As the world’s worst comedians ate shit and began silently penning their “I’m not actually racist, I was just expressing racist opinions in the cadence of a joke” Instagram apologies at Donald Trump’s 1939 throwback rally at Madison Square Garden today, Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz was playing Crazy Taxi. We know what you’re thinking, “Ya, ya, ya, ya, ya.”
Since last summer, when the Minnesota Governor outed himself as a long-suffering Dreamcast fan, Walz has driven conspiracists mad with speculation over which Dreamcast game he prefers. One of the A.V. Club’s own wondered whether Walz played Sega Bass Fishing, Space Channel 5, or Seaman before asking if Waltz was “Getting constituents to the Pizza Hut as quickly as possible in Crazy Taxi?” Walz confirmed that final point on a live-stream event with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, during which Walz and Ocasio-Cortez also played Madden NFL 25.
“Alright, here we go. Yeah, see, sweet!” exclaimed Walz as he drove his yellow cab off a dumpster shaped like a kicker ramp for a bonus. “Dude, you’re good!” Oscaio-Cortez said.
Sunday’s live-stream event was among the first public Crazy Taxi sessions in modern political history. The ever-modest Walz, who no doubt felt the pressure of the moment, warned that he’s “terrible” because he doesn’t “know the controllers on Xbox.”
“What you’re trying to do is, I’ve got to go pick these people up,” Walz said, welcoming a non-playable rider into his vehicle. “Get in, dude.” As Walz remarked that the game didn’t “feel quite as bad as Grand Theft,” he tore through the digital streets of San Francisco, delivering a rider in less than a minute and collecting a fair of more than $200. “Oh, this is San Fran, watch this. I’m flying.”
Unfortunately, perhaps thinking of sacrificing his sanity for the sake of American democracy, Walz, in all likelihood, will have “All I Want” by the Offspring stuck in his head through Election Day on November 5. He nevertheless appeared enthusiastic about the game.
“If you haven’t got this, go get it, people,” Walz said of 1999’s Crazy Taxi, which he used to bring to the office because his wife disapproved of the game. “I brought it to the office because my wife was like, ‘You need to be like a real person or whatever.'” Though he couldn’t remember when exactly he got the game, Walz remarked he probably should get his story straight before “Republicans accuse me of never having a Dreamcast.”
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