On paper, Taxi Life: A Metropolis Driving Simulator looks as if a good time. Leisurely choosing up fares in one among Europe’s most stunning cities, Barcelona. Exploring and discovering factors of cultural curiosity, forming and customising your personal taxi firm — all of it seems like a soothing expertise, proper? Improper.
Whereas there’s no denying that the fantastic thing about Barcelona has been captured and Taxi Life provides up a visually spectacular providing, this feels prefer it’s on the detriment of the participant expertise. Transferring between areas, the body charge often tanks, inflicting some main enter lag and turning what needs to be a easy and enjoyable title right into a little bit of a nightmare.
Taxi Life needs you to behave as for those who’re really driving. There aren’t any GTA-style manoeuvres right here — you’ve received to abide by site visitors rules. You’ll get fines for rushing, going the improper approach up roads, working purple lights and many others., and also you’ll get granted much less ideas and fares from prospects in case your automotive is crushed up and broken. Sadly, penalties generally appear exhausting 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 purple site visitors mild often noticed us being rear-ended, with our buyer asking if we really knew find out how to drive.
Taxi Life has a lot promise, however in its present state it’s extraordinarily exhausting to get pleasure from. Some menu choices nonetheless have Xbox buttons assigned to them – press A, we have been informed. One accident we have been in noticed our automotive 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 dearth of polish feels evident all through the sport, and it’s an actual disgrace, as a result of the idea is a compelling one.