The Last Taxi
When a fatally wounded member of an anti-technology cult leaves you with what appears to be an undocumented infant, you’re thrust into a dark network of secrets – unravelling a conspiracy that could shake Progress Point to its core.
The Last Taxi is a narrative-driven adventure game set in Progress Point, a politically and economically-divided sprawling metropolis that has fully embraced automation and human modification, creating a satirical and somberly-surreal vision of the future.
You’ll meet a diverse cast of passengers, each with their own tailored conversations. Be drawn into morally challenging decisions that lead you into the heart of a dying society.
Narrative Gameplay:
As a taxi driver, your job is to keep passengers comfortable, happy and generous.
Or not?
How you interact with passengers is up to you! With varied dialogue choices and multiple endings, you can choose to keep the tips rolling in or spend all your time insulting them.
But keep in mind, gaining their trust and listening to their problems is a lucrative side business. As per Progress Point’s governmental regulations, all taxis are fitted with sleek, handy, and mandatory listening devices – for uhh… quality assurance.
If your passenger expresses something that isn’t quite above board, you can quietly report it to the authorities for some side cash. Choosing to let some shady business go unnoticed does have its perks, though. And with over 80 diverse characters to chat with, you’ll see all kinds traveling the city.
The World:
In the future, you got what you asked for – Flying cars! Unlimited time for hobbies! And the ultimate hybridization of human and machine! Or was it just flying cars you wanted…
Too bad automatic driving cars are all the rage.
Regardless, life in Progress Point is going pretty great. As the only standing city, we survived environmental and economic collapse because no one from the past changed their small, but destructive habits.
Status quo reigned and we’re the societal afterbirth, filled with various factions that believe in one kooky thing or another, like free will.
Oh, but that makes it sound so bleak. Really, there is a bright side.
No one needs to work anymore! The brunt of the workforce has been given to automatons …Well, unless you personally didn’t harbor a vault of cash before the collapse. If you’re one of the unlucky ones, you’ll still need to find some way to make an income, pay the bills, and find your niche in a world run by automation. As a human, you’ll just have to be creative and think outside the processor.
Features:
• Earn tips by navigating through 80 treacherous, quirky, and haunting choice-driven passenger conversations.
• Aid and abet criminal passengers, help them reconsider their actions, or report them to the authorities.
• Upgrade your taxi with new tools allowing for hijacking cargo, hacking toll booths, enhanced customer experience and more!
• Maximize fares by managing malfunctioning equipment, avoiding environmental hazards, and keeping your passengers comfortable.
• Experience a rich and detailed world of technological headquarters, mountaintop temples, sunken metropolises and pirate-infested underworlds.
• 10 hours of gameplay with 20+ unique choice-driven endings.
Game Discussion
Steam User 1
TL;DR: I think overall this is a game I would recommend (barely) but there's some serious caveats and you should get it on a good discount (don't pay more than $10). (Steam needs to add a Neutral rating.)
The Good
First, the negative reviews are generally just people misunderstanding what the game is and that's an unfair reason to give a negative review.
Let's start with why I'd recommend it. The writing is decent and interesting. There's a good mix of characters and a surprising variety of ways you can handle situations with what you choose.
I think I'll address some bogus negative comments from reviews here:
"You can't control the taxi!" I actually like that you can't control it. Early game it might not be interesting but, as time goes on, you will be struggling to micromanage everything going on while still processing what the customer is talking about and responding. There've been a couple moments where I missed what a customer said because I was dealing with 2 or 3 things at once.
"The voice acting sucks!" Actually I didn't have any issues with that. What do they even expect? I thought there was a good variety and the quality of voices were perfectly fine.
"The lip syncing is bad!" No sh*t, Sherlock. It's a cartoon. How do you not understand this? Is your home under a rock, Patrick?
"It's no fun. People just babble on." Yeah...that's the point of the whole game. Maybe if you played for more than 30 minutes you could actually comment on the quality of the game.
The Bad
Here's some minor flaws that can be forgiven:
The initial load into the game is painfully slow and bad. It's just a black screen for a long time then a loading bar...sometimes frozen and sometimes just fast. It's really just an annoyance but it's potentially related to something I'll mention later.
The range of adjustment is limited and grabbing the move handle is often awkward and requires me moving my chair. (I play seated.) This is tolerable for me because the range is fine for me but someone commented on this in the negatives and I think it's a fair critique.
