I spent some time playing a debug build to the sequel to the retro Xbox indie game Astro Taxi.
If you are not familiar with Astro Taxi and its Christmas theme Xmas Taxi spinoff you can read our reviews here and here respectively. The game follows the same format as the originals, you are a cabbie of a flying taxi who must pick up and drop off passengers who ask to travel to a numbered platform. The taxi uses a thrust and gravity like propulsion system so you must carefully avoid other platforms and obstacles such as billboards. On each level you have a target amount of fares to earn before you can complete the level which is set against a time limit.
[nggtags gallery=AstroTaxi2Preview]
The first thing you will notice is that the in game graphics have had an overhaul when compared to the original. The graphics in the original were Atari 2600 quality and now they are more in the early VGA era with brighter backgrounds, buildings and craft. The graphics are definitely an improvement over the originals, maybe by the time we play Astro Taxi 6 we will have 3D graphics will all the trimmings! 🙂
The game plays pretty much the same as the originals. The flight controls were tweaked in Xmas Taxi and Astro Taxi 2 uses them which gives a much more accurate response. If you were put off by the original controls you will enjoy Astro Taxi 2 much more. Support for multiple players is included with two modes for up to four players; a battle mode and a party mode. These two new modes were not quite finished in the preview build but they should be working fine upon release.
Other features include an award system including awards for reaching certain levels in the career mode and dropping off a number of passengers. There are also now five music tracks to listen to, if I remember right there were none in the original.
No release date or pricing has been announced as yet. The game is around 90% complete so the release shouldn’t be too far away.
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