Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom [Review]
Panik Arcade’s debut game is a trippy, high-energy collectathon where you can’t jump, only vroom.
Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom. Credit: Panik Arcade / Those Awesome Guys
Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom is a blast to play. It’s a straightforward N64-style collectathon where you need to collect green gears hidden in increasingly inconvenient places throughout the game’s levels in order to open up more levels, but the over-the-top energy and sheer joy the game exudes take it to another level. Combine that exuberance with the game’s tight controls, and you’ve got a winner. Italian indie studio Panik Arcade have made something special here.
Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom. Credit: Panik Arcade / Those Awesome Guys
The title might have you believe this is an arcade driving game. Its not—Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom is a 3D platformer where you happen to be an adorable little wind-up taxi cab. Because you’re a car, you can’t jump. You can accelerate and brake in midair, but let’s not question the physics here. Between driving off surfaces at high speeds and using a special speed boost (even in midair), you have to exploit level topography to propel yourself to out of reach nooks and crannies to find those precious gears. Pulling off those crazy maneuvers feels great once you get used to how the car drives.
You’ll crash all the time. Failing is part of the fun, until sometimes it’s not; there were areas that made me frustrated enough to give up. Fortunately, there are tons of gears, so if you can’t get one, you can just move on and don’t have to throw your controller through your screen. You’ll definitely want to keep going, otherwise who will save the world from evil oil company Tosla?
Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom. Credit: Panik Arcade / Those Awesome Guys
The world of Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom is an over the top candy-colored wonderland with a toy-like scale, matching the look of the car. Everything is cartoonish, in low-poly flat-shaded 3D with low-res pixel art textures, but with animations that convey a ton of personality. The little taxi squashes and stretches as it moves, bounces, hits, and jumps, its tires popping outwards independently while it zooms along. The cab’s sides lift off the ground as it turns in different directions. It’s all very charming, especially when you pair it with the weirdos inhabiting the world, from muscle dudes to pizza guys, to your “legally distinct Italian creator,” Morio.
You don’t have to be nostalgic for the N64 collectathon games Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom references to enjoy it. In many ways, it’s superior to those classics, particularly in how zippy this game feels to play.
Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom is available now for PC on Steam.
Overall Rating: 9/10
Played on: Steam Deck