Some dangers are literally unavoidable like a gate you can't hack because the taxi is too fast or a hazard that is at a location you teleported to. Not game-breaking, but very frustrating.
The laser pointer for the device that hacks toll booths and bots for money does not always properly display its laser (parts of the game overlap it).
There will be times when all you can do is repeatedly hop around looking for customers and you will at some point at least once just be transporting crates. It'd be really nice if there was a more clear map that tells you at a glance where you should go to avoid this.
The Ugly
Here's what's really bad--almost unforgivable--about it:
The game is very likely abandoned for the following reasons (If I'm wrong I'd really appreciate the devs fixing issues I mention in this review.)
The last updates are fluff pieces and sales.
Bugs I see in negative reviews are still existant today.
The half-baked endings. The first ending I chose had a character model stretched out in a graphics bug. The second had no text visible but I had a feeling I was supposed to be seeing epilogue text. The third (and fourth) were a similar path but only gave end credits...one I really wanted to hear more about. I then did an ending where the person left my cab and made a long speech while I stared at nothing of interest--just the usual default stuff around that site. (I didn't see him or anything relevant...just heard the speech.)
Something is wrong with the physics/hitbox of the shield ball/taxi. A lot of the time, it will bounce off an invisible wall and either activate late (falling to the ground usually) or just phase out of existence and never activate. I have taken so many hits because the shield ball didn't work properly. I started throwing it up into the ceiling.
I have occasionally had to restart the entire game because I suddenly see a black screen but the game is still running. (Sound familiar?)
The calibration for where the taxi console/dock is will reset EVERY F'ING DAY! Every single shift starts with unlocking the dock and reaching awkwardly down to drag it back into place where I want it.
I had a bug that required me completely restarting my game: When I picked up Obbie, I wasrobbed for 3000. Now normally, I assume this is a one time thing (otherwise the devs are jerks) but, in my case, I was forced to pay 3000 fee every single day. This led to my game being utterly unplayable. I had no idea when I'd earn 3000 in one day so I restarted. Deleted the save. Created a new game. Figured I'd do the tutorial because I forgot how the vials worked (turns out just how I expected). However, in the tutorial he says he threw my license to scan but it's not there. I'm also showing all the stats from the deleted save. Long story short, I set everything to 0 in a config file and saved it to finally able to play again. (I don't think most people would figure that out.)
The guidance in the game is so bad. The tutorial is a nice introduction and I quite liked it but then you're left to the wolves with new stuff added in but no proper explanation of how it works. Just quick-scrolling descriptions. Still don't think I know how to use the scanner properly. The worst offender is a big spoiler: the final nanny options for the baby are mods. This might be explained in the text--I don't recall--but I had the impression that this was a very expensive permanent robo-nanny and thought nothing of it. I bought it early as possible to try to save money. Instead it removed gameplay and left me with endings I didn't want.
With all that said, I do recommend this game (barely). Just probably get it on a discount and have very low expectations. I bought it on discount for about $8 and can easily say I got that value from it. Is it worth $20? No. In its current state I'd say this is a $10 game at best. If devs decided to prove me wrong (on it being abandoned) and fix everything I said, and make proper endings as well, then I think it'd be worth $15 or $20. There's still achievements to get and maybe replaying the story to try to get different endings but if they're as pathetic as the ones I got, I don't know if I want to bother. I liked that there were a variety of endings and I could easily load back but they really left me feeling nonplussed.
Edits: I have no idea what is going on with Steam and/or this store page. The formatting with lists isn't showing? At least not on my end. Sorry if it looks like a rambly wall of text.
Steam User 0
honestly i thought that you could drive the taxi your self how ever you cant it starts slow but thats not all that bad as you play you unlock new areas to go with your taxi and are given more and more things to manage within the taxi making the game have more as you go on how ever I feel that it can become very repetitive but i haven't played enough to really experience it great story telling but if you just want to fly around in a taxi pick people up and not have to listen to them too closely then this game is not for you but it overall is still a good game and i would recommend trying it out if you like story telling and actively talking to the passengers as it can actually change what they will do as you can see at the end of each day in the news for most of them
Steam User 1
i got emotionally attached to a guy who was threatening to kill me
more than once