Crazy Taxi

Developer: Hitmaker
Publisher: Sega
Release: 1999
Platform: Arcade, Dreamcast, Game Cube, PC, PS2, PS3, PSP, Xbox, X360, iOS, Android (played), GBA
Genre: Racing

It's an obvious statement, but a particularly blatant one by today's standards: every frame of Crazy Taxi screams "90s". Radioactive colors, stiff 3D models, virtually an interactive Offspring (literally the main source of licensed music in the game, sided by Bad Religion) MTV music video—something (tellingly enough) actually brought to life a bit later in Red Hot Chili Peppers' Californication.

But Dreamcast's innate anachronism (both ahead of its time technically and late to the party stylistically) had stretched to a point that couldn't be foreseen at the time: Sega's contemporary software would fit smartphones perfectly.

Gameplay-wise Crazy Taxi could be taken simply as arcadey for its short-bursts, over-the-top fun, but it holds up especially well as a free mobile re-release. Getting a proper "credits" cutscene can still be a bit tough for modern audiences, but darting through its proto-open world (while following a broken compass that encourages the driver to explore instead of sticking to proper routes) is as exhilarating as ever—and put current digital stores' competitors to shame at ease. Also, despite the original controls hardware setup being fairly complex, it seems to have flowed seamlessly into touch screen environment (the same happens with Chu Chu Rocket’s port; both testify in favor of Sega's then-modern approach to accessibility).

Breathtaking pointy vistas.

The only thing holding Crazy Taxi from being completely polished for 2010s and beyond is its sometimes tricky physics; but that's a sin still committed often—probably even more nowadays than back then—and even so it still pulls that off better than most games around anyway.

The Ninja

Developer: Sega

Publisher: Sega

Release: 1986

Platform: Master System

Genre: Shoot ’em-up

Sitting somewhere between proto-run 'n' guns like Commando and contemporary shmups (surprisingly leaning more towards the later) the ill-named The Ninja should have deserved at least a bigger audience—if not necessarily critical appraise.

Selling an adjectiveless ninja game as the fad was rising quick and steadily (Shinobi came out one year later, Ninja Gaiden followed the next one) would be hard in any system, but Sega's MS still holds the record for the ugliest art style to ever grace Western shores, and that was truly the case here. Screenshots couldn't get the job done either, but despite not being a looker the game has a distinct visual signature that is even lifted by the clean HUD-less Sega approach at the time.

Getting past that steep entry point starts to pay when the action gets rolling. The basic premise—killing enemies with shurikens, enhancing strenght/speed with power-ups—is only the foundation for some subtle flavoring that brings a more-than-the-sum-of-the-parts taste to the final product. Auto-scrolling levels break the regular pace every now and then and are cleverly justified narrative-wise: a mountain to be climbed against an avalanche, a classic Frogger-like river chase, a stampede of horses within the castle’s gates... Even simple tricks like exchanging the floor tileset for a stone wall to create a climbing level—with vertical speed handicapped accordingly to tweak the feels—manage to pull the trick with simplicity.

Even some pseudo-isometric view is pulled with coding techniques alone

Not only that. The Ninja most likely will send an unadvised player back a couple levels in their first playthrough for some hidden scrolls hunt before moving on, but it gets away with it with more elegance than Ghosts'n Goblins: playing through it again with more of a keen eye brings the apparently straight-forward action game to a new level. More: an accuracy bonus system rewards skilled players with higher scores, making it yet another game for arcadey intials hunters—opposed to casual button mashers by a mile and a half.

Yet to be properly played or praised, The Ninja is still a testimony to how a game can be tackled and perceived in several ways solely with slick, light ideas implemented well.