality you might enjoy it. Mechanically at least, it has the driving down quite well. Sadly though, I did not enjoy it and going by Steam reviews, even people that did and left a positive review, didn't play it for long at all.

Full of references to other movies, it doesn't exactly have much of a personality. Which, can be a bit of a problem as it comes across pretty cheesy. I'm sure some will love that but it could have done with a bit more building up on its own world for me. 

The gameplay is overall just too simplistic, and that's the biggest problem. While it does have a few nice touches, and a little coin collecting, it's (as expected really) just about getting passengers from A to B, and after a while of looking at the same buildings and hearing the same voice lines repeated over and over — it ends up falling a bit flat. On top of that, finding pickups can be troublesome due to the vertical 3D nature of the game, and the minimap rotating made it more confusing than it should be, as I spent half the time just looking for someone to pick up.

You also have a certain height restriction too, and when you approach the limit the game starts flashing warnings at you. Which is fine to keep players informed, but when you're doing pickups and dropoffs right by the limit, it's just annoying.

It does have some other problems, like different audio lines and music all fighting for your attention often playing on top of each other that felt more than a bit messy. Overall it has a great idea, good visuals and it runs well but it doesn't fly as high as I would have liked.

As a solo effort, it's thoroughly commendable, and a nice twist on the classic but not a game I'm going to recommend at this time. Fun for an hour or so but not much more than that due to the limited design and the problems mentioned.

Available to buy on Steam. It has Native Linux support and it is Steam Deck Verified.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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9 comments

const Mar 20, 2023
Ugh,
this intitially seemed such a fun concept.
I've put a lot of hours into CrazyTaxi2, even though it's very simple indeed, it was a perfect 5-15 min high-concentration distraction. Watching that trailer of Mile High Taxi made me loose all interest. The paths seem so narrow and orthogonal in comparison with those flying physics and I don't like crashing into walls that much.
drlamb Mar 20, 2023
Dang, I was hoping to pick this up as a gift for a friend that LOVED the crazy taxi series.
Grogan Mar 20, 2023
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I've been waiting for this game and I'm very disappointed in it now that it's here. It's a just a little Unity engine arcade game, basically. It's not what I was expecting in the released game.

The dispatcher is long winded and obnoxious (I'll turn HIM into a "meat popsicle" nobody talks to me like that lol). That did not entertain me.

The game requires a game pad (I had to listen to the whole dispatcher speech because I couldn't press A), it won't operate without one and constantly shows a big "Game Pad Not Found" in the middle of my screen. I have one but I don't like using a controller. If I HAVE to plug in a controller to play a game, I'm unlikely to ever play that game. I get it that in some games you need to use one to play properly of course, but if they don't at least map a working keyboard and mouse configuration then I'm afraid I have no use for it.

So I try Free Roam with my Xbox 360 controller and great, I picked a player and I can drive the car. However, every turn I make to explore the city and get used to the car annoyingly flashes "Restricted Area" (it's not altitude, it won't let me ascend or descend much when that happens). I can't even make out what the car's female voice is saying, because of jumbled layers of music and audio.

What is Free Roam if I just have to drive in a straight line?

It's so rudimentary that there isn't even an audio volume control in the game's menus.

The price was good ($18 for me) but this is, quite frankly, crap.
Bumadar Mar 20, 2023
Don't care about the game, but I want to see the 5th element again :)
Grogan Mar 20, 2023
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I did get a little further, I just had to drive some more distance before it let me turn off to free roam. However, everything looks the same everywhere you go. The same Toronto street names on those blue signs, even the same billboards appear in multiple places (e.g. "Tim Hurtins" lol). It's not a very interesting city.

I tried the game proper, there's no need to get used to controlling the car, it goes about as fast as drying paint (relative to the game I mean) unless you get boost pickups and even then it's not terribly exciting.

To add insult, somehow my language got changed to Chinese (or similar glyphs) and I couldn't read the menus to change it back. Fortunately it didn't get saved (I can't even find game data anywhere yet, not even in steam/userdata/myidnumbers/appid as I don't think anything has been saved yet) and I just had to quit out and choose "English" again from the round icons on the first menu.

"Meh" as a general, non-descript statement of mediocrity doesn't go far enough for this game. I wrote a review for Steam, but I haven't posted it because it's too mean, even for this.

About the only praise I can give this is that the linux port seems to work well. I genuinely appreciate Linux support (and good Linux support isn't guaranteed even with Unity, which provides the means)


Last edited by Grogan on 20 March 2023 at 8:12 pm UTC
StoneColdSpider Mar 20, 2023
But the real question is..... Can I join the Mile High Club????........
maggotinfested Mar 23, 2023
Well, I thought I'd try this out myself. The price didn't seem to bad at $15 USD. Well, it's a trainwreck. Ignoring that already know bugs, the physics are circa 1990, the music is horrible and EXTREMELY loud compared to the sounds...and there is no volume controls or any way to turn it off. On top of that, its stuck at some ultra low resolution making it a big block, ugly mess on my 34" 4K monitor. There are no options to change the resolution at this time. For me, these were both deal breakers. I played for a total of 7 minutes before refunding it. Too bad, too. But I can't just give you my money becuase I feel sorry for you. Just avoid this for now. Maybe we'll see some major improvements in time, but seeing this is a single dev, I don't really expect these to happen any time soon.
const Mar 23, 2023
Quoting: maggotinfestedWell, I thought I'd try this out myself. The price didn't seem to bad at $15 USD. Well, it's a trainwreck. Ignoring that already know bugs, the physics are circa 1990, the music is horrible and EXTREMELY loud compared to the sounds...and there is no volume controls or any way to turn it off. On top of that, its stuck at some ultra low resolution making it a big block, ugly mess on my 34" 4K monitor. There are no options to change the resolution at this time. For me, these were both deal breakers. I played for a total of 7 minutes before refunding it. Too bad, too. But I can't just give you my money becuase I feel sorry for you. Just avoid this for now. Maybe we'll see some major improvements in time, but seeing this is a single dev, I don't really expect these to happen any time soon.

While missing basic options seems lazy, I get the impression, the dev should focus on how to make the game fun rather then adding options - for now. Really sad. I think this technically is quite a feat for a a single developer. This game seems like a showcase of what happens if you design around a marketable gimmick or *grand idea* rather then focusing on fun in the first place.


Last edited by const on 23 March 2023 at 10:23 am UTC
maggotinfested Mar 23, 2023
Quoting: constWhile missing basic options seems lazy, I get the impression, the dev should focus on how to make the game fun rather then adding options - for now. Really sad. I think this technically is quite a feat for a a single developer. This game seems like a showcase of what happens if you design around a marketable gimmick or *grand idea* rather then focusing on fun in the first place.


I didn't even get a chance to try the game play really, I just couldn't suffer through it. If the game play isn't any good either, that just means this still has a long way to go.

if (!Basic_Options) && (!Game_Play){
  cout << "Game Not Ready!";
}


I'm rooting for him and I will keep watching this game on Steam; If it looks like there are more significant inroads, I will take the plunge again.
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