MiLE HiGH TAXi: A Hovercab Homage to Crazy Taxi (Review)

Mile High Taxi Steam artwork
If you ever yearn for the spirit of Sega’s creative heyday, you needn’t look much further than the present. The spirit of that era continues to live on through modern Dreamcast releases from publishers like Wave Game Studios and PixelHeart, as well as creators whose projects breathe new life into decades-old titles via fan translations, online restoration, unreleased game preservation, and VR remakes

Sega’s turn-of-the-millennium spirit also lives on through the subsequent generations of developers who’ve been inspired by its legacy. It lives on through the ambitions of those who build upon and reinvent its concepts, and through those who create new and bespoke experiences of their own — just as Sega’s studios had done at their creative peak. At its core, the Sega spirit is a pioneering spirit. And when we pay homage to its past, it stands to reason that we ought to embrace the future, as well.

Mile High Taxi gameplay of the Taxi flying through the city with billboards everywhere

Conceived as a pandemic passion project by solo developer Cassius John-Adams, Mile High Taxi (officially stylized as MiLE HiGH TAXi) is the latest game to shepherd that legacy. It pays clear homage to Crazy Taxi but with a futuristic twist. Mile High supplements AM3/Hitmaker’s fare attack concept with the verticality of that chase scene in The Fifth Element where Bruce Willis nosedived his hovercab through hovertraffic to evade the hovercops. 

The game wears its influences like a hood ornament, tasking you with picking up and dropping off passengers throughout an exhausting and suffocating metropolis. As with Hitmaker’s forebearer, you’ll earn some cash and replenish a ticking countdown timer with each successful drop off. Those fares are well earned as you’ll spend most of the time weaving through (and into) a grid of infinitely tall skyscrapers while being constantly berated by the passenger and pedestrian populace.

Mile High Taxi gameplay of the Taxi at ground level

Mile High’s towering cityscape is irradiated with billboards featuring clever nods to ‘80s and ‘90s films like Idiocracy, The Fifth Element (obviously), and Coming to America. Belying its title, Mile High Taxi appears to be set in a futuristic version of Toronto rather than Denver, Colorado – at least inferring from its abundant references to Tim Hortons and Quays (pronounced like “keys”, not “kways” as one NPC will frequently remind you). Either way, of all the dystopian cities I’ve explored in video games, Mile High’s is by far the most Canadian.

Mile High Taxi gameplay of the Taxi flying past what looks like a Tim Hortons billboard
Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kamloops anymore.

Conceptually, Mile High plays like Crazy Taxi in six dimensions with vertical maneuverability added to the formula. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long for it to feel like precisely that: a formula. You begin by picking up customers on suspended platforms and pedestrian bridges, waiting as they leap into your cab (via karate kick, front flip, or diving chop) before stating the generic cross-streets and elevation of their destination. From there, it’s a mad dash to the drop-off point, with a floating arrow and GPS-style map for guidance.

The scoring system is a little obtuse. There doesn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason to the feedback you receive from passengers, but it's usually negative. Passengers frequently complain, except when you smash through street signs, stop lights, and patio furniture. They love that shit.

Which, fair. So do I.

Mile High Taxi gameplay of the Taxi flying through the city

Unfortunately, Mile High’s novelty wears thin after a few minutes of chauffeuring random passengers to indiscernible locations around its nondescript grid. Lacking distinct landmarks, varied street layouts, or unique neighborhood aesthetics, there’s little to distinguish one trip from the next. Each trip is approached more or less the same way, and Mile High’s fare loop dissolves into an amorphous, unmemorable haze long before the timer runs out.

Samba de Amigo Ver. 2000 has been Converted into English

Samba de Amigo Ver. 2000 cover

Samba de Amigo is that monkey game with the maracas. 

What that rather inelegant opening serves to say, is that Samba de Amigo needs no introduction. Not only is it beloved by Dreamcast fans for its colour-soaked rhythm hijinks that made use of the delightful maraca peripheral (which required a significant amount of space to store on your gaming shelves), but it is also well known for a port it received on the Nintendo Wii; one which appeared at the right time to slot neatly into the motion control hype of the seventh console generation.

