TaxMan

"In a futuristic world, where biomech guns upload directly to the brain, everyone must pay their due. Everyone must be taxed."

- Excerpt from TaxMan's Main Presentation Page.

TaxMan is a cancelled light gun shooter game that was being developed by SCEE Cambridge Studio in 1998. The game was going to be exclusive to the PlayStation and would have been played primarily using Namco's G-Con 45, but with support for the PlayStation controller, Dual Analog Controller and DualShock as well. A disc containing the backup of TaxMan's game design website dated March 21, 1998 was made available on the Internet Archive in 2023.

Synopsis
TaxMan takes place in a dystopian future and revolves around Jo Friend, a man who is unable to pay his taxes. He is chased down by a TaxMan, who presents Jo with the option of becoming a TaxMan, or dying. Jo chooses to become a TaxMan, which means he must collect $1,000,000,000 in unpaid taxes to pay off his debt. He is given the TaxGun900, a biomechanical gun that feeds information directly into his brain. His parole agent updates the gun with lists of tax dodgers.

Characters

 * Jo Friend, aka TaxMan - the protagonist of the first half of the game. He became a TaxMan to pay off his tax debt.
 * Babyralph - A boy courier from the West Side. He is executed along with Jo Friend by the militia at the end of the game's first half.
 * Stripgirl - She works a crowded sleazy strip joint. After Jo Friend is killed, she picks up his gun and becomes the protagonist of the game's second half.

Development
TaxMan was influenced by the works of William Gibson and Iain Banks and films such as Brazil, Akira and Se7en. It was being worked on by Mike Philbin, Alex Sulman, Mitch Phillips and Julian Rex.