Following are the basic skills you'll wind up using about 95% of the time in a typical game of Crazy Taxi. The better you learn 'em, the better you'll do... promise! We'll start with the easier ones and work up to the hardest.
This move can be done while your cab is at a standstill, moving very slowly, or at its "normal floored speed." It involves two actions done in quick succession, like a one-two punch combination. The actions are:
It won't work if you push the gearshift to Drive and floor the Gas Pedal simultaneously; the movements must occur one after the other with a very slight pause in between. This may help with the timing (it sounds a bit weird, but bear with me). Quickly say "taxi" out loud. Now, the timing for the Crazy Dash is as follows:
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When you do the Crazy Dash from a standstill, your cab won't burn rubber as it slowly picks up speed the way it normally does. All of that energy gets converted as if the wheels had 100% traction. Your cab will zip off, going noticably faster than its normal floored speed for a short period of time.
Glad you asked! Here are a few additional points.
Obviously, this should only be only be done while your cab is moving. Like the Crazy Dash, it involves two actions done in quick succession:
Your cab will come to a halt more quickly than it would if you were using the Brake alone. There's no need to do any case-by-case comparisons. Trust me on this one, okay?
One little technicality...
This move must be done while your cab is moving. It involves several actions done in quick succession:
When you do the Crazy Drift, your cab will turn sideways on the screen and skid. If you turn sharply enough, you will begin a Crazy Drift Combo and successively increasing tip amounts will be added to your fare until the cab stops skidding.
This is easily the most versatile move in the game. It has several variations in addition to a special move you can tack on to the end. I find myself using the Braking Crazy Drift variation described above around 95% of the time when dropping off customers. Here's why:
There are some additional variations of this move:
This version is simply done without using the Brake Pedal (Reverse > Drive > Turn Wheel).
Unlike the Braking Crazy Drift described above, your cab will not continue in a straight line during the skid. It will also slide a considerable distance in the direction you turn the wheel. In other words, during the skid you retain some traction in the direction your cab is facing. Tapping (or holding) the Brake Pedal after you've started a Non-Braking Crazy Drift will cause your cab to continue in the direction it is skidding, but without that "forward traction."
This is the way some of the other Crazy Taxi sites have advocated doing the Crazy Drift. It's based on the belief (common among some elderly drivers on the road) that it's always good to "turn a little bit left before turning right."
To do this kind of Crazy Drift, you veer a little bit in the opposite direction you plan to face when you skid while moving the gearshift (Reverse > Drive), then steer hard in the desired direction and tap or hold the Brake Pedal (Turn Wheel > Brake).
This version of the move does have certain advantages: you get a bit of extra speed in your skid and the Crazy Drift combo starts sooner (and points earned during the combo may also accumulate at a slightly faster rate). The bad news is, you don't have the same degree of control over the path your cab takes, and sometimes that extra speed has undesirable consequences (wall-stick or impact bounce) when this move is done too close to a wall or other object. You may want to use this version to stop your cab in a large drop-off zone when it's backed by a wall and there aren't any obstacles in the way.
You bet!
Just before your cab comes to a complete stop (usually near the end of a Braking Crazy Drift), you can do a move similar to the Crazy Turn by doing the following:
The front of the cab will be anchored in the same position while the rear of the cab rotates around it. The amount of rotation you get depends on how much you're turning the wheel and how long you hold the Gas Pedal.
Of course there is!
This move must be done after a successful Crazy Dash, before your cab drops back down to its normal "top speed." It's basically a two-part move; with an optional pause between each part.
So, the first part is a "reverse Crazy Dash," (executed with Crazy Dash timing) and the second part is the Crazy Dash. To help you out if you've never seen it done before (I bet you saw this coming), here's the timing for the Limiter Cut:
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. . .
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Pretty convenient of Sega to provide the LC timing right in the name of the game, huh? :) If there are any Street Fighter players out there who used Guile; it may help to learn the timing this way — the Unfloor Gas Pedal > Reverse part is like when you start to charge Guile's Sonic Boom, and the Drive > Floor Gas Pedal part is when you shoot it. Once you can do this consistently, concentrate on shortening the pause between the two parts.
Well, your car goes pretty fast after the Crazy Drift, but it will go even faster after a successful Limiter Cut! Other telltale signs that you were successful include the rear bumper of the car momentarily dipping down, a faint squeal from the tires accompanied by a whine from the engine (which may be difficult to hear depending on how loud the music volume and other background noise is), and the animation of the driver speeding up dramatically, which looks kind of comical.
Heck, yeah!
Just as you can gain extra speed by doing the Limiter Cut before the speed burst from the Crazy Dash ends, you can gain even more speed by executing a Limiter Cut before the speed burst of the previous Limiter Cut ends! Thus, it's possible to build multiple Limiter Cuts on top of any Crazy Dash, with each Limiter Cut making your cab go faster and faster.
Your goal is to make the Limiter Cut such a routine, automatic move that you're traveling that fast pretty much all the time! Practice this move to death; once you can execute it consistently (and still retain control of your cab) the payoff is tremendous! When it starts to click, you'll be playing Crazy Taxi on a totally different level.
The Gas Pedal in Crazy Taxi has a maximum value, which is typically triggered by pressing the Gas Pedal all the way down to the floor. If you release the pedal a bit, even just a half-inch from the floor, this maximum value is not triggered. When doing the Crazy Dash (or the Crazy Dash half of the Limiter Cut) it's crucial that the pedal is pushed down far enough to trigger the maximum. However, when doing the first half of the Limiter Cut (Unfloor Gas Pedal > Reverse) you only have to lift your foot off the Gas Pedal enough for the maximum value not to be triggered; it isn't necessary release the Gas Pedal completely on most machines.
Although the Limiter Cut will still work if you completely release the Gas Pedal, it's a bad habit to get into if you're playing on a sit-down Crazy Taxi. You might not have any problems at first, but as you get more proficient with the Limiter Cut and better at the game in general, you'll play for much longer lengths of time. An average game for me lasts an hour and forty minutes right now. I can't even guess how many Limiter Cuts that is... So, if you always completely release the Gas Pedal and jam it all the way back to the floored position in the process of doing the Limiter Cut, I have some bad news for you... The more you improve, the more you are going to sweat! Therefore, it's worthwhile to learn to execute the Limiter Cut with the minimum amount of effort possible. In the long run, it'll be beneficial for both you and the game.