The Simpsons: Hit & Run

"A travel guide to Springfield"

Springfield USA, the infamous town described as a "jerkwater berg" by its own pompous mayor, is the home of one of America's most famous families, the Simpsons. Homer, the boorish patriarch, rules with a flabby, iron fist... when he's not using it to scarf down donuts and beer. Marge, the patient and quirky housewife, is always there for her three children, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. The hell-raiser, intelligent activist, and mischievous baby make up the rest of the yellow-skinned group, which resides at 742 Evergreen Terrace.

The television show based on this relatively wholesome family and the hundreds of Springfield citizens has been around as long as several people can remember, and their stories and antics have entertained us for more than fifteen years. While the quality of the show has certainly gone down since its golden years in the early 1990s, The Simpsons still stands as one of the most honest, religiously sound, politically subversive, and strongly influential pieces of American television.

Along with the television show which has spanned over three hundred sixty episodes as of this writing, The Simpsons has enjoyed a booming acclaim in merchandising. While this runs the gamut from T-Shirts to bumper stickers to posters to comics to talking golf club covers, video games covering Springfield and its denizens have almost always been described as trite, under-developed, poorly constructed, bland, or just plain terrible.

The Simpsons: Hit and Run, developed and released in 2003 across the X-Box, the PS2, the Gamecube, and the PC, is a high achievement in bringing players into the fictional fantastical town. Compared to previous games in the franchise, it is certainly the best, and in comparison to the bevy of video games out there, it can still hold its own. Not only is it a good adventure with an interesting story and fairly good gameplay, but it can also serve as a grand treat for fans of the show.

I feel there are two important points I should cover before I progress that are important to this review. First, I must profess that I am a fan of The Simpsons, and have been for many years. I'll wholeheartedly admit that, perhaps, my review may be a bit biased, but I imagine that the majority of this review's readers will be fans of the show. Nonetheless, I'll of course rate the game based on its merits, not because of my praise for its source material.

This brings me to my next point. I like the game, but seeing as it features several elements designed exclusively to appeal to fans of the show, I find it unfortunate that this game might be overlooked by casual Simpsons viewers or even people completely uninterested in the series. This game should not be viewed as a game only for Simpsons fans: as such, the game isn't completely esoteric. There is a lot of gameplay to enjoy in this game, and while it would obviously be best-suited for fans, it can also work as a fun, enthralling and involving experience, even for those uninitiated.

It can be difficult not to compare this game to Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto III, in terms of gameplay style and mechanics, and I will try as much as possible to not constantly make comparisons between the two. Characters roam in an open, explorable environment, drive around and solve missions, but the immersion into the Springfieldian atmosphere brings forth many differences.

The story of the game, penned by the writers of the show, is one that only The Simpsons could successfully pull off. It seems that there are mysterious electric wasp cameras floating around the city, and there are various conspiracies along with this that must be figured out. Crop circles? Spies? Creepy black vans? The FBI? Aliens? Buzz Cola? Hans Moleman? It's up to the Simpson family, with the help of Apu, to solve the case.

Springfield is very well-represented as a living, breathing city. Nervous and frustrated denizens roam the streets, and any vehicle seen on the streets has the ability to be driven. Developers clearly put a lot of heart and soul into the creation of the livable Springfield, as there is even some consistency as to which buildings are where. King Toot's Music Store has always, always been right next to Moe's dreary bar. There are a few different large, open environments where characters can traverse, including a residential area around the Simpson's house, the Squidport featuring ships, a lighthouse, and entertainment venues, and the gritty downtown area.

Each character may not have their specific area to drive in, but each character has a different time of day in which to drive it. Homer gets the residential area during the day, for example, and Marge drives through the same area at night. Additionally, different characters have access to different parts of the same map, however. For example, at night, Burns' palatial mansion is accessible to Marge to wreak havoc in.

From the get-go, the entirety of an environment is available for the character to explore. A character can hop into any given car and leisurely drive to any given location on the map. When not in missions, characters can drive around and enjoy the scenery, or cause a little havoc for some fun.

