‘Taxi Life: A City Driving Simulator’ is a new addition to the simulation wave of games that we have had over the last few years. Taxi Life: A City Driving Simulator was created by Simteract, a team that started in 2014 as a software developer used for training purposes. In 2018, The team directed their focus toward making games with their first game being Train Life back in 2022. Taxi Life is the team’s newest project using their old software skills to make the world of Taxi Life vibrant and filled with flowing traffic.

The game takes place in Barcelona, as you drive around the streets of this beautiful landscape you will be able to pick up fares and drop them off at their destinations. The fares to pick up can range in difficulty based on how far they need to go, doing the harder jobs will reward you with a better payout for the job. Players will also have to maintain the taxis by refuelling, cleaning, and having them serviced to keep the vehicle road-worthy and good for working conditions.

While the concept sounds straightforward, you will need to pay attention to speed limits, traffic lights, and road stoppages due to slow progress. To ensure players stick with the road laws each fare has a patience bar, if this is empty you will lose the job. Many factors can come into this happening, such as driving on the wrong side of the road, making illegal turns, hitting other vehicles, and of course speeding and running red lights.

For a very quick way to end a job is by hitting a civilian, thankfully they do follow road laws also and don’t just randomly walk out into the road. They will use crosswalks so if you see one coming up be aware and slow down in case someone does step out as they do have the right of way programmed into them.

While the AI foot traffic is working fine the cars on the road are another topic, the drivers on the road will give you a case of road rage either by turning into your lane without giving way, or the slight case of being rear-ended by a police officer of all people.

As you progress with tasks, you can also level up by visiting landmarks and viewing street art around Barcelona. Earning more money will allow you to buy different types of vehicles that will allow you to do certain jobs with higher payouts. But it wouldn’t be a taxi company without other drivers, so when you have more than one vehicle you can hire a driver.

Each driver has stats that will impact how they perform, like being able to get a bonus tip for a finished drop-off. When you assign the driver, you can then pick a portion of Barcelona to have them cover and what time slots. I had my drivers covering the tourist hot spots during the day and it resulted in a steady flow of cash from the jobs.

The controls for Taxi Life at first are all over the place, yes, the universal drive and reverse are the same but there is more to controlling the vehicles. Turning on the engine, having the handbrake on, working out the lights, opening and closing windows, having the air conditioning on, and using emergency lights if you are having issues on the road.

A new update has made the shortcuts easier to learn for quick actions while driving to keep the experience at a steady flow as you are driving around the streets, this was a welcomed update and has made playing on the controller more user-friendly for the actions.

Visually Taxi Life looks amazing, the city of Barcelona looks amazing, the landmarks and details of the world and the cars are great. The foot traffic walking about is rather generic and at times can be caught T pose walking, but the major focus is on the road and vehicles not the people on the streets.

The audio-wise, it felt like a bit of a mixed bag of hit-and-miss. While you can use the radio while driving around, the music is just looped. While driving a fare across town you may have the chance of having an interaction with them, either of them asking about the city and sites to see or just general chatter that I am sure we have all had with a taxi driver at some stage, “Has it been a busy shift” as an example.

The framerate at the time of writing did have some issues with drops and rendering, these have been fixed with an update that has also adjusted how the A.I. drivers behave on the road which means fewer random collisions, so it is a breath of fresh air to see that Simteract is hearing the issues and addressing them promptly.

In conclusion, Taxi Life is another relaxing and oddly fun simulation experience that makes for a great title. If you just want to switch off and not have to worry about scoreboards and rushing around while playing, only the road rage is the thing that could shift your mood. I have started enjoying more simulations in the last year and Taxi Life has great potential to be a must-own simulation, it just needs some polishing and minor work to fully round out the experience.

Written by: Shane Walsh