The Simpsons Game Review
The funniest episode of The Simpsons in years turns out to be a videogame.
The game brings the cartoon household knowingly into their own videogame when Bart stumbles upon a game manual that has seemingly dropped from the heavens. What's inside the manual? Why it's the guide on how to use the family's all-important powers against their captors, of course! Along the way they'll be pitted against villains from the show, EA higher ups (yes, you read that right), and their creator - in more ways than one. While the plot of the game is functional, the real star of The Simpsons Game is the hilarity that ensues.
Several of everyone's favorite Simpsons episodes are represented quite effectively. You'll see such favorites as The Land of Chocolate, Super Happy Fun Fun Homer, Lisa trying to stop lumberjacks from cutting down trees, and several others. The only thing really missing is a bona fide Treehouse of Horror tribute, though there are elements from the series of Halloween specials throughout the play experience. It would have been fine and dandy if the game simply reconstructed classic episodes and spit them out at gamers to play through but The Simpsons Game goes a step further and actually parodies tons of Hollywood and videogame properties as well.
Not only does it bring its own episodes back to life, poke fun at tons of EA properties, and make fun of videogames by mentioning the Xbox 720 and PS4, but there are also some awesome cameos in the game. The series creator Matt Groening plays a hilarious role as himself, Will Wright is perfectly portrayed and exhibits signs of humor for the very first time, and then there's God Himself who makes an appearance and manages to drop an F-Bomb along the way. Yes indeed, the humor element is easily the game's strongest point. Luckily the gameplay isn't half-bad either.
As you'd expect, The Simpsons Game can largely be summarized by calling it a platformer. You'll get to play as all four characters, though typically only two will be available in a level, and those two characters are predetermined by the game. It's obvious why they designed the levels to only incorporate two characters as many of the obstacles can only be passed by certain characters, though we would have preferred to have the Simpson family as a whole at our disposal.
Even though the act of playing through the levels doesn't add anything new to the platformer genre, The Simpsons Game actually takes a new approach to tried and true gameplay by poking fun at itself through the use of attainable video game cliches. It points out the fact that all videogames have crates, bosses with overly obvious weak points, and other things of that nature. There are 31 throughout the game and they're all equally funny.
In between jumping from platform to platform you will of course be pitted against enemies, the bulk of which you'll recognize from the series. Sideshow Bob, Jeff "Comic Book Guy" Albertson, and Mr. Burns are just a few of the characters to make the jump into the game. The Simpsons family has two basic attacks. There's a standard melee punch and there's a power-based attack which is governed by your power meter. Objects in the environment spit out power items, as do fallen foes, so you won't spend much of your time budgeting your power usage.
Some of the powered attacks are cooler than others though, and while the Simpsons family does gain new abilities throughout the game, it's clear that Homer was made to be the coolest of the foursome. He begins with the burp attack which can stun enemies, or kill them when charged up for a mega-burp, but then gains the Fat Homer transformation and Gummy Homer transformation later down the line. Both of the new Homer forms have their own set of attacks as well, making the Duff lover the most fun to toy around with by far. Other characters like Marge and Lisa only have one attack, and while their abilities do progress through the game, they only become stronger rather than changing into something totally different and fresh.
The mechanic of switching between characters could have also been more thought out. While having to tap a direction on the d-pad in single-player gameplay is fine when you have just two characters, but when the entire Simpsons squad is playable you're still relegated to using a directional to cycle through the family members rather than assigning each direction to a specific person. It's a small gripe, but it is a nuisance nonetheless.
Another strongpoint for the game's main campaign is the level design. Each is uniquely themed and is excellently self-contained, similar to that of the Simpsons episode that it's modeled after. Not only that, but each of them has original dialogue that has been recorded by the stars of the show as well as by the supporting cast. As anyone knows, it just wouldn't be the same without the real cast members voicing the stars of the show so it's great to see that EA spent the extra dough to nab both the creators and the talent to authenticate the overall experience.
For as many good things as the single-player game does, it is not without its serious flaws on PSP. The greatest flaw within the core gameplay is easily the camera mechanic, which is exacerbated by the fact that there's no right analog stick on Sony's portable system. Players are forced to hold down the left trigger and rotate the camera around the environment; all the while their character must stay stagnant. The movement also feels a bit awkward and imprecise using the analog on the PSP, often being difficult to establish a decent viewing angle for that one critical jump.
Luckily the PSP does retain the current-gen console mechanic of giving players two different means to attack the baddies in the game. You can still use Bart's slingshot or melee attack, and Homer still has the same forms as in the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions. The one thing that is missing from this version is the power ups that the gang can pick up. Whether it posed some sort of graphical strain on the PSP which would have had to generate a new character model with every power up or maybe it was some other hardware constraint, but the power ups are something that we sorely missed in this version of The Simpsons Game.
The entire storyline, and I'm not sure I've said how hilarious it is enough thus far but it really is sidesplitting at points, will run around eight hours which brings us to our final gripe with the gameplay; there just isn't enough of it. There are plenty of collectibles for each character to snag throughout each level as well as the pseudo-sandbox (there isn't much else to do beyond talking to random citizens) of Springfield, and you do have the ability to expand your power meter by collecting them, but it's likely that only the true Simpson devotees will find enjoyment in the inane amount of item hunting.
Aesthetically the game will please fans of the series overall as there are plenty of new cinematics that articulate the storyline with the same authenticity that you see every Sunday night. There are tons of great cutscenes that show every Simpsons character in recent memory (less the overly tall guy and his tiny car) as well as other Matt Groening characters that you likely won't see coming.
The in-game cinematics are a little less appealing, featuring a visual style that is more reminiscent of fan art than the actual TV broadcast. The characters move fairly well on PSP even if you can't rapid fire Homer's burp blast the way you can on Xbox 360 and PS3. Instead you have to charge up the attack and let it loose, something that puts a strain on the fluidity of the combat. Other than that the translation to the portable system is made with relative ease thanks to solid looking environments and character models that, while they do feature rough edges, still suffice as their TV counterparts.
Even if the visuals on PSP can't stack up to what other systems can offer - it is a portable system after all - the aural offering is among the best we've seen in a long while from any game. The music holds true to what you'd expect from The Simpsons and the hilarious quips simply do not stop coming. They don't all hit as hard as they intend, but the ones that do will have you rolling on the ground in no time at all. EA should be commended once again for going the extra mile by having the creators create a script that is both faithful to the series and leaps and bounds ahead of where The Simpsons has been in recent years in terms of laughs.
Verdict
The Simpsons Game doesn’t quite stack up to its current gen counterparts in term of visual beauty, but the fun is definitely still there despite the fact that the camera can be cumbersome during hectic action scenes. The main feature of The Simpsons Game that will draw fans in is the humor and we’re happy to report that the bevy of lines and the hilarity that those lines bring is still in full force on PSP. Now if only they’d included some exclusive portable system content and fixed the rampant camera issues that plague the game then we’d have a real winner on our hands.
![The Simpsons Game [Past-Gen]](/image.pl?url=https%3a%2f%2fassets-prd.ignimgs.com%2f2022%2f01%2f22%2fsimpsons-game-ps2-button-1642831533528.jpg%3fwidth%3d114%26amp%3bcrop%3d1%253A1%252Csmart%26amp%3bauto%3dwebp&f=jpg&w=240)
