We have to be honest with ourselves here. The Simpson’s Movie wasn’t great. It had its moments, but it felt way too much like America’s first family were being shoehorned into an unsuitable format when they hit the big screen. There were some good jokes squirreled away in there, but it simply didn’t work as a whole.
Fortunately, EA has been a bit more upfront about including The Simpsons in (another) videogame, and done its best to avoid any plot destroying clichés. Actually, to be more precise, they’ve embraced the clichés and made a deliberate feature of them to avoid any culture clash as the family moved from the small screen to the consoles.
The Simpsons, it seems, are aware they’re in a videogame and decide to use their new found, unique digital abilities to solve a variety of puzzles, fend off some generic assailants with simple, button mashing combat and complete the 16 clichéd levels as best they can. Controlling two of the family at a time (or by a drop-in, drop-out two player system, which adds a lot of fun and controllability to the proceedings), each level and sub-level consists of a fairly standard platformer-styled dexterity challenge.
Each character has their own distinct ability (Bart can glide using his Bartman cape and Homer has the awesome, destructive power of gastronomic expulsion at his disposal), and a combined effort is generally required to solve the simple, yet engaging problems. The majority of these challenges are straight forward enough to allow young players access to the game without infuriation, though older, perhaps more hardcore players will balk at the overly simplistic nature on occasion.
The running jokes at the expense of the videogame industry (Mario running his legs off in a hamster’s treadmill is typical of the riotous satire laced throughout the game) are all fine, though the many smaller flaws in the gameplay will eventually push gamers to feel that the clever “cliché-based” gameplay is something of an excuse, rather than a concept. That said, the cut-scenes and narrations saturate the game with everything that’s great about the TV show, and it would take a particularly angry, humourless gamer not to regularly raise a smile (and occasionally laugh out loud) at all the references and in jokes delivered by the writers, cast and crew of the show who all contributed plentifully to the game.
Without this copious contribution from the TV series’ creators, The Simpsons game wouldn’t be half the entertainment vehicle it is, so hats must go off to EA for making sure the game takes careful consideration of what the cartoon’s devoted fan base were bound to demand. And that goes for the visuals, too. Despite being pushed into the third dimension, the smooth edges, prominent pencil outlines and perfectly coloured cell shading recreate the Simpsons and the world of Springfield perfectly. This is the closest and finest we’ve ever seen when it comes to lifting the yellow family from celluloid and into dynamic, interactive action.
In many respects, there’s not a great deal to make The Simpsons game stand out from most 3D platformers – this is not a ground breaking game and won’t offer anything you’ve not already seen elsewhere (and often better). But none of that changes the fact that this features the most successful and hilarious cartoon of all time. While it might seem like an obvious thing to say, this really is “The Simpsons” – a digital, interactive version of the TV show, so it’s hard not to recommend it to anyone who’s been even remotely interest in pop-culture and comedy for the last two decades.
