GameCube

The Simpsons: Road Rage

Simpsons reruns are always gold, because you can never take in all the obscurities and genius in one viewing. Though a little short on gameplay depth, Road Rage is worth repeated play because of the show-lifted locations and both original and reused character quotes. The leprechaun may tell you to burn things, but shut him up and listen to me: Simpsons Road Rage is most definitely okalee dokalee, neighborino.

A game can be great because of gameplay. A game can be great because of graphics, especially in this day and age of newfangled gaming technology. A game can be great because the music is so beautiful or catchy that it lingers in your immediate thoughts the whole day long. But when a game like this has so much to go off of, including thirteen seasons of material and several other pieces of paraphernalia, you find yourself thinking it's great because of its subtleties, and this is the greatest greatness of all.

If you can see past these problems, then The Simpsons Road Rage might present you with a little bit of replay value. You can compete head-to-head against one other player in a split-screen mode, and you can drive as any character n any location that you've unlocked in a mode without a clock. There are even 10 missions in which you're given various tasks to complete within a short amount of time, such as driving Krusty away from a mob of fans and getting Homer to work without Mr. Burns noticing. And of course, there's something to be said about simply driving around a 3D recreation of Springfield. In the end, though, The Simpsons Road Rage's control problems prevent this from being recommendable to all but the most die-hard of The Simpsons fans. And while it's better than the poor GameCube port of the original Crazy Taxi, ultimately, the only saving grace Road Rage has is that it's a Simpsons game.

The Simpsons Road Rage is fun for short stretches of time, but it’s a definite rent-first title. While it’s the best Simpsons game I’ve ever played, that doesn’t mean it deserves a rating over "decent." To put Road Rage to the desert island test, I will say that if I was stuck on a desert island with only The Simpsons Road Rage to play, I wouldn’t be compelled to make a desperate swim for it (as would be the case with most other Simpsons games). But it wouldn’t take me very long to build a raft.

The game starts off with a cutscene that presents you with Burns’ scheme, when that’s finished you are presented with easy to navigate menus. The menus aren’t too impressive but they are easy enough for to just power on your GameCube and just play. The character selection menu is pretty cool though, when you highlight a character they pull up in their vehicle and yell out one of their catch frases.

Sega's Crazy Taxi was a runaway hit when it premiered on the Dreamcast so many years ago, and countless ports since have continued to prove successful. So it comes as no surprise that several Crazy Taxi clones have sprouted up from the gardens of competing publishers. One such game is The Simpsons Road Rage from Electronic Arts. The Radical Entertainment developed racer pits players as the hilarious characters from the animated television series and turns them loose in the city of Springfield to carry fares to different locations.

Les Simpsons continuent sur leur lancée de jeux moyens avec ce Road Rage sans aucune originalité et à la réalisation maladroite. Seuls les plus grands fans de la série trouveront un quelconque intérêt à ce titre, les autres préfèreront sûrement le troisième volet de Crazy Taxi...