Coins are the game's currency, and allow players to purchase new items and vehicles. Coins can be earned by smashing Buzz Cola crates, destroying Buzz Cola machines, destroying Wasp Cameras, or doing something as simple as hitting a mailbox or streetlight. This kind of petty behavior is always awarded with Coins.

As players become a little rambunctious behind the wheel or on-foot, a small circle begins to form around the circumference of the map. This is the Hit and Run meter, so to speak: if characters cause too much destruction by knocking down trees and other objects, running people over, or kicking them, "Hit & Run" will flash on-screen. When "Hit & Run" is declared, Springfield's finest race after the player quickly and haphazardly to track the malicious character down. No-goodniks are only charged a fifty-Coin ticket for causing a ruckus, though. No jail, no medical bills, no community service.

The selected character must traverse in seven of his or her own missions per level, with one bonus mission and a few races in which to participate at will. The game progresses linearly, and keeps a consistent story flowing throughout the adventure. Each mission is at least marginally important to the plot, which does not make the player feel disjointed. There are a few "busy work" missions, which can become rather grating, but I digress. The game progresses entirely linearly in the main missions, but the bonus mission and races can be participated in at any time.

Missions begin by taking one of the character's available vehicles, and driving to several points to interact with different characters on the map. After talking with a nervous or needy NPC, the character gets back in a vehicle, and the mission objectives can vary from then.

Some missions require knocking items out of a different vehicle and collecting them as they are dispensed out onto the road, some involve collecting items as they eventually fall out of a vehicle on their own, Others might involve racing a character or even destroying their car. A few entail picking up a large amount of objects scattered within around a mile's radius. Of course, some missions may require two or more of these, and can range greatly in length and difficulty.

Fortunately, missions can be re-played, skipped, and attempted again at any time. Any previously-seen area is accessible later on in the game, which allows players to continue on and backtrack to complete bonus missions, participate in races, collect goodies, or simply find more Coins.

Various obstacles and hindrances can affect the player's performance along the way, but there are also little points that make missions quite a bit more helpful and entirely more rewarding. While there is usually dense vehicle and pedestrian traffic along the mean streets, there are also ramps, tunnels, and alleys through which players can sneakily cut through to make better time on missions. In narrower areas, such as the docks by the Squidport, many pedestrians and street stands can cause a very easy "Hit & Run", which can be entirely frustrating, but crashing through the marquee showing off Mr. Burns' Casino can get a heart pumping every time.

Vehicles begin to show easily recognizable damage when it's been involved in too much carnage. At first, the trunk and hood latches open and car doors fly open. Eventually, light and then dark smoke begins to emit from the vehicle, and after a few more fender benders, the vehicle explodes in a violent ball of fire and Coins. Comically, players can still drive these broken shards of vehicles, however impractical it may be.

At the end of each level, there is usually a cutscene involving characters working together to further unravel the plot. These do not use the game's engine; rather, they are rendered; these scenes feature more fluidly-moving characters, and these as a whole are produced and animated quite well. If not all of the missions are complete in a level, no movie will be shown when a character advances to the next set of missions.

Hit & Run, unfortunately, has little to no learning curve. There is a tutorial in place, and there are several hints in and out of missions to guide players to where they must go to complete the story, but the mission difficulty can vary wildly during any part of the game. Some missions involve making it to a building within a limited time, while others involve far more elaborate measures, under ridiculous time limits. Missions can be skipped if failed too many times, but who strive to collect every item, and even for casual players, this can be a very frustrating affair.

This flexibility in difficulty, regardless of where a player is at in the game, can be rather unnerving. Several near-finishes can also lead a player to frustration. As Lisa is racing to do Principal Skinner's mundane chores under a certain time limit, rushing to the local casino to talk to Dr. Nick can be extraordinarily hectic. When the game does not register that the car made it there on time, or if the car appears only feet away from the marker, this can lead to rants and raves.