This Wii port is actually important to our topic today, because it incorporated many of the additions that were introduced as part of the Samba de Amigo Ver. 2000 package, a Japanese-exclusive upgrade for the Dreamcast. While this DC release was never brought to the West, it was still an easy import for many gamers (including DCJY's very own Andrew Dickinson) due to it lacking any significant language barrier to its gameplay.

Samba de Amigo big box
Photo nicked from Mike's @DreamcastPics account. Sorry, Mike.

This didn't stop hacker dukeblooders from converting Samba de Amigo Ver. 2000 into English, though. The reason I refer to this as a "conversion" is because what has been done here is effectively a similar process to what we've seen previously with community projects that made Space Channel 5: Part 2 or Resident Evil Code: Veronica Kanzenban (Resident Evil Code: Veronica X) accessible to English speakers, by taking content seen in later Western ports (in this case, the Wii port) and inserting it into the Dreamcast version with some kind of wizardry that I will never be able to comprehend.

On dukeblooders' project page on GitHub, they explain that there isn't technically any text in this game, only images. The majority of images and audio were replaced with those from the English Wii versions, although some images had to be reproduced by dukeblooders.

If you want to give this English conversion a go on Dreamcast hardware, you will have to play it on an ODE like a GDEMU or a MODE, as currently it is not able to be burnt onto a CD-R. Otherwise you can still play it via emulator using the Type A controller mode, sans maracas. Just head over to the GitHub page to download the patch, which can easily be applied to an image of the game using Derek Pascarella's Universal Dreamcast Patcher.

Let’s take a look at Fusion DC Magazine

Artwork from Fusion DC depicting the Dreamcast as the Millennium Falcon flying through the Death Star trench accompanied by a VMU
All of the old school Dreamcast fans, those who have been appreciating Sega's last great punt at home gaming hardware since the late 90s, are starting to get old. It's true. Long gone are the days where we all hung round the streets in our baggy jeans, listening to crap nu metal through our minidisc players and still hung on to some level of optimism about what the new century would bring us - as long as we survived the millennium bug that is. A lot has happened since then.. so, so much. We probably should have realised that it was going to go downhill when Sega pulled out of the hardware business. The blue sky glory of Sega would soon be replaced with the greys and browns of a new century of gaming dreariness. That sense of optimism we felt? Yeah, that didn't go well either. The world has slowly turned into an unknowing parody of itself; a slow march towards a Romero-esque zombie world full of hopelessness, greed and hypocrisy. 
A screenshot of zombies approaching from The House of the Dead 2

Thing is - it's probably not that way at all. But when you're in your late teens, everything seems optimistic, and when you reach the age we're all at now - many of us facing the prospect of no birthday badge ever having a number lower than '4' starting it off - all the teenagers are scary, and loud, and stupid, and the world is just one long reminder that 'it's not like the old days'. We still play games, sure, but we're not quite as sharp as we used to be, the reflexes aren't quite where they were anymore, and inevitably, someone a quarter of your age will beat you at a game, shout in your face that you're a loser, and 'Mad World' by Gary Jules will play slowly in your mind as you realise you're now past it. We can reminisce about games, sure; fill our twitter feeds with pictures of games from a quarter of a century ago, but playing them? If we get ten minutes to ourselves, and if we haven't got to battle with some ridiculous technological issue which stops us from just playing the damn things, then sure, yeah, maybe. But it's doubtful, isn't it? We'd much rather just grab a cup of tea, put on some slippers and read a good book before drifting off for a nice nap. Don't scream at your monitor (or phone, or VR device or, I don't know, some other new fangled nonsense) at me in apoplectic rage; not only would that not do your blood pressure any good, but you know it's true. We're old now. 

Grandpa from The Simpsons sat down surrounded by the younger characters
"Back in my day, the creators of Sonic made game consoles too..."

It's quite lucky then, that in the last few years we've seen a steady influx of Dreamcast literary content be released. Was the first the Dreamcast Junkyard's own Ultimate Collectors Guide? (Jesus, you really had to get that plug in didn't you? - Lewis) Probably. I'd look it up, but to be honest, it's getting dark and I'm getting a little sleepy. Regardless, we've since had a whole flurry of cool new books, magazines and guides, with many more on the way. The superb Dreamcast Years book from DCJY's own Andrew Dickinson, the Collected Works book released a few years ago; Chris Scullion's upcoming Dreamcast encyclopaedia; not to mention various pieces of Dreamcast nostalgia written in magazines and books. We're really at that time where Dreamcast fans are now well adjusted adults (some of us), and serious things, written on paper and meant to be read like serious adults, are now produced to cater for us. 

