On paper, Taxi Life: A Metropolis Driving Simulator looks as if a good time. Leisurely selecting up fares in considered one of Europe’s most stunning cities, Barcelona. Exploring and discovering factors of cultural curiosity, forming and customising your personal taxi firm — all of it appears like a soothing expertise, proper? Incorrect.
Whereas there’s no denying that the fantastic thing about Barcelona has been captured and Taxi Life offers up a visually spectacular providing, this feels prefer it’s on the detriment of the participant expertise. Transferring between areas, the body charge regularly tanks, inflicting some main enter lag and turning what must be a easy and enjoyable title right into a little bit of a nightmare.
Taxi Life needs you to behave as in the event you’re really driving. There are not any GTA-style manoeuvres right here — you’ve acquired to abide by visitors laws. You’ll get fines for rushing, going the fallacious means up roads, operating pink lights and so on., and also you’ll get granted much less ideas and fares from clients in case your automobile is overwhelmed up and broken. Sadly, penalties typically appear laborious to keep away from with AI drivers and pedestrians inducing extra street rage than their precise real-life counterparts. Slowly coming to a cease at a pink visitors mild regularly noticed us being rear-ended, with our buyer asking if we really knew tips on how to drive.
Taxi Life has a lot promise, however in its present state it’s extraordinarily laborious to take pleasure in. Some menu choices nonetheless have Xbox buttons assigned to them – press A, we had been instructed. One accident we had been in noticed our automobile flipped onto its again (perhaps the street rage had gotten to us at that time), and we needed to give up the sport and reload simply to have the ability to transfer the taxi once more. The shortage of polish feels evident all through the sport, and it’s an actual disgrace, as a result of the idea is a compelling one.