Unfortunately, quite a bit of this can be blamed on the game's physics. While sometimes they can be outlandish, the game's vehicle physics can sometimes be fun to play with. Driving directly over a ramp or speeding through an alley feels as it should in a typical driving game, and simply cruising around casually and sometimes carelessly is easy and fun. Vehicular crashes can sometimes be rather unpredictable, though. Usually, the strength of the crash and where the player's vehicle will end up can be determined easily, but some of even the smallest collisions can send the player flying into a building, or the opposing vehicle right into another, forming a large traffic jam. I've been completely spun out many a time by a large side-swipe or even a light tap along another rear bumper. This inconsistency can make the game much more difficult than it has to be.

Computer-controlled opponents can range from intelligent, skillful, rambunctious, odd, or dastardly. AI drivers can cheat when being driven against. Computer drivers will usually use short-cuts in races and chases, and when a vehicle is blocked if it smashes into a wall, it sometimes re-positions itself back onto the track, even ahead of the player. It can certainly become a nuisance. This technical shortcoming does not happen too often, but when it does, especially when the last few seconds make or break the results, it can be nerve-wracking.

Traditional 3D platforming is also added to the mix. Sometimes, a character might have to step out of the vehicle and jump, double-jump, and butt-stomp up to the top of a building to collect goodies or items crucial to the given mission. There are usually at least twenty of the same object within a close range, and characters can drive and run to each of them individually.

Getting used to the visuals may be a bit of an adjustment. Whenever a character has a jump from a 2D to a 3D environment, even the mustachioed mascot Mario, it can be a major change to try to convert between sprites and drawings to bulges and polygons. The character models look rather good, suffice to say, and everyone in Springfield from Bart to Grandpa Simpson to the conniving Mr. Burns each look in top form.

One no-name NPC model can be seen in various places at once, sometimes on the exact same block, however. While certain background characters are designed only to appear in once certain place (i.e. sailors by the Squidport, power plant workers at the power plant), nearly every no-name NPC in that area is entirely similar.

Environments and buildings are rather simple in appearance, but in accordance to the material it pulls from, it's understandable and probably better off looking the way it does. Buildings usually contain rather simple textures, and smaller objects like trees or trashcans are rather rudimentary. Suffice to say, everything looks the way it should, and driving through can actually be easy on the eyes.

Vehicles vary wildly in design. Certain vehicles are reserved for players to earn or buy, while others are those simply driven around Springfield. Those earned or bought are usually elaborate, garish, and sometimes have much better stats than the regular vehicles around town. Homer can cruise around in his own custom-built car, his beat-up snow plow, the family car, and so on. Any character can use any previously-unlocked vehicle. Lisa can cruise around in the Honor Roller car Bart used for the soap box derby, while Homer can have some fun in Lisa's stately Malibu Stacy convertible. There are well over forty different vehicles that be earned, bought, or simply "borrowed" right off the street.

Undeniably, a large part of this game's success is owed to the sheer amount of time and effort put into the game's voice acting. Such an effort obviously could not be done with replacement actors, so Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Pamela Hayden, Harry Shearer, and Hank Azaria have all been brought in to add breath and life to the Springfieldian's voices, which in turn lets the game sound exactly like the show on which it's based.

Characters certainly have a lot to say. Each primary character has been recorded hours of lines, and suffice to say, the dialogue is usually hilarious. Character interaction can usually get the player to chuckle. When Homer hops onto an air vent, soaring him upward, he exclaims, “I'm flying like a candy wrapper caught in an up-draft!” As Bart runs along for a while, he laments on his love handles. Apu worries about his store being robbed more than four times while he's out driving. Even the ancillary characters, like the intelligent John Frink, incompetent Dr. Nick, nit-picky Comic Book Guy, everyone's favorite bartender Moe, and more have a lot to say in missions or sometimes on the street. Some of these quips can become repetitive as characters will crash repeatedly, but I've known several games with much fewer voice samples.

