The Simpsons: Hit & Run

The Good
It's obvious that the Simpsons writers were involved in this game. The storylines and the gags are pure Simpson. As a Simpsons fan, I really enjoyed the convoluted storyline that’s trademark of the show. Especially enjoyable were the oneliners tossed by Homer, who’s takes up most of the game. You often get chewed out by the character after hitting an object with your vehicle.

The music is top notch, and most of it is clearly in the spirit of Danny Elfman’s original theme. Sound was great too. Most of it recycled from the stock sounds of the show. The engine noises were indicative of the state of your vehicle. A nice touch.

The developers did a good job recreating Springfield on the game map. The body motions varied partially when costumes were changed. If you’re lucky, you’ll catch the “I am Evil Homer” dance.

The challenge of the game comes from the goals and the limitations of each vehicle. Most races can be easily completed if you have and use the best vehicle for the race. The best vehicle isn’t necessarily the fastest. Handling, toughness, acceleration and size are also to be considered when racing. There are some races that require you to use a particular vehicle. Those are by nature, tougher than the others. You can assume control of almost all vehicles that you get close to. Part of the fun is finding those secret vehicles. The physics engine is used to great effect, having your vehicle fly off in different directions, or knocking other vehicles out of your way.

The game is gentle with us of slower reflexes and lets us skip all but the last mission if we fail enough times. It also lets you go back and try the mission at any time in the game with any vehicles you’ve acquired later on.

Each level comes with collector cards, gags, cars, costumes and a bonus mission that you can complete to unlock hidden items. The game is very PG, no swearing, no blood, no sex or overt violence.

And it’s the first time in a very long time I’ve played a game out of the box that I didn’t need to patch.

The Halloween level was a major laugh!

The Bad
The game is relatively short with only 7 levels. The bonus races you unlock only really work for consoles. You will hear the same one liners over and over and over.

Some parts of the game require you to hop and jump to get items. The controls are unwieldy for that kind of play and you often find your perspective jumping around due to bound box boundaries of the camera. In those situations, you would be happier with a first person perspective.

No online player component. And you don’t get to play any characters except for the Simpsons and Apu.

The Bottom Line
Play it if you’re a Simpsons fan. If not, you’ll probably be really annoyed with it.

The Good
I liked the fact that the game has an insane amount of replay value, as you can explore the levels at will and can look for the many things hidden throughout the levels, such as wasps, gags and hidden cars.

I also liked the fact that many of the characters from the series are in the game and you can play as the main characters such as Homer.

I liked the plot from the game as they put some thought into it and made the most of the characters.

The graphics are okay for its time, and the voice acting is on top form as it is the original cast, and there are lots of quotes from the show.

The music is also okay but there is not too much to say about this.

The Bad
I noticed that there are some major bugs, sometimes the car can fly off the road for no reason, or sometimes you can fall through the ground and get stuck.

Some of the missions are repetitive and the game will ask you to do many of these similar missions over and over in different levels, such as race to point X before Y does, or Collect X from Y.

I also noticed that the camera is a nightmare to control, sometimes it will move, sometimes it will not move, or not let you judge jumps appropriately thus leading to many frustrating falls and making missions harder.

After a while on a level, the quotes will get repeated over and over and can get quite annoying after a while.

The Bottom Line
I would say that The Simpsons Hit & Run is a great game that any Simpsons fan should have in their collection.

The Good
It's been a long time since I played a Simpsons game that was actually, in some way or form, entertaining. The last one goes all the way back to the arcade game developed by Konami. Since then, nearly every game based on the series has been total rubbish, especially most recently with Simpsons Wrestling and the Crazy Taxi rip-off, Road Rage.

So, I'm glad to say that Hit & Run is a return to form for the franchise. The humor comes think and fast, thanks mainly to the addition of nearly the entire voice cast plus an original story. The game stays true to the show, with a collection of characters, places and items from some of the best episodes of the shows long run appearing at some point during gameplay.

The game itself plays fairly well. The controls are simple and easy to use, certainly not as complicated compared to any major racing game when it comes to driving your cars around. Mission objectives are also fairly basic, and for the most part they don't take much time at all, but the side quests will keep you going for much longer, such as racing against the clock and other racers, or collecting the many bonus items and wasp cameras.

The Bad
Despite the solid engine under the hood, there are plenty of bugs that spoil the experience, including the usual camera problems or strange errors where the characters get stuck in certain situations for no reason at all.

And though the game is fun to play for the most part, the objectives are the same all the time, with little originality during the later levels (the same 'find this' or 'do that'). It can get boring quickly as you work through the game, which is a real shame considering what could have been done.

The cut scenes aren't all that crash hot either, simply filling time more then moving the story along. Sure, looking at the cast in 3D is nice, but I would have liked some original 2D artwork by the cartoon animators far more.

The multiplayer element could have also been worked on a little more. It's fun for a short time, but it would have been nice to see a co-op mode or deathmatch mode ala Mario Kart, what with all the cars available.

The Bottom Line
It isn't perfect, but compared to the everything else that has come before it, Hit & Run is a much better game to build upon for the future of the Simpsons franchise. Fans will love the humor and references to previous shows, and the extras will keep you going for a little longer. I'm looking forward to see what Vivendi can do next.