I recently purchased the game 4 Color Taxi after stumbling across it by accident and instantly falling in love with the retro style, it immediately took me back to the days of the Gameboy.

The game takes the form of a top down driving game, with the aim of the game simply to pick up customers and get them around the city as quickly as possible. The controls are simple: left and right only. As soon as the level starts the car immediately moves forward, the only way to slow down the car is by taking damage, but this means that it takes longer to get to the final destination and that also means less money. At the start of each level the player is given a target which they must reach in the given time. The game is split into two sections, with 10 levels in each section. The player can return and retry any completed level in a bid to improve their score.

Overall the game is fun throughout the first section. The tracking system is a bit infuriating as the arrow can often lead you into dead ends and valuable time is wasted, a small map in the corner of the screen would have helped. The directions of the passenger are vague "take me to the North of the city", often you can spend more time finding the exact drop off point than it takes to get there in the first place. But these issues are minor.

The second section, for me, ruins a perfectly playable game. Cars flying around and smashing into you, speed up areas on the road which boost the speed into an uncontrollable rate which always end in you smashing into a wall and various other added in factors make the second section unplayable and immensely frustrating.

Basically your paying the price for the first 10 levels. As I paid £1, I was quite happy with that. It is a nice game, not without it's bugs, but with plenty of fun and nostalgia to keep the player interested for a while. You'll even find yourself going back and playing levels when you've got a spare few minutes. My initial expectations weren't high and this proved to be a nice addition to my game collection.

Anyway those are my thoughts, I'd be interested to hear what anybody else thinks of this game. Although there are AAA titles coming to Linux, it's still good to support the indie developers as well. It can be purchased directly from the website http://www.shadowbrain.net/4colortaxi/