Smashing Drive is an Action Racing Game developed and published by Gaelco and distributed by Namco. It was released for the arcades in 2000, ported to the Nintendo GameCube and Xbox in 2002 by Point of View and the Game Boy Advance in 2004 by DSI Games and Namco.
You are a taxi driver whose job is to race against time and a rival cab driver while delivering passengers across the New York City to earn money. The game has four Working Shifts, the first three have three different routes plus one Bonus Stage while the final level only has one. Throughout the levels, you can use power-ups to either repair your cab or plow through traffic with relative ease, and take the Risky Routes to reach your destination faster, which usually involves crashing through buildings and even driving up or jumping out of them.
UP & TROPING
- Alien Sky: The sky flashes rainbow colors during a Bonus Stage.
- Badass Driver / Drives Like Crazy: And how! The player is pretty much required to do this consistently to pass the levels. With or without power-ups, your car can smash through buildings (including a burning one) and construction sites, drive up the stairs and through hotel halls, conveniently passing boats, theaters, sport arenas, aircraft carriers, elevator shafts... or you can throw King Kong off the Empire State Building!
- Big Applesauce: The main setting of the game.
- Collision Damage: Aside from the visual changes, the more damage your cab receives from head-on collisions, the slower it drives. While it cannot be completely destroyed (unless you're playing Survival Mode), it can waste your precious time.
- Expository Theme Tune: The soundtrack can be seen as this, but the song used in the Night Owl shift sets the game's premise in its chorus.The other car's your enemy
Driving through at the speed of sound
Cabbie take me through the crawling streets
That stretch this town - Hyperspace Arsenal: Some of the powerups, like 4x4 and Sonic, can't possibly fit in the spaces they come out of. Turbo is at least partially justified as it fills the car's trunk, while Glider and Cutter are collapsible, but Crash is completely unreasonable as it simply materializes over the car's hood before unfolding.
- Invulnerable Civilians: Although blowing up cars and even school buses and ambulances is fair game, running over pedestrians is physically impossible as they will immediately move out of your way.
- Marathon Level: The final shift, Dusk and Wired, is a long ride across the entirety of New York City to the Statue of Liberty.
- No-Sell:
- 4x4 makes you immune to high falls.
- Crash makes you immune to frontal collisions.
- Cutter makes you immune to Low Clearance.
- Turbo allows you to go straight up the sides of buildings.
- Mass "Oh, Crap!":
- Drive onto the sidewalk, and pedestrians will quickly scramble out of your way. Hit the horn, and they'll leap out of the way.
- The ending cutscene for Night Owl sees everyone in Times Square flee the area as King Kong - previously thrown into the air by your taxi - comes back down in the middle of the road.
- Oh, Crap!: When the player takes a risky route that goes up the side of the Empire State Building, King Kong is already halfway up it, and goes bug-eyed at the sight of your taxi - currently sporting the 4x4, Crash, Glider, and Turbo powerups - hurtling after it, then lets out a suitably baritonos scream as you punt it into the air.
- Police Are Useless: The cop cars only exist to be smashed, and do nothing about the madcap taxi surging its way through NYC, causing massive amounts of property damage along the way. Heck, in one mission, one of them causes an incident when it rear-ends your car before the level-start animation ends, leaving half your rear bumper dragging on the ground until you either break off the other side (and the entire bumper, by proxy) on another collision, or find a Repair powerup.
- Power-Up:
- 4x4note : Causes the tires and undercarriage from a monster truck to unfold from the car's chassis, letting you flatten obstacles and traffic.
- Bonus: Gives you extra points.
- Crash: Deploys a four-panel battering ram from the front of the car (that's it on the page image, by the way) that lets you bash aside obstacles and traffic.
- Cutter: The doors slide open, and a pair of buzzsaws unfold from them, letting you clear away obstacles that would've otherwise jeopardized your roof.
- Glider: Small wings unfold from the sides of the taillights, letting you glide short distances.
- Sonic: A pair of giant air-horns come out of the roof, after which the player laying on the horn, which normally just causes cars immediately in front of the taxi to move aside, instead causes all vehicles in front of it to explode.
- Repair: Instantly repairs all damage.
- Time: Puts a few extra seconds on your timer.
- Turbo: The trunk pops open to reveal a pair of rocket boosters, giving you a Nitro Boost. It also lets you climb tall buildings you otherwise would've fallen off of.
- Squashed Flat:
- 4x4 gives you monster truck tires, which are primarily used to resist falls and flatten traffic, but can cause a few laughs in Versus if you run over the other player.
- In Early Bird, the player can get themselves flattened by the landing gear of an oncoming passenger jet if they don't get out of the way, which is an instant fail in Survival mode, but is more of a nuisance in Arcade mode, as there's a Repair powerup immediately thereafter that can't be missed unless you actively avoid it.
- The last level of Night Owl, Times Square, has a risky route (read: shortcut) that lets you go up the side of the Empire State Building, sending King Kong into the sky with a Crash powerup in the process. If you're playing a version of the game that includes the opening/ending cutscenes, after dropping off the pair of men that were that level's fare, the level ends with a cutscene in which your taxi "nopes out" as everyone flees the area, while the two men go straight into the middle of the road. THUD! Kong lands square on top of the pair.
- Timed Power-Up: All but three of the game's powerups (Bonus, Repair, and Time) have timers on them, while some can cancel early depending on the level. Mystery zig-zags this, as it either gives you a random powerup or gives you one that could let you get through a risky route.
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