Photo of the front cover of Fusion DC

The latest of these, at least the latest to arrive at the 'yard, is a little magazine called Fusion DC, a special edition issue from the long running Fusion Retro Books (who have produced a lot of really good retro gaming-based books and magazines), and guest edited by a well known member of the Dreamcast community, Retro Faith. This slim 50 page mini-magazine may be small enough to fit in a pocket (on a pair of cargo trousers, at least), but is a professionally put together and full colour publication that is a welcome addition to any Dreamcast fans collection. It was put up for sale on Fusion's web store at a very reasonable £3.99, although I managed to pick a copy up for just £2.50 (at time of writing, there's less than single figures of these remaining, so grab one while you still can).

Photo of Fusion DC’s online gaming piece

Sporting a cover on which the Dreamcast has been reimagined as the Millennium Falcon, with VMUs serving as X-wing support through the Death Star trench run (admittedly, a slightly odd design choice, but it does look cool as heck), the magazine packs a lot of content into its pages. Retro Faith has been producing some top quality content for some years now, and her passion and love for the console are evident throughout. In fact, it's fair to say that the majority of the content within the magazine comes from Retro Faith alone. There's her pick of top 5 DC fighting games; an in-depth look at Phantasy Star Online (with some contributions from DCJY's own James Jarvis), a short guide to Dreamcast peripherals, and an interview with friends of the Yard, Retro Sumus, developers of the excellent indie release Xenocider. As is always the case with Faith's writing, it is professionally written but still exudes an obvious passion for the subject matter. The magazine also looks great, with plenty of screenshots, full page visuals and clean layout.

Photo of Fusion DC’s peripheral feature

It's not just Retro Faith who has a hand in the mag though, and there are other contributors that will be familiar to retro gaming fans in the UK. Andrew Fisher is well known for writing for numerous retro publications and websites, including Retro Gamer magazine, and his contribution here is a fascinating look at the Naomi arcade board. Nicholas McDonald takes a loving look at the Sakura Wars series, whilst Sega Powered and (upcoming indie mag) Debug writer Marc Jowett takes a look at Shenmue and its influence on then open world genre of games that came after it.

Photo of Sonic Shuffle’s Fusion DC feature

There's a couple of other bits here, including a look at a couple of Dreamcast gaming failures (MoHo!), but there isn't a massive amount of content to speak about - this is after all a magazine of only 50-odd pages! What is here, however, is enjoyable and of a professional quality.

Photo of Fusion DC’s Sakura Wars feature

It appears that this magazine may have been produced in limited quantities in 2022, as part of their 'Backerkit' page for the launch of their Christmas annuals, which may explain why this one passed us by at the time. It's a shame this went under the radar, as there are many DC fans out there who would no doubt have happily added this to their collection - here's hoping that this may, however, be only the first Dreamcast related endeavour from Retro Fusion Books.

Did you manage to get a copy of Fusion DC? Have you enjoyed Fusion’s magazines in the past? Let us know in the comments below or via our social media channels…

Daytona USA is Playable Online on the Dreamcast for the First Time in 21 Years

Daytona USA artwork by Sega

To say that online multiplayer was a central pillar of the Dreamcast brand would be an understatement. From day one it was touted as a standout feature, placed front and centre of most of the big marketing campaigns, and generally bigged-up by Sega executives at any opportunity that arose, from press interviews to industry events.

After a bit of a delay and some teething issues following the console's launch, an impressive online architecture was erected and over 80 games were released with an online multiplayer mode between 1999 and 2002. While hundreds of thousands had the fortune to experience the joys of playing their little white box online during this period, online multiplayer facilities did not send the Dreamcast into the stratospheric heights hoped for by Sega, and the official online lifespan of some games was as gut-wrenchingly brief as that of the commercial days of the console itself.

Artwork of Fred Durst accompanies a headline which reads: "Dreamcast with Bizkits and Gravy... SegaNet Says: This Bizkit Ain't Limp! SegaNet takes its show on the road with the band
No doubt Sega had to spend a pretty penny to gain celebrity endorsements like this one...

