The Simpsons Skateboarding

"Can I have my money back?"

The Simpsons is arguably the best American comedy out there, and it is the only one that can truly make me laugh. Sure, it may have detracted from its original roots and become a little stale at times, but it still great. Unfortunately, The makers decided to tarnish their title and churn out a load of bad games. The Simpsons Wrestling was tolerable, but nothing to admire, and Itchy & Scratchy's Golf was sub-par (pardon the pun) but still playable. This on the other hand is not.

Audio & Video
The graphics in past Simpsons titles were actually quality pieces of work; not Final Fantasy quality but detailed and realistic enough. Well that is a complete antithesis of this game. How can a mediocre Playstation video game not just compare but beat a Playstation 2 game in terms of graphics? In this, the characters are ugly, lacking depth and texture, but most of all do not reflect the look of the cartoon. Now hey are unidentifiable blobs on skateboards, and the only way you can tell it is them is by the voices and the title on the box; if those were not there, I would think that I was playing some kind of X-files skateboarding game. I must admit that the environments featured many of the places from Springfield and had their own places to use, so that it was never just the same Tony Hawk rail and jump level design. I feel compassion to those who submitted their voices to this game; I would not allow for my voice to be even used on this. I appreciated that the voices of the cast were there (Hank Azaria, Yeardly Smith) and I liked the way that humor was again thrown in, except this time I did not even snigger. The music retained a few of the Simpsons tunes (a plus point) but there were several others that dragged on and got very annoying. The sound effects consisted of pretty realistic thuds and smashes, but nothing of Tony Hawk caliber (even if it is only mediocre).

Gameplay & Control
The storyline of the game consists of you trying to earn $99 while skateboarding around the city. This task is accomplished by collecting letters, performing tricks and others; it s not as fun as it sounds. There are many unlockables (you can win a new board each level) and there are many cheats, but with only 7 characters that will not last you long. It is quite hard to pull of decent comobs because you have to pick up speed mainly by ollying, which wastes time. The controls were similar to those of Tony Hawk, so that deserves recognition, but the fact that the setup is flawed makes it hard just to play this game. Turning is actually very hard, as the creators emphasized it from real life, which becomes very cheap. The load times were overly long, as it took 20 seconds just to get to the main menu. Overall, the gameplay is not much fun and is disappointing.

Overall
Basically, do not ever buy this game! I am warning you. If you are a die hard Simpsons fan, then maybe you should rent it, but only if it takes less than $1 to do so. Any more would be a waste. I feel that instead of making a Simpsons Skating game, they could have just implemented Bart into Tony Hawk so that the show would not be so disgraced by this. The Simpsons have done everything, from wrestling to golf to now skating, and messed all of them up. I wish they would create an army men Simpsons game; at least then you get to kill the simpsons.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 08/09/03