The Simpsons Skateboarding

"Skateboarding and The Simpsons are not a good combination."

The Simpsons is a pretty darn good TV show. The games it has spawned, however, are not. Skateboards are popular with today's youth (and some disturbed elderly men) and many decent skateboarding games have been made. Tony Hawk has his face stuck on many games, some of which have actually been quite good.
But I'm talking about The Simpsons: Skateboarding, which is awful. First of all, Homer Simpson is a heavy guy, so how in the world can he support a thin piece of wood without it breaking in two?

Storyline? A skateboarding contest has been held in Springfield, and just about everyone wants to enter to win cash. That's that.

Music is horrific, the same songs repeat about every eight seconds and they all sound pretty much the same. You'll want to hit the mute button on your remote soon after playing this game for the first time. If I were to make a good point about the audio, all the voice-actors have contributed to this game, which is nice. Sound effects are okay, the skateboards actually sound realistic, but that hardly makes up for the terrible music.

Graphics are blocky and fuzzy. Bart, Lisa, Homer and Marge all look like they've been thrown into a blender and stacked back together by a three year old. These graphics could have been better on the PsOne. If the developers just took a little more time to improve on these graphics, I might be a little more forgiving. There are a few different areas to skate around in, but they all contain the same kind of ramps and things. There is so little variety it's almost laughable.

Now we come to the game's biggest blunder. The Gameplay. I really am speechless when it comes to playing this game. As you struggle with the awful controls, the evil music and lame commentary are playing at full blast. You have to franticly press the triangle button as you guide your skateboard along narrow wires, remembering to tilt the right analog stick to keep your balance. Sounds messy, doesn't it? It's even worse when you're actually playing this game. The controls are also very stiff and your character ends up falling all over the place. This is not my idea of fun at all and I'm sure it isn't your idea, either.


There are quite a few different mission-type things to do. These include collecting donuts, catching children who are skipping school and just getting high scores. Once again, there is very little variety and the games get boring extremely quickly. Even if you have the world's greatest attention span, these mini-games won't keep you busy for hours on end. There's also a multi-player mode. This is just a simple case of getting more points than your friend... But if you want to keep your friends, keep this pathetic excuse for a game far away from them.

TV show licensed games have always been poor, but this is a new low. Make no mistake, I didn't buy this game for myself, it was a gift from a family member. If you are the kind of person who buys Simpson games just because you're a fan, go ahead, get this. You can stack it on your shelf or something, but I'm saying farewell to this horrid game as soon as I can.

Good Points:
+ Voice actors from the TV show.
+ It can't kill you.

Bad Points:
- Terrible music.
- Terrible graphics.
- Terrible gameplay.
-Terrible game.

Rundown

Graphics: 3.1/10
Music: 1.6/10
Storyline: N/A
Gameplay:1.5/10
Overall: 1.7/10

This is one of the worst games I have ever played in a very long time. Avoid this like a flesh-eating virus.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 04/20/04