Taxi Life: A City Driving Simulator Review – Not Worth The Ride

I have always thought that driving a taxi every day would be the most stressful job ever. Dealing with crazy customers could make anyone question their life choices. Fortunately, You don’t have to deal with that in Taxi Life: A City Driving Simulator game. It’s virtual, so you don’t have to worry about real-world challenges.

But don’t expect driving through busy traffic during rush hours to be easy. You have to hustle to become a taxi tycoon in the city. Let’s dive into this Taxi Life: A City Driving Simulator review as I share my thoughts on this game.

Story And Setting

The main setting of Taxi Life: A City Driving Simulator revolves around this beautiful city that resembles a 1:1 replica of Barcelona. The architecture feels fantastic, and I was amazed at how lavish the city looked while I was free-roaming, ignoring my tasks.

Taxi Life follows your daily life as a cabbie in Barcelona as you build a taxi empire. The game wastes no time, throwing you amidst the chaos of the city’s traffic, and from here on, your fate is in your hands.

As you get comfy and progress, Barcelona becomes your private playground. Narrow roads and heavy traffic might make it harder for you to make your way swiftly through traffic, which could be very much like how traffic works in real Barcelona. It’s just a wild guess, purely speculative.

Gameplay

Taxi Life: A City Driving Simulator is not a racing game, nor does it feature high-speed car chases like Hollywood movies. It is a simple game that provides just enough to master the steering wheel and become an expert at your work.

As soon as you launch the game, you are greeted with a short tutorial about the basics of driving. This can be skipped, but I preferred playing it out to become familiar with driving mechanics. I got to practice parking bits, which improved my handling of my car. 

After that, I had to take a quick test and, pick someone up, and drop them off at their destination. This was the real deal to see if I could handle the job. But then I found out that most of the jobs in this game are all about picking up and dropping off your passengers, which can get pretty boring and repetitive really fast.

Standard Features

In Taxi Life, It’s all about earning high customer tips and providing you with enough resources to climb the ladder of success. As you move up, you’ll unlock new vehicles to drive and customize. The diverse choices of vehicles will be handy because each car operates and handles differently. 

To keep your customers happy, wrapping up your rides as fast and efficiently as possible is essential. It’s like walking on the thin edge, where any minor mistake can result in huge penalties, such as speeding tickets.

Regarding customization options, you’ll mostly get performance upgrades that improve your vehicle’s handle, steer, and control. That said, I wish more customization options could alter how my ride looks. Sadly, it seems like that’s all we get for now.

In Taxi Life, it’s all about earning high customer tips and enough resources to climb the ladder of success.

A Happy Customer Pays Well

Most of your performance will gauged on the basis of car handling. Passengers may demand a quick drop-off at their destination. However, rough driving will cause them to panic, and you will get a penalty. It is a double-edged sword, but you will earn generous tips if you nail it.

Initially, I tried to rely on the GPS to follow the route as precisely as possible, but after a while, I discovered that the GPS seemed faulty. So, I started taking my detours and shortcuts to meet the customers’ high expectations since the route displayed on the GPS was not efficient and time-saving.

Most of your performance will gauged on the basis of car handling.

This made me realize that driving in Taxi Life is better if you know the map like the back of my hand since relying on a seemingly possessed GPS was useless. Learning the routes, traffic flow, and shortcuts became crucial for fast progression and dropping satisfied customers.

Steering Through Lifeless AIs

Playing Taxi Life: A City Driving Simulator is not just about being good at driving in traffic. It’s about skillfully navigating the traffic while ensuring you don’t break traffic rules. And this is precisely where things begin to become slightly annoying.

The AI NPCs were easily one of the most annoying parts of the game. I had to slam my brakes hard to avoid a collision with another person who suddenly decided to appear in front of me. To my surprise, the AI pedestrian didn’t even react or show signs of panic. It felt so lifeless and strange for a game that is focused on simulating real-life driving.

Visuals and Performance

Taxi Life: A City Driving Simulator is very light on specs and system requirements. I wasn’t expecting much from it anyway, and to some extent, I was right. As I mentioned, the city landscape is impressive, but things did not seem better as I played further.

The interior design of the vehicles feels smooth and lightly detailed, which creates a huge contrast between the highly detailed city and the vehicles. I usually prefer to drive my car from the dashboard point of view, but this time, I thought using the tail camera would be a better choice.

Taxi Life: A City Driving Simulator is very light on specs and system requirements.

Being a title that aims for realism, I was highly distracted by the city buildings suddenly disappearing out of my sight as I went further away from them. The depth of field in this game seriously needs some rework. The backgrounds were so blurry and unimpressive that the cars looked pixelated and clunky. I was under the impression that my computer was lagging. 

Verdict

Taxi Life: A City Driving Simulator offers nothing new. I was pumped to try out a game that’s supposed to feel like a real job, but it doesn’t cut it for me. It’s not realistic enough. The developers should have focused more on the game’s core mechanics instead of creating impressive city landscapes.

And even if we talk about visuals, they do nothing to add to the gameplay. There are no car customization options except the basic color change; the interior details lack depth and animations. Not to mention, traffic AI can get on your nerves sometimes due to its unpredictable attitude.

While Taxi Life: A City Driving Simulator is visually appealing, its lack of depth and shallow mechanics is a major disappointment. If you are a fan of games that offer high-quality graphics and top-notch customization, you might want to grab another ride because this one is going nowhere.

I will wrap up my review of Taxi Life: A City Driving Simulator. While you’re at it, why not look at other eXputer reviews?

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