How do San Francisco locals perceive the virtual SF of Sega's Crazy Taxi game? (Orange: hair salon)

[EricS39]

Crazy Taxi (Video Game 1999) - IMDb

For those who have an iphone, there is now a Crazy Taxi game app.

It is incredibly addicting. You get to drive an imaginary taxi all over an imaginary SF and slam into everything in sight, including smash into The Mason-Powell to get your customer to that Chinatown restaurant before you run out of time, and the downtown cable car ding ding ding like you are right on Powell Street

With awesome metal rock blasting in the background.

Also there's beach and tunnels and bridges and sharp twists and turns and as far as the politics of San Francisco, one round where you are given a tank and told to smash off all the cars in SF to reduce carbon emissions and save the planet

I love this game (more of a kid's game but I am yet addicted)

Was wondering if real people in San Francisco can have say in how these virtual San Francisco video games are designed or how to make the games even more fun and better yet, draw in more people to get so obcessed with your city that they plan visits and then bring in even more tourist dollars . Your city is awesome.

But I think the game incorporates a virtual world of Southern California OC people living in a San Francisco more depicted than in reality where people are hopping rides to the beach, to get a quick burger, to the stadium, Bart station, hair salon, etc

It would be like Orange County richy kids taking over San Francisco for a day with unlimited allowances of money to play the city like a game of go where you feel right on the moment.

[HockeyMac18]

Originally Posted by EricS39

Crazy Taxi (Video Game 1999) - IMDb

For those who have an iphone, there is now a Crazy Taxi game app.

It is incredibly addicting. You get to drive an imaginary taxi all over an imaginary SF and slam into everything in sight, including smash into The Mason-Powell to get your customer to that Chinatown restaurant before you run out of time, and the downtown cable car ding ding ding like you are right on Powell Street

With awesome metal rock blasting in the background.

Also there's beach and tunnels and bridges and sharp twists and turns and as far as the politics of San Francisco, one round where you are given a tank and told to smash off all the cars in SF to reduce carbon emissions and save the planet

I love this game (more of a kid's game but I am yet addicted)

Was wondering if real people in San Francisco can have say in how these virtual San Francisco video games are designed or how to make the games even more fun and better yet, draw in more people to get so obcessed with your city that they plan visits and then bring in even more tourist dollars . Your city is awesome.

But I think the game incorporates a virtual world of Southern California OC people living in a San Francisco more depicted than in reality where people are hopping rides to the beach, to get a quick burger, to the stadium, Bart station, hair salon, etc

It would be like Orange County richy kids taking over San Francisco for a day with unlimited allowances of money to play the city like a game of go where you feel right on the moment.

I loved this game back when I was in high school on the Dreamcast. Such a fun game. And I enjoyed the view of "California"...back then, living in Ohio, I hadn't yet been out to CA, so didn't fully understand all of the differences between northern and southern CA (and even within southern CA), or between LA and SF.

It's definitely not super accurate...but then again, it's not exactly trying to be accurate. I also don't think they ever explicitly say it's SF, but it has some strong similarities and looks more like SF than LA. The "culture" they're depicting is a more generic "California" that typically gets sent out to the rest of the world through various media (most people don't know about the big differences and that the state is as gigantic and diverse as it is).

But it is just a video game, after all. San Francisco rush was also a pretty great game based in SF (and a bit more accurate with the layout of the city).

[ambient]

We don't. We're too busy being pretentious about our apps and Google glasses, or else perhaps discussing the best Irish ale at the local Mission dive bar.

[sonarrat]

Video games are all about escapism. You can call games like Crazy Taxi 'kid's games,' but I'm sure anyone who has to sit through traffic daily in downtown San Francisco, and have cabbies cut them off on every corner, would appreciate the fantasy of driving a taxi like a raving lunatic with a passenger onboard..

It was a lot of fun back in the day.. you could play it at the arcade with a wheel, or on your console at home. There was also a series around the same time called Test Drive that had you racing on the steep roads and byways of San Francisco in classic muscle cars.

[DougB541]

As someone who currently is in NYC, i love when video games and movies are in this area. GTA IV recreated even part of my town in queens.

[ttocs99]

There's a game called Driver:San Francisco, and THAT game has THE most realistic rendering of driving in San Francisco. Couldn't wait to play that game. BTW, the original game called "Driver" came out in 1999, and has SF, NY, Miami and LA as cities you can drive around, that was fun too. It also is on the App store for iPhone (I have it, great game).

Being an SF lover, and having lived in the Bay Area for 7 years, of course I loved Crazy Taxi on the Dreamcast, and now of course I have it on my iPhone and on my tablet (Nexus 7).