Daytona USA 2001, the go-to title for unabashed all-out arcade-racing on the Dreamcast, is a prime example. Released to largely positive reviews (90% in Paragon's Dreamcast Magazine) between December 2000 and May 2001 across different regions, the official server reportedly ceased to function before the end of 2002. I haven't been able to source a firm verification of precisely when the server closed, but by most accounts it was only operational for 18 months at most. Mercifully though, for those of us who are hooked on the delights that online multiplayer on the Dreamcast can bring, I am delighted to report that we are now achingly close to being able to play this particular title online once more.

That's right readers. Believe your eyes and ears. In the near future, Daytona USA 2001 is due to be playable online on the Dreamcast for the first time in 21 years, thanks to the bright mind and unswerving commitment of ioncannon, who has been working on the revival of its online mode for the last six months.

The game is set to join the ranks of 25 other Dreamcast games which have had their online modes already revived and are playable online via unofficial servers. The key details regarding Daytona and some insights from ioncannon, who kindly took the time to answer our questions, can be found below.

Update (14/07/2023): Daytona USA is back online! Check out PC Wizard's post on the Dreamcast Live blog to find out more.

DAY-TON-AHHHHHHH! What you need to know about playing it online

The PAL version shown here won't be of much use to those eager to play online...

  • There is no precise date set for the completion of this online multiplayer revival project (it is a voluntary initiative after all), but progress has been good and appears to be reaching the final stages. Successful games have been played between emulators and tinkerings are currently under way to get it fully working on real hardware.
  • We'll be sure to post an update as soon as the new server is publicly available and ready to play on. For now, those interested can follow ioncannon's thread on Dreamcast-Talk.
  • Daytona's online mode was axed from the PAL release at the last minute (in similarly enraging fashion to the PAL releases of Outtrigger and Unreal Tournament), therefore you will need an NTSC-U (North American) or NTSC-J (Japanese) edition of the game to play online.
  • The game will not need to be patched to be played online. You will be able to play with your regular retail releases, whether those be legitimate GD-ROMs or "backups" that are played from an optical disc emulator such as the GDEMU.
  • The revived online mode will feature nearly everything that the original online mode did: up to 4 players per race, with plenty of tracks and cars to choose from. The only feature that has yet to be figured out is the ranking system.
  • The game is not compatible with the Dreamcast's Broadband Adapter, so to play online you will need to connect via your regular Dreamcast modem and a 'DreamPi' (a Raspberry Pi configured to enable your Dreamcast to play online) with an updated DreamPi image installed (something which is being worked on at present).
  • Getting your Dreamcast online may seem daunting at first, but is actually a relatively easy task, even for those whose technical chops are lacking (like me!). Step-by-step guidance is available on the Dreamcast Live website, and the friendly folks over at the Dreamcast-Talk forums and the DCJY Discord Server are typically happy to help those who need a helping hand.
  • Scheduling and joining online sessions of Dreamcast games is easier than ever before. The Sega Online discord group host Dreamcast games several times a week suited to different timezones, Dreamcast Live maintain a regular schedule and welcome engagement via their TeamSpeak channel, and you can also find opponents the old-school way via the Dreamcast-Talk forums.

The Revival of Daytona's Online Multiplayer Mode: Insights from ioncannon

Testing the server connection using the Dreamcast emulator Flycast. Image courtesy of ioncannon.
Here in the Dreamcast scene we are blessed to have a talented pool of people, including ioncannon, who have committed their skills and knowledge to reviving the Dreamcast's online functions. We asked ioncannon to spill the beans on the journey he has taken with Daytona thus far and he kindly obliged...

The World's SMALLEST Dreamcast Games!

A minature scale model of the Dreamcast by Retroldtech

The Dreamcast's GD-ROM format was a strange beast, being ever so slightly bigger than a CD-ROM but nowhere close to the capacity of the impending, mighty DVD-ROM. Packing in 1GB per disc, a majority of the Dreamcast's retail game library barely even tapped into this extra available space. As we will explore here, storage space isn't everything though: you can squeeze some pretty darn good games into not even a tenth of a GD-ROM's space!

