Crazy Taxi (GameCube, PlayStation 2)

Crazy Taxi jumps it's way from the Dreamcast and onto the better-performing PlayStation 2 and GameCube platforms, better known for being Sega's first game as a third-party publisher, with the ports externally handled by Acclaim.

To do: RESOLUTION. This game's final framebuffer output is 640×512 on the JP and NA PS2 versions, even though the actual rendering is done at 640×480 entirely. Should I crop out that blank space or leave it be? Document anything different between the PS2 and GameCube releases, as six months is quite some time between the ports. FMV handling is different between the American and Japanese PS2 releases, with the Japanese release solving a problem with the playback of the logos. Also see if anything is different in the European releases. Considering the date differences of the two releases, there's almost certainly not much in it, but it never killed to check anyway.

Unused Text#

Unused Warning Text#

Hidden in the PS2 version's executable is a warning about the game's export outside of Japan, a leftover presumably from the arcade version.

                  WARNING                 


      THIS GAME IS TO BE USED ONLY IN JAPAN. 

       EXPORT,SALES,DISTRIBUTION AND/OR       

       OPERATION OUTSIDE THIS AREA MAY        

       CONSTITUTE A VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL

       LAWS ON COPYRIGHTS AND/OR INDUSTRIAL   

       PROPERTY RIGHTS AND SUBJECT THE        

       VIOLATING PARTY TO LEGAL PROCEEDINGS. 

Parental Advisory Warning#

Code for the arcade version's parental advisory warning is present in the GameCube release but unused.

The following code replaces the "NOW LOADING..." text with the warning in the NTSC-U GameCube release:

04026CDC 4BFEF44D
04026C5B 00408200

Unused Australian Title Screen Code#

The following code enables the "AUSTRALIAN VERSION" text in the NTSC-U GameCube release:

043DFC84 00000001

Changes from the Dreamcast Version#

• The character voices are now used from Crazy Taxi 2, a change that would carry over to future titles in the series.

Regional Differences#

Title Screen#

US	Europe	Japan

The copyright text is shortened in the Japanese version's title screen. This also demonstrates a problem with how the game renders - namely, its final output is 640×512 across all regions, despite the fact that the last 32 pixels on the bottom of the screen go unused in the US and Japanese versions.

Pause Menu#

US	Europe	Japan

Strangely enough, the Pause menu is slightly different, with the following (relatively minor) differences in place between the US and European versions compared to the Japanese version:

• The highlighted text in the US and European versions is a yellow color not unlike the background of the main menu, while the highlighted text in the Japanese version is red, not unlike the color in the logo.
• All of the options in the menu are renamed in the Japanese version: "RESUME" becomes "EXIT", "RESTART" becomes "RETRY" and "QUIT" becomes "MENU".
• The dash separating "VIBRATION" and "ON/OFF" is removed in the Japanese version.

Unused Japanese Translation#

The NTSC-U GameCube release has a Japanese translation with PlayStation 2 text.

043E09C8 00000000