The Simpsons Game

"Great use of the license, but not all that of a great playing game"

The Simpsons have had a very plagued history in the world of licensed videogames. Occasionally there will be a standout like the legendary early 1990s arcade game, and the surprisingly good sandbox game, Hit and Run from a few years back. Unfortunately, the bad far outweighs the good. EA hopes to erase those mostly bad memories because longtime Simpsons videogame publisher, Konami finally gave up their license on the much heralded television series after many years. EA wisely released the aptly titled, The Simpsons Game just months after the hit movie arrived in theaters.

Now even though this game shares a similar naming scheme to the movie, it is completely unrelated to the story of the film. Writers from the show got together to form a new story arc for the game which features those pesky aliens invading Springfield, and through the magic of a special instruction book, the Simpsons family gains superhero powers and must save Springfield from the dreaded aliens.

Players can switch off between almost any combos of the Simpsons family for most missions. Bart's powers gives him the ability to temporarily fly as Bartman, Homer can become a big gooey glob and fire away his gelatin at foes, Lisa dishes out projectiles from her Saxophone and can use her telekinesis to move objects in order traverse through otherwise blocked paths, and Marge gets the shaft because all she can do is order hordes of people to do her bidding with her megaphone.

The Simpsons Game is a platformer that doesn't take itself seriously in one bit, it's more or less a spoof of the genre. Case in point, there are hundreds of collectable icons around town, a 100 of each for each Simpsons family member. I hated platform games that focused on collect-a-thons (i.e. almost every Rare platformer ever), and here it just seems the developers pushed collect-a-thons to the limit to rub it in your face.

EA tries to take poke fun at almost every single popular videogame franchise out there. Some levels in their entirety are heavily inspired by hits like “Grand Theft Scratchy” which involves Marge rallying hordes of protester to help ban this controversial game from “Sequel Stop.” Then, there are segments of levels that pay tribute to classics such as Frogger, Gauntlet and even Pokemon. A lot of these, let's say, tributes, are a lot of fun to play through and had me anxious in anticipation to see what game they would pay honor to next.

I was surprised at how good the writing for this game was, it seems the jokes had me cracking almost as many laughs than most of the recent shows from the television series. The Simpsons fan service is also through the roof, lots of characters traverse through Springfield that players can engage with in a few random lines of dialogue, and lots of little nods to past episodes will keep longtime Simpsons fans happy for sticking with the show from the beginning.

Another light-hearted take of the genre is Comic Book Guy's Videogame Cliche's. Throughout levels you will run across token staples of platform games such as the invisible wall, or inaccessible doors, and the standard lava level to name a few, and every time you do, our favorite comic retailer will rub it in our face. I got to admit to chuckling at a few of these, though later on it seems the developers had a little too much trouble in level design and perhaps could have resorted to a cliché as an excuse (I'm looking at you “Need a challenge, add a timer” cliche!).

One of the cliche's that should have came out from Comic Book Guy's mouth, yet was pretty blatant in the game is the platformer-standard crappy camera. With a few exceptions, it is almost an unwritten rule for a platform game to have a camera that will infuriate the player, and infuriate The Simpsons Game's camera does. That camera will cause many mistimed jumps and frequent deaths. It's bad enough in single player, but when starting a split-screen co-op game (online co-op's absence in this day and age is unacceptable!) the camera is far more troublesome, and within 15 minutes my friend couldn't take it anymore and we switched back to rotating between levels.

Thankfully the graphics are nowhere near as troubling on the eyes as the camera. As matter of fact, this is the best looking Simpsons game to date. It is almost like the show came to life. All of Springfield is detailed down to how I remember it on the show, to banner of all my favorite Springfield establishments from Moe's Tavern to Barney's Bowl-o-Rama. The same amount of effort went into the audio, all the major actors and supporting cast from the recording hundreds of lines of dialogue for the game, and rest assured none of them are phoning it in. A lot of the catchy Simpsons jingles and themes kick in at all the right moments for the very fitting score to help complement the excellent voice dialogue.

The Simpsons Game is a wonderful package for fans of the show, and even at that I still wouldn't recommend purchasing it. Minus the camera, it's a fun play through experiencing all the spoofs, but there isn't much replay value at all, online co-op could have been a huge plus, and trying to get all those collectables just isn't worth it. So just give this one a rent and wrap yourself up in all things Simpsons for about the approximately 10 hours it lasts, and then keep your fingers crossed for a sequel.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/16/08

Game Release: The Simpsons Game (US, 10/30/07)