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Homer was lounging on his couch one day when he woke up to find some huge robotic wasp thing looking at him. Then one could hear a loud *WHACK*, and Homer went back to sleep. It seems that during the night a whole bunch of these robotic wasp things has been released upon the town of Springfield, filming everyone and everything – from people sleeping on their couch to people doing more intimate things on their couch. The question everyone’s asking himself is; who's behind all of this, and where can I get the dirty footage?
In The Simpsons: Hit and Run you’ll investigate this weird situation, playing as each of the family members, along with a few regulars from the show. The game itself is divided into a number of levels, each with a number of missions to complete. For instance, in the beginning of the game Marge bosses Homer around, so he’ll buy groceries, race Lisa’s science teacher to the school to drop off the science project she forgot about, and pummel the car of Homer’s boss with a plow truck. Later in the game strange things happen to Bart, which both Lisa and Marge have to investigate. You can say the game fits into both the racing and the platform genre, because while most of the missions require you to drive really quickly from one point to the next, you’ll also run around town talking to people, kicking them, looking for hidden items, and running from the cops. In several of the mission you’ll have to pummel cars and trucks of various sizes, and sometimes knock into them several times to pick up dropped packages. There isn’t really that many missions we haven’t seen before, but there are luckily a few original ones. This freedom to do just about anything you want might remind you of Grand Theft Auto 3 (and Vice City), albeit on a considerably smaller scale.
Both the speed of the cars and the coloring used on just about everything is similar to the Crazy Taxi games, but here the cars weigh considerably more than in both Crazy Taxi and GTA 3, so you’ll need to be more precise when driving around town. The game really is quite colorful and pretty, and most of the objects in the game are sufficiently detailed in terms of polycount. The facial animations aren’t too good, but when all the characters have voice-overs done by the same people from the TV show, it works out okay. Each of the characters you use has a number of one-liners, so they’re armed for just about any situation you might get yourself in. The nice thing about changing character between each missions, is that you’ll get a new set of jokes each time, which means you’re less likely to get annoyed by overused jokes.
The biggest problems with the game would have to be the engine's performance, which is especially bad when your car is badly damaged and thick black smoke is clogging your view. Also, the missions aren’t really THAT varied, so most of the time you’re just racing from one place to the next, fetching and delivering things. Replacing some of the “FedEx” missions with more elaborate platform missions could’ve made the gameplay more interesting. Even though the missions are far from diverse, the story progresses in a way I’m pretty sure will please fans of the show. The humor we all know and love fills up the game, which is great and all, but I suspect those who are primarily looking for a good game might get bored.
In my opinion one of the game’s best features would have to be the really huge number of cars that the developers included. Each of the cars has statistics regarding speed, acceleration, toughness, etc..., and early in the game you’ll mostly drive the least fun cars. Later in the game you’ll get to drive monster trucks, limos, a number of more or less experimental Homer creations, a school bus, regular sedans, and plenty more. Fans of the show are also likely to spot special cars from the show, which I’m sure counts as a plus. The Simpsons: Hit and Run is definitely more of an arcade racer than a simulator, but the car physics work quite well, and feel reasonably appropriate to the various cars.
There is no multiplayer part included in the game, which is unfortunate because just off the top of my head I can think of several modes that would’ve been fun.
Conclusion:
The Simpsons: Hit and Run is a pretty nice racing / platform game – not awesome, but clearly not bad. If you can stand the repetitive missions, you’ll probably keep playing for a whole lot of hours, because not only are there 49 story related missions to play, but there is also plenty of bonus missions and huge loads of hidden items to collect, which in the end will unlock even more neat content. Graphically the game looks colorful and nice, with emphasis on colorful. Most of the objects aren’t overly detailed, but the texturing is never bad. Performance wise the game does fall short, which is a bit unfortunate when the driving speed is so high and you really could use a fluid framerate.
Since there is no multiplayer mode I’ll have to recommend the game primarily to fans of the show, who have spare time for themselves – Hit and Run's humor and familiar characters / situations will surely keep you entertained.
