Smashing Drive is a racing video game developed and published by Gaelco and distributed by Namco. The game was released in arcades in 2000 and was ported to the GameCube and Xbox in 2002 by Point of View and Game Boy Advance in 2004 by DSI Games and Namco. 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 given to the player if they wish to try again. After it expires, the game is over. However, on the console version’s Head-to-Head mode, there is no continue feature. After time runs out, the game automatically ends.