Game review: Taxi Jam - iPhone / iPod Touch

When this happens it’s obvious that the developer has put a lot of effort into the design as well as a lot of thought into the gameplay. The end result is a game where all the pieces fit together seamlessly. The game feels like it was just meant to be.

Taxi Jam from Nerv Media is one of those games.

The concept of the game isn’t wholly original. Drawing lines on the touch screen to control traffic was pioneered by Flight Control earlier this year. That game challenged players to direct air traffic using their fingers.

Owing to its phenomenal success numerous other developers have jumped on the bandwagon with their own take on the same basic format, changing the setting from the air to land to sea and switching the vehicles being controlled from aircraft to cars to ships.

The genre which Flight Control has spawned has been given numerous names, including line-draw as well as chaos, traffic or route management.

While Taxi Jam doesn't quite jump on the coat-tails of Flight Control, it does still put at least one foot on them. However, it contains enough unique features to stand out from the crowd and takes the line-draw concept to the next level with its innovative gameplay.

There is much to admire about this simple yet clever game.

Taxi Jam puts the player into the dual role of cab office controller and driver. It’s up to you how many taxis you have out of the rank at any time, which passengers they collect and what routes they take to deliver fares safely (hopefully) to their chosen destinations.

You start off in New York controlling a fleet of yellow taxis. Deliver 100 passengers successfully and you unlock London and its black cabs. Paris is the third and final city in the game.

To move a taxi all you do is touch it and then drag a line to where you want it to go. This is usually to pick someone up, drop them off or conveniently position a cab for use later on.

Fortunately you are not held up by city traffic so there are no jams. Your taxis are generally the only vehicles on the streets. But there are still dangers out there with certain vehicles causing a nuisance in each city, such as fire trucks in New York and red tour buses in London.

You have five lives with which to try and achieve the highest score you can manage in each city. A life is lost by keeping fares waiting for too long or by crashing an occupied taxi into another vehicle.

There is complete freedom to play each city how you want to. You send as many taxis out from your garage as you like and send them back in whenever you choose. Having too many cabs out increases the risk of crashes while not enough and you won’t cope with the number of passengers popping up waiting to be collected.

The game provides a brilliant mix of simplicity and strategy. Simplicity in how easy it is to play, strategy in needing a plan to survive each city. It also pulls in classic time management elements, so speed of mind and staying calm under pressure are essential skills.

As well as playing great, Taxi Jam also looks and sounds great.

I absolutely adore the art style. The top-down cities look like play mats I used to roll my toy cars around on as a kid.

Each city has its own style. London, for example, features a river, a dome, a football stadium and a rotating wheel.

There are no graphical bells and whistles, but everything is just really well put together, from the title screen to the way the taxis move around the cities.

The visual are enhanced by great audio. Each city also has its own background music, punctuated by constant chatter on the taxi radio. London, again for example, features a grumpy cabbie moaning about the ring-road being murder. It’s a really nice touch.

A couple of minor negatives about Taxi Jam.

Firstly, the game only has a single difficulty setting and there is a very steep learning curve. It took me many hours and many attempts before I finally cracked the New York level and got to move on to London. I didn’t get disheartened but I can see some people might.

A slightly gentler introduction to welcome players into the game might be useful – not necessarily making New York easier but perhaps adding an extra opening stage such as a taxi camp which players can train on before attempting the Big Apple.

Speaking of extra stages, the other negative concerns the definite need for more cities to be added to the game in future updates. As fantastic and challenging as they are, I can see the three current cities getting quite samey after extended play. Fresh content will be needed to maintain Taxi Jam’s long-term appeal.

Whatever enhancements are made I hope the core gameplay is left alone because that doesn’t need improvement.

Controlling a fleet of taxis and trying to devise a winning technique for each city is oddly addictive.

The gameplay elements combine to create a great pick-up-and-play game, perfect for when you have five minutes to kill.

Verdict: 9 out of 10 - Simple yet addictive and absorbing gameplay combines with great art style and design

Watch a video of Taxi Jam: