Developed by SIMTERACT studio, Taxi Life is the latest city driving simulation that transports you to the busy streets of Barcelona. After their previous title Train Life: A Railway Simulator, which received mixed reviews, the studio explores a new area by immersing us in the hectic daily life of a taxi driver.
From the first minutes of the game, Taxi Life immerses you in the role of a taxi driver, responsible for transporting passengers through the winding streets of Barcelona. Each ride is a new adventure, with passengers with varying demands and diverse destinations. The game offers a range of missions, from simple drives to more complex races, providing a diverse driving experience. Some customers will have requirements, such as the need for a large trunk to transport luggage.
One of Taxi Life's strong points is its authentic representation of the city of Barcelona. The developers have faithfully recreated the city, with its bustling streets, iconic landmarks and random events, providing a realistic backdrop for your driving adventures. In addition, the possibility of exploring the city between races and discovering its many points of interest adds an additional dimension of discovery and immersion to the game. To gain experience points, you can (almost) simply to visit the city.
However, despite its realistic setting, Taxi Life suffers from some technical shortcomings that hinder its immersion. Starting with this point that makes the gaming community groan: Taxi Life only supports a handful of steering wheels upon release. The recent T248 or T128 are not compatible. A scandal for a driving simulation that aims to be realistic. Simterract has already communicated on the subject: more complete support is coming in the coming days. Fortunately, the control of the car with the pad, and the general ergonomics of the game are neat and fully usable with the controller in hand.
The traffic AI is not to be outdone: if it behaves well (and even very well) in 95% of cases, it can happen that a car rushes into you for no reason... causing you to lose your mission due to discontent of your client for misconduct. A shame when we know that Simterract specializes in road traffic AI !
In terms of gameplay, it's close to a Bus Simulator. It's quite repetitive over time. Interactions with passengers, although present, are redundant. Business management is quite basic, and lacks the depth and issues to offer a real strategic management experience. Same observation for employees, whose management is sometimes incomprehensible (we lose money rather than earning it).
Regarding performance, on a large PC configuration (RTX 4090) the game is beautiful, perfectly fluid, including in 4K with the “EPIC” preset. On Steam Deck, the framerate in “low” mode (which remains very pleasing to the eye) oscillates between 27 and 50 fps depending on your position in Barcelona. For my part, during the tests, I didn't notice anything, which is not the case for everyone. Steam reviews reveal fps issues on certain configurations. Perhaps let's wait for the game to mature before noting this point.
In short, for the moment, Taxi Life is a chill, relaxed game, offered at around thirty euros on Steam, and to put in all hands, young and old. Simple, it can be launched just for a walk in a pleasant and realistic environment, without worrying about the business side. This is undoubtedly how it will be streamed on our Twitch channel.