Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

by Ron Burke

I am a big fan of The Simpsons.  I remember watching them on the Tracy Ullman Show, and I’ve watched them for the last 19 seasons.  Suffice it to say, I’ve grown up with The Simpsons.  Unfortunately, I’ve also grown up with The Simpsons videogames as well.  Long heralded as pointless shovelware, The Simpsons has disgraced itself time and time again with horrible lackluster ports devoid of the humor and character that the show has brought to the table for so long.  To date there are 23 games based on the Fox IP on every platform from the Amstrad CPC to the modern PC.   Defunct-yet-risen-from-the-grave publisher Acclaim was responsible for most of the drivel that has been thrown at fans for the vast majority of the 90’s, so I was somewhat happy to see that Electronic Arts would be handling the property – perhaps a change was in order. 

Fast forward to E3 2007 and I got my first chance to try the game out for myself.  The humor was back, the look was perfect, and it looked like the elements that make The Simpsons great were finally coming together.  The final code has finally hit my doorstep, so let’s take it for a spin and see what this new iteration of America’s favorite yellow family brings to the table.

The Simpsons have a distinct look.  While the animation style could be called anything but detailed, there is simplicity to this dysfunctional family that just works.  Translating that to the game world has proved rather troublesome, often giving us characters that just don’t quite look right, breaking the immersion rather immediately.  To that end, EA pulled no punches and worked very hard to bring the unique look directly to the game.  The cutscenes that punctuate the beginning and end of each area could have been pulled directly from any recent episode of the show, and the in-game graphics aren’t that far off from the same.  Employing a cel-shaded look for the characters and their environment, the show is brought to life, allowing you to walk around the house we’ve watched for just shy of 20 years.  Similarly, you can visit many of the places we’ve seen time and time again, such as Moe’s Bar, the Wharf, Lard Lad Donuts, and many more.  This is the best looking Simpsons game to date.

There are a few areas where the game really does take a step back visually – split screen mode, and the occasional game engine cutscene.  While most of the cutscenes use pre-rendered graphics that could be straight out of the show, sometimes they resort to using in-engine graphics for storytelling.  It is still better than anything we’ve seen to date, but some of them do look a bit jagged.  The split screen mode is a whole different story.   When a second player jumps into the game, the framerate does take a bit of a hit.  To compensate, the game ratchets down the sharpness of the graphics a little bit.  It isn’t really distracting, but it is noticeable. 

Overall, the graphics in The Simpsons Game pretty great.  EA has treated the source material with respect, and the end result is nothing short of Cromulent.

Despite all objections to the contrary, there is only one way to do a Simpsons game – use the voice actors from the show.  After 20 years of watching this show, you can be sure that we all know how Lisa, Bart, Homer, Flandiddilyanders, Kodos, Krusty, and the rest of the gang should sound.  Any attempts to imitate would just result in disaster.  Once again, EA steps up their game and brings the entire voice cast from the show to reprise their roles for the game.  Each delivers a performance equal in quality to the show, and there are several special guests that step up and cameo.  (Will Wright being one of the best examples)  Similarly, the sound effects and music are equally well done and again shows a great deal of care paid to the source material.  If someone wasn’t watching you play the game, they could easily think you were watching an episode from the show.  The only hitch that could give it away is the fact that the ‘filler’ characters like Dr. Nick tend to repeat their lines every time you click on them. 

Nothing destroys an awesome premise and fantastic production values faster than an unruly camera.  The Simpsons must have travelled back to the past to dredge up the camera used in this game.  Keeping the camera focused on what you want if you are anywhere near an object is no less painful than trying to wash a cat.  Nowhere is this more apparent than in the indoor levels, or the Medal of Homer level.  Anything that deviates from the ‘center’ view of the game is simply asking for trouble.  When battling bosses like Lard Lad, you may suddenly find that the camera would much rather you look at your feet as you have backed into a corner.  While it isn’t intolerable, it does make for some unneeded frustration.

Other than the camera, controlling the Simpsons is pretty easy.  The left thumbstick for movement and right thumbstick for camera control is pretty simple.  Hammering on the X button will make your selected character attack, whereas an X, X, Y combination will issue a super attack that usually knocks your opponent down, if not completely out.  The B button is used for range attacks for the most part, but each character has different powers so this can change.   The learning curve is pretty even and mild so you won’t be overwhelmed if you are new to platformers.  As a testament to that, my wife was able to pick up the controller and help me out during some portions of the game and she’d never really played a title like this.  I have to give it points for that.

As I alluded to earlier, the humor that completely saturates this title is pretty broad and often pretty hilarious.  EA picked up show writers Tim Long, Matt Warburton, and Matt Selman to pen an original storyline for the game.  Essentially, the Simpsons discover that they’ve been cast in their own videogame when they find the game manual discarded in the street.  As such, they discover their own powers via the book, enabling Bart to become Bartman and RoboBart, Lisa to become Clobbergirl and utilize her Hand of Buddah attack (an overhead ‘God hand’ that can flick enemies, pick up objects, toss lightning, and freeze enemies), Marge to use her nagging powers via a megaphone to summon enemies to command, similar to Overlord and Pikmin, and Homer to become Homerball (a big fat blob that can body slam enemies or power-roll over them) or Helium Ball Homer.  All of these powers enable them to unravel who put them in this game and what they can do about it.  The acerbic and self-referential humor lampoons the videogame industry pretty heavily, but also makes sure to include the metric ton of inside jokes that only true Simpsons fans will get. 

EA solved the creative roadblock of videogame cliché such as stacking crates and explosive barrels in a creative way – they simply embraced them as a collectable.  At any point where you encounter a ridiculous gameplay element such as your character being unable to swim or the odd invisible barrier you’ll get a gameplay pausing moment where Comic Book Guy points out the obvious cliché.  There are over 30 of them in the game, and it does make finding the otherwise irritating elements somehow fun.  Well played EA! 

The Simpsons game is laid out in a sandbox fashion.   You’ll move through the game in a linear path, but you are free to explore the town of Springfield any way you wish, picking up the collectables for each character along the way.  (Bart collect’s Krusty games, Lisa picks up Malibu Staci boxes,  Marge picks up sale coupons, and Homer naturally keeps his eyes peeled for Duff beer bottle caps)  The world is completely free-roaming and doesn’t load at any point, giving you free reign to hear some of the great voice work from the citizens we’ve all grown up with. 

The gameplay mechanic of The Simpsons Game is certainly suited to two players.  At any point you can have a second player pick up a controller and jump in.  When they want to leave the game, they simply jump back out.  This element works perfectly, but what is surprising is that the AI does a decent job of picking up the slack when you are playing solo.  Since this is a platformer at its core, you’ll do a lot of tandem button pushing and cooperative puzzle work.  While you are trying to accomplish your objectives you’ll encounter staples from the show like Kodos and Kang, Koopa Trooper look-alikes, a Mario look alike, EA Sports figures, mini Krusty dolls, Sumo-themed Comic Book Guys, and the residents of a French village just to name a few.    They tie into the humor nicely, but they are essentially the same enemies as you’ll beat them exactly the same way – X, X, Y, rinse, repeat.   This unfortunately is the game’s strength and weakness at the same time.  While it is simple for most folks, hardcore platformers will find it to be shallow and repetitive at best. 

All of this said, The Simpsons does a good