What is rather intriguing is how the game carefully and surreptitiously breaks the fourth wall. Show watchers can certainly think of several instances where characters reference, say, the Fox network, other Fox shows, or so on. Fox itself has Everyone is seemingly aware that they are in a video game, which is in part due to the show's excessive meta-humor translating to the world of pixels, polygons, and Playstations. Bart hopes a car crash doesn't break his memory card, for example, and Marge makes several references like, “Well, time for more game play!” or, “Tell me where to go, video game!”

No-name NPCs usually have something interesting to say. If a no-name is hit, he or she might say, “That does it, I'm moving to Shelbyville”, “This is the worst town in America”, or even “It'll take more than that to kill me!”. This adds a lot to the experience, and makes players feel even more as if they are in Springfield.

Hit & Run varies greatly in the music department in terms of genre, but not in terms of quality, per se. Characters usually have their own theme music while driving, and various smaller interludes play when stepping into or out of a car. Homer, for example, drives around with typical Simpsons-esque music. Very rich in traditional instrumentals, Homer and Marge's music while driving sounds very much like either the show's theme or music playing within the show. When he steps out of his vehicle, a short interlude plays. Lisa's interludes feature jazzy saxophone solos, and her driving music is actually a sort of lighter rock. Bart cruises with a hard rock medley featuring ripping guitars and aggressive drumming.

Some music is played exclusively in different parts of an environment. When a character approaches the area by Moe's and the Social Club, the music becomes a gritty, cop show theme-type affair with electronic keyboards and a soft drum beats. It's really quite interesting, and it works quite well.

Suffice to say, a lot of the game's replay value lies in its collectibles. Characters collect Coins for several reasons, but the majority of Coins are spent on collectible items. Some vehicles or costumes that can be purchased might be mandatory for a mission, but for the most part, these are purely cosmetic and fun. It might be necessary to dress Marge up as a police officer to thwart a specific scheme, but she can also be dressed as a convict. Bart might need to break forth some strong collateral damage by buying Dr. Scorpio's outlandish and powerful criminal-mobile.

In addition to the costumes and vehicles, characters must also bust Wasp Cameras scattered throughout the environment. There are twenty in each of the seven different levels. These must be kicked twice to break, and always explode in a fountain of helpful cash.

Baseball cards are hidden in the tiniest of spaces or at the highest peaks. These all reference a specific item from a particular episode, and usually involve something that the character whoever collected it did. Bart can collect the paper featuring his soul, Apu can rediscover his disgusting Kwik-E-Mart hotdogs, and so on. There are seven in each stage, and the collection of all seven unlocks a new track in the multiplayer mode.

These little trinkets make the game all the more enjoyable; this is part of the game's perhaps-special appeal. Of course, casual fans may not understand the reference of the baseball card featuring Homer's “adult” photo session, or the inanimate carbon rod, but those who thrive on the show's gags and jokes will find sheer delight in discovering these little treasures. Also, it can be simply rewarding to cruise around Springfield in Comic Book Guy's little clunker, or the Plow King truck, or Professor Frink's hidden rocket car.

Hit & Run does feature multiplayer, but it is nothing particularly special. Up to four players can participate in a quick circuit race in a similar vein to Super Off-Road, viewing the entire track at once at an isometric perspective. Each of the five characters is selectable, and any vehicle unlocked in the game can be used in the races. However, I couldn't see or notice any different in speed or handling among the different vehicles in this mode, but the small races can be a small and quick diversion, even if it seems like a last-minute addition.

There was certainly a lot of attention and effort put into this game, and it shows quite impressively. I found myself enjoying the experience for the majority of the time, and the game truly captures the sights, sounds, and experiences that come with being a denizen of Springfield, USA. Fans will certainly get more out of this than casual gamers or non-fans of The Simpsons, but of course, this game should not be overlooked by those who may not think they would be interested.

Essentially, playing through Springfield has never been better.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/07/05