Despite the quality of The Simpsons itself of the last decade, The Simpsons Game has a reasonably funny plot. Bart finds a manual to The Simpsons Game and the family discovers they all have superpowers. The family starts to use their powers to have their way, such as Marge attempting to prevent Bart from getting his hands on Grand Theft Scratchy, or Lisa setting out to save a forest. The game knows exactly what it is – the characters constantly break the fourth wall, it makes fun of itself for utilizing video game clichés, and there are tons of little homages and parodies of popular video games and their characters. There are a lot of levels based on classic Simpsons moments – in particular, character hallucinations, such as Homer’s trip to Chocolate land. The Nintendo DS version of the game uses pre-rendered cel-shaded 3D sequences, as opposed to the hand-drawn scenes from the console versions – it is a little disappointing, but they look great nonetheless.
I'm a big fat dynamo!
Unfortunately, all the great humour of The Simpsons Game merely serves as a cover-up for the game’s ghastly simplistic gameplay. The developers of the Nintendo DS version of the game at least had the sense to develop this version of the game to the system’s strengths, so it is a 2D platformer, as opposed to the 3D version of the game available on every other format. The stages still follow the same themes, but are just presented in a different way. The DS version of the game is a single player affair, with two members of the family attacking a level – players will have to take advantage of both members’ skills in order to make it through the level. This system can be particularly annoying, because the game never gives a hint on what actually needs to be done to progress – and usually the game will switch between the characters when a segment of a level is completed.
The powers of the characters are actually pretty bland – Bart turns into Bartman, complete with slingshot and gliding ability. Lisa uses her Buddhist connection to move objects to assist in progression. Homer can eat a ton of food and turn into a flabby boulder. Finally, Marge has the ability to summon other Springfield residents to do her bidding, usually relating to something concerning Christian values or morality, and she can also summon Maggie to go through vents to activate machinery and such. Outside of their special powers, each member of the family can jump and do a three hit combo – not exactly original gameplay here. There is not a whole lot else to the game – each character has a specific type of token they can collect, which are distributed throughout their particular levels.
I am disrespectful to dirt!
Level design in The Simpsons Game is painfully straightforward, with the most basic of puzzles and enemies that are an absolute pushover. Comic Book Guy even appears at certain points in the game to remind you of the game’s lack of originality, making fun of things such as double jumps, spike traps and jump pads as you encounter them in the game. The enemies in each level are usually average Springfieldians, nameless cronies or parodies of video game characters. The problem is that the game seems to endlessly spawn these enemies, and beating them up is not actually any fun.
The story portion of The Simpsons Game is unlikely to last players more than about 6 hours. After that, there is not a whole lot to go back for. The DS version of the game does have an exclusive feature in Pet Homer, which is basically a rip-off of your average Tamagotchi game. Players can feed Homer with items they find in the levels, poke him to hear his girlish laugh and rub his bald head for luck – unfortunately you cannot make him go to work and punch Lenny in the back of the head. The novelty of the feature wears off pretty quickly as you’d expect.
While the gameplay might not be spectacular, The Simpsons Game’s presentation is extremely impressive. The game utilises 3D cel-shaded models, most of which look quite good – the DS’s low resolution does let them down a little in this department though, as Lisa has a tendency to look a little bit like a blob. The backgrounds are absolutely fantastic – masterfully created with that much needed Simpsons flair and multiple layers of scrolling. As previously mentioned, EA has opted to make the cut scenes in the DS version of the game, rather than use the footage created for the game that was featured in the console versions. They still look great, but we’d have preferred to see the original product.
Onward Christian soldiers!
The Simpsons Game has incredible sound, with all of the voice actors from the series on board. The script is somewhat funny – it is not as good as anything in the first eight seasons of the show, but it is much better than the standard fare of the last 5 or so years worth of episodes. There are so many lines of speech that you have to give the team at EA a lot of credit for squeezing them into the cart. The soundtrack is pretty typical of a Simpsons episode, but not very memorable.
It is a classic case of style over substance with The Simpsons Game – the game looks fantastic, all of the voice actors are on board and the script is hilarious. Problem is that this is not an episode of the show, it is a video game, and at the end of the day, it is going to be judged on its gameplay. As a video game, The Simpsons Game really has very little to offer – the action and level design is basic, puzzles are uninspired and it is riddled with clichés. Big fans of The Simpsons are unlikely to be swayed, but then again, they have been watching a show that has been bad for longer than it was great. Everyone else should just save their cash and move on.
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