Hoelkosoft Games is back with a sequel to Astro Taxi which was released last year. Is the return trip worth the price, or is a wasted journey? Read on to find out.
Astro Taxi 2 follows the same format as its predecessor (read our review here). It is a mix of Jetpack and Lunar Lander in which you fly a experimental taxi picking up and dropping off passengers to their destinations. Your taxi uses a thrust style system to keep it airborne and using the left and right joypad to thrust it in the respective direction. The controls have been made more responsive since the original release and while they were mostly fine before, the new controls are pretty much perfect. Any crashing into buildings will be down to you and not the game.
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The actual gameplay remains the same, the Career mode sees you play through the thirty newly designed levels to try to earn as much money as possible before the timer runs out. If you have not collected enough passengers or you run out of lives then it is game over. Previously completed levels can be replayed if you need practice or do not wish to start from the beginning. A new multiplayer mode has been introduced which has two options, a simultaneous up to four player game where the players compete against each other for the top earnings. A turn based mode for up to eight players allows for a nice competitive game to see who is the best earner at the end. The new game modes are a welcome addition and the ease of gameplay should allow most ages to participate.
The graphics have been improved on since the first game. Instead of chunky Atari 2600 style graphics they are now somewhat easier on the eye but still fairly basic. Sound effects are taken from the original so no major changes here. There are a few music tracks which sound good, one in particular reminds me of Crazy Taxi. A medal system is also included and it sets some decent challenges such as reaching level 30 in Career mode and dropping of a number of passengers to their destination.
Astro Taxi costs 80 :MSPoints: which is fair value for money. If you were a fan of Astro Taxi then it is more of the same with a few extras such as the multiplayer thrown in which adds to the value. There are some good improvements over the original and it is well worth checking out if you enjoy retro themed games.
You can find more information on the Marketplace.
Code giveaway – First to redeem wins a copy of Astro Taxi 2 – Q6DT3-R6CMR-CXB27-JMFCM-XPKGQ. Let us know in the comments if you redeem it!
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