Game Review: Taxi Jam [Love Flight Control? Love Taxi Jam!]

[rating: 4.5/5]


The blurb for Taxi Jam compares itself to two of the legends of the app store in Flight Control and Harbor Master, so can it live up two these masters of the app store?

Ever called a taxi and wondered why it was taking so long to get to you? Or sat in the back seat and thought it was taking too long to get where you wanted to go?

Taxi Jam is your chance to show them how it should be done!

There are a few things that successful games have to have and one of them is simplicity. Taxi Jam succeeds in this task with the simple concept of simply directing your taxis to pick up and drop off passengers while avoiding other taxis, emergency vehicles and angry passengers, could be simpler.

Another requirement of any game that hopes to be successful is intuitive controls and again Taxi Jam delivers there too. The playing area is a static few blocks of New York, London and Paris in a 2D Grand Theft Auto 1 style. Passengers appear randomly around the city looking like small bowling pins and directing your taxi to them is as simple as dragging your finger across the screen from the taxi rank to your passenger. This can be done either by dragging your finger directly from A to B as the crow flies or directing your cab directly through the streets.

While the crow flies drag method is quick and will serve you well in the early stages the route chosen will not always be the most direct and as the levels progress and you have multiple taxis zooming and criss-crossing the mini-metropolis directing your cabs more precisely will give you more control and prevent any crashes. Having said that crashes are inevitable and that is why you are given five lives before your game ends. Crashes can not only be between your cabs but at random times throughout the game emergency vehicles will speed through the city. A dotted line previews their route for you to give you a fighting chance of avoiding them.

After you’ve picked up your passenger, only one at a time please, your cab will flash the color of the drop off point that you need to get them too, pick them up before they get too angry though or you’ll loose another one of those 5 precious lives that you have. This is where I have one major issue. As one of the many people with with red/green color blindness I found it extremely difficult to differentiate between two of the drop-off points that are red and green leaving me to have to attempt to drop the passengers for those drop-off points at one before then trying the other which severely limited my ability to get high scores.

The game starts with just the streets of New York available and as you progress through the game the streets of London and Paris are added to the mix. What are the odds of the streets of San Francisco being made available in a future release?

This game is currently on sale for 99 cents so unless you are Bernie Madoff I would highly recommend you go and invest in this gem of a game.

iphone-app-reviews-promo-codes-official-app-store-badge_touch_4Price $.99 (Sale)

The Good

  • Nice style and graphics
  • Intuitive controls
  • Simple game-play

The Not So Good

  • Steep learning curve
  • Not easy for the color site afflicted

Reviewed By: Craig Willis

Update: New cities will be in the first update, along with co-op and battle modes. (via @nervmedia)

Taxi Jam Trailer

Taxi Jam Screenshots

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4 Comments on “Game Review: Taxi Jam [Love Flight Control? Love Taxi Jam!]”

  1. erichd

    Taxi Jam looks very cool… I don't have the color blindness issue, but it seems devs would do well to integrate an option to perhaps change the colors to a different spectrum or use shapes or patterned symbols to indicate taxis and targets.

  2. erichd

    Taxi Jam looks very cool… I don't have the color blindness issue, but it seems devs would do well to integrate an option to perhaps change the colors to a different spectrum or use shapes or patterned symbols to indicate taxis and targets.

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