Screenshot of the GD MENU Card Manager application
In this day and age of being able to store Dreamcast games on many different kinds of hardware, like SD cards or hard drives, it is possible to strip these games of any blank data that is used to fill up the rest of a GD, leaving just the necessary files to save space. This can be a risky move, as doing so can break games if they're not optimized correctly, but there are "means" to find games that have already been shrunk down to be used on a optical drive emulator such as GDEMU or MODE.
Photo of a 256gb SD card
My entire shelf of Dreamcast games and more fit on this! What a time we live in!
It's via this technique that I have been able to put together this list of games that are all less than 100MB! Take note, I am not including indie releases, prototypes, unreleased games, Atomiswave ports or software like web browsers and Fish Life. Also I haven't downloaded every game ever released so there are probably some visual novels out there that are tiny in size for all I know.

15. Silent Scope - 96.91MB

Photo of the Silent Scope game case
Konami's Dreamcast output was kind of disappointing. When they weren't busy cancelling Castlevania games for the system, they did throw out the odd bone with some arcade ports such as this here sniping-romp. It's a real shame the Dreamcast wasn't blessed with a sniper light gun like the Xbox, as the game played with a standard controller feels like it's missing something. Much like Samba De Amigo, though, it is playable enough this way but you can't help feeling like it's a lesser experience. Oh well.

14. Ooga Booga - 91.49MB

Photo of the Ooga Booga game case
This very unique collection of mini-games, with an emphasis on online multiplayer, released exclusively in North America and was touted as one of the big hitters during the push to sell people on SegaNet. Luckily, this is one of those games where online play has been revived, though even if that wasn't the case, this would still be worth checking out as there is nothing else quite like it on the Dreamcast.

13. Evangelion Typing Project E - 71.59MB

Photo of the Evangelion Typing Project E game case
I won't go into too much detail about this one as it has been discussed here at length in the past after Derek Pascarella treated us all to an English translation! Evangelion Typing Project E gives us another game to practice our touch-typing skills on, but instead of gunning down zombies with words you er...do Evangelion stuff! Like the anime! I dunno, I haven't really had a chance to play much of it yet, but definitely give it a shot if you're a fan of the show! There are in fact two translated Evangelion typing games, but I couldn't properly shrink the other one without it breaking, so I assume if optimized well it'd probably be a similar size to this one.

12. SEGA Tetris - 62.56MB

Photo of the Sega Tetris game case
This was the first Japanese import Dreamcast game I ever purchased from eBay, if I recall correctly! Why this one stayed in Japan is beyond me, but the console rights for Tetris have always been a bit of a confusing ride as Sega themselves found out when their Mega Drive/Genesis release had to be recalled... But this is Sega Tetris, not to be confused with Tetris...by Sega. Got it?

I really dig the presentation in this game. It's also kind of notable for being one of the last arcade Tetris games before the new rules came into play like swapping, hard drops and now legendary T-spins. The gameplay of this one gets ridiculously fast-paced, making it one of the harder Tetris games out there, though there are plenty of modes to mess around in, including a UFO catcher claw game with cute Sonic 1 remixes!

This is another one on the "someone get it translated and back online if at all possible" wish list!

11. Plus Plumb - 62.53MB

Photo of the Plus Plum game case
No, I wasn't going to pop down the shops just to buy a plum to photo this with. That'd be silly.
Only 3kB less than Sega Tetris, we have another Japan-only puzzle game! Plus Plumb is a pretty obscure one as far as I know. I discovered it back in around 2000 when a car boot sale I went to every week had a store of bootleg games (oh no! ☠️). These bootlegs were incredibly low effort, literally just plain CD-Rs with the game's titles penned on them, most of which were random Japanese games I'd never heard of until I took them home and fed them to the rotating Utopia reindeer.

Plus Plumb is a pretty standard match 3 versus game with some Pokémon-looking mofos chatting in between stages (with full voice acting!). I played quite a bit of this back in the day (did eventually buy a legit copy, don't worry) so the music from this is one of those earworms that has stuck with me for 20+ years!

10. Planet Ring - 62.44MB

The cover artwork for Planet Ring
Also within the 63MB range is this PAL exclusive, online-only mini-game collection that was given away on the front of magazines and the like. I never got around to trying this one out when the original servers were up, but luckily it's one of those games that is back online today! It even has voice chat so you can talk to someone other than your mutant human-faced fish for a change!