The Simpsons: Hit & Run

aka: Les Simpsons: Hit & Run, Os Simpsons: Hit & Run, Xingpuseng Yijia: Da Dai Pao
Moby ID: 10421
PlayStation 2 Specs
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Description official descriptions

The Simpsons: Hit & Run can be best described as Grand Theft Auto in Springfield.

The player takes on the role of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa or Apu and tries to uncover a mystery surrounding mechanical bees that are taking over Springfield, mysterious vans, and cola that can control the minds of those who drink it.

Like GTA, the game follows a linear-based path through fifty plus missions. The player will have to chase cars and find out where they're headed, grab all the spilling cola cans before people can drink them, and chase down villains before they get away.

Throughout the course of the game, the player can unlock tons of rewards by completing missions in a set amount of time or performing outstanding stunts.

All voiceovers are performed by those who act in the show, including Dan Castellaneta (Homer), Julie Kavner (Marge) and Yeardley Smith (Lisa).

The game supports multiplayer action for up to four players.

Spellings

  • 辛普森一家:打带跑 - Chinese spelling (simplified)
  • 심슨가족: 히트앤런 - Korean spelling

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Credits (PlayStation 2 version)

250 People (175 developers, 75 thanks) · View all

Producer
Associate Producer
Vice President of Technology
Publishing
Vice President of Marketing
Marketing Directors
Assistant Marketing Manager
Director of Public Relations
Creative Services Director
Creative Services Manager
Senior Designer
Account Manager
Manual Layout
Vivendi Universal Games Special Thanks (Marketing)
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 75% (based on 52 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 112 ratings with 9 reviews)

One of the best Simpsons game

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.

PlayStation 2 · by Mathew Mayne (6) · 2013

For Simpsons Fans only.

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.

Windows · by Scott Monster (986) · 2008

Grand Theft Canyonero

The Good
The Simpsons: Hit & Run just lets you loose in Springfield in a way no previous Simpsons games have done. In each level, you're given a chunk of Springfield to just roam free in. You can perform missions or wander off and serch for hidden items, enter races, etc.

The game makes great use of its source material. It's voiced and written by the team from the show and contains dozens of the Simpsons supporting cast members. You'll get to play not only as the entire Simpsons family, but also that jolly Bengali Apu Nahasapeemapetilon. Even Halloween-episode regulars Kodos and Kang appear as the main villains, using evil cola to take over Springfield for an alien reality TV show.

Hit & Run is in many ways very similar to Grand Theft Auto III, but instead of being a hybrid driving/action game, it's driving and platforming. It even makes some improvements to the design, such as a menu option for instantly restarting the current mission. You won't have to drive all the way back to a start point here.

The Bad
Unfortunately, it doesn't compare as nicely to its inspiration in other areas. There's a lot less freedom. There are five levels. Each has seven story missions to complete in order, one side mission and three races. These side missions aren't really connected to other, either. You'll find nothing on the order of Marty Chonks here.

The reward structure is unfortunately disappointing. Each level has three races, three vehicles to buy, a side missions and three outfits, 20 robot wasp cameras to smash and seven collector's cards. Finishing all four races or the side mission each get you a vehicle. The collector's cards focus on various items from the show and a full set gets to a multiplayer slot car game. That's pretty cool. The wasp cameras get you nothing except money. THe outfits all come from the show, but they don't actually do anything. The most annoying thing is the vehicles, which are the bulk of your rewards. The vast majority of them are completely useless.

I have some other related quibbles with this design. You must finish all three races in a level to get your reward. The game only indicates how many races you've beaten, not which ones. If you forget, you just have to do all the races in the level over again.

I have some gripes regarding the audio as well. Each character only has a few lines, so they're saying the same thing over and over. Often, they'll say the same thing twice in a span of a few seconds. It's funny the first time grandpa tells you about how they used to call sandwiches black freddies, buy even he should be able to remember he just told that story five seconds later.

Another annoyance is the money. It costs $50 to get busted by the police. On some missions you'll get busted a lot and lose all your money, forcing you to restart from an earlier save or do some rather tedious things (that might get you busted again) to earn more cash. Thanks to a combination of load times and the interface design, it takes a substantial amount of time to do this. Money is a far more limited resource than in Grand Theft Auto, but it's quite a bit easier to lose it.

The Simpsons and GTA are an odd fit. You can't very well have them go whack people and the platforming segments are sadly underused. The game is made almost entire of driving missions and really only has three types: collect the item/get to goal before time runs out, race or destroy a vehicle. The designers really needed to think of some new mission types rather than just eliminating all the GTA types that didn't work with their license. The ending is what bugged me the most as it's more or less the same mission three times in a row.

Speaking of variety: I would have liked to see some more playable characters. You play Bart and Homer twice each. Since they were doing supporting cast, I would have loved to see a segment where you play Flanders or something.

The Bottom Line
The problems are all minor quibbles. The bottom line is this is far and away the best Simpsons video game currently available, not that there's a lot of competition. It manages to be true to the show and be a mostly fun game and give a decent ten-plus-hour play time. I highly recommend it.

Xbox · by Ace of Sevens (4479) · 2006

[ View all 9 player reviews ]

Trivia

Advertising

Most, if not any, advertising in this game are actually references to previous episodes. For example, the Itchy and Scratchy Movie poster was used in an episode where Bart is grounded from seeing said movie.

Cut content

There's quite a gaggle of cut content for The Simpsons Hit and Run. These range from unused voice clips, vehicles, character models (Agnes Skinner being one example), mission objectives, graphics and more. You can look up all missing content on The Cutting Room Floor.

Christmas

On Christmas day (December 25th), Homer's character in the main menu is dressed as Santa Claus.

Lionel Hutz

There are billboards throughout the game advertising the legal services of Lionel Hutz. Matt Groeing, producer for the Simpsons, retired Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure when Phil Hartman tragically lost his life.

Music

The hoity-toity music you hear in the Stonecutters hallway is the Spring of The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi.

Awards

  • Computer Games
    • March 2004 - #10 Best Game of the Year 2003
  • GameSpy
    • 2003 – Most Pleasant Surprise of the Year (PC)

Information also contributed by PCGamer77, Pizzaking27, Scott Monster.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by clef.

Windows added by Sciere.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, JPaterson, chirinea, Daniel Albu, Sciere, Xoleras, Cantillon, Patrick Bregger, Rik Hideto, Tony Denis.

Game added September 26, 2003. Last modified March 6, 2024.