It’s not particular eloquent, but TV or Movie tie in games are normally, well… balls. “The Simpsons game” turns out to be an adequate platformer raised to worth playing status by the addition of tv-quality Simpsons animation shorts linking the levels and a storyline most gamers will appreciate… well, that is if you’re over 20 and get the in gags. Hell there are jokes about games in here that were around before I got my Master System.
That said there is plenty here for recent devotees to the past time of essentially completely wasting time, such as the epic final boss just wanting to get back to his almost 100% complete game of Oblivion and for you all to just go away.
Those who regularly only watch the oooold episodes on channel four might have missed the fact that the Simpsons has got a bit naughtier (my personal favourite is when Homer is charged with “buggery” when he threatens an endangered insect) and there is a fair bit of that here.
Basically the humour hasn’t been dumbed down for the game, so it’s essentially as child friendly as any current episode of the Simpsons, i.e the rude bits will probably / hopefully go over kid’s heads and there’s plenty for those whose age labels them “mature”, but aren’t really that mature at all.
As a game, muster is passed. This is basically a platformer and being in 3D has all the camera nastiness you can normally expect and there are a good few annoying jumping sections. Puzzles are scattered throughout and if you get stuck it’ll be because you’ve missed the fact that something in the environment is interactive, they aren’t really hard in any way. Each character has different abilities, and this lets them solve puzzles in different ways which are appropriate to their characters, Lisa for example can stun enemies and turn them on each other, Homer can turn into a giant ball. Levels are usually based around the abilities so you generally have to use them (i.e it’s impossible to complete the “French cheese eating surrender monkeys” level without using Bart’s cloak to ride the plumes of smoke to otherwise unreachable areas).
Essentially you’ll be playing this because it’s the Simpsons, which is fine because good use is made of the actual voice actors from the series, such as when weighting down one end of a set of dinosaur bones so Bart can jump off the other end Homer remarks in a sniffly voice “I hope my bones will be this useful one day”. The characters are well used in the setting, such as allowing Marge to incite angry mobs and set them on Police, other characters and video game advertising hoardings for “Grand Theft Scratchy” The game doesn’t try to suspend the fact you’re playing a game and in fact makes it integral to the plot, allowing it to take some swipes at the industry itself and gamers themselves as it goes.
