The articlegameplay, story, development, reception
Gameplay
The player races against time and another psychotic cab driver delivering passengers across New York City to earn money. The game is divided into four difficulties, each of which contains three different levels (with the exception of "Dusk and Wired", which only contains one). If the player manages to beat the rival cab in all three levels of a difficulty, they are taken to a bonus stage with the only available route being all of the Risky Routes. At the end of a stage, the player's score is based on the amount of time it took to reach the destination, the cab's condition, the rival being beaten, the number of Turbo powerups obtained, and the number of Risky Routes traversed.
Unlike many racing games, the horn actually has a functional use of making (most) mobile vehicles move aside before it wears out unless if Repaired. If the player runs out of time before completing the stage, they encounter a continue screen. A 10-second countdown will be then given to the player if they wish to try again. After it expires, the game is over.
Reception
The Game Boy Advance version received "mixed" reviews, while the GameCube and Xbox versions received "unfavorable" reviews, according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.
Jon Thompson of AllGame said of the arcade version, "The visuals of Smashing Drive are certainly decent, although they can't qualify as top-notch in this day and age." Thompson also wrote, "It isn't the most amazing racer ever made, but it has enough interesting ideas and strong enough execution to make it something different in the arcade world. It's tough, it's attractive, and overall, it's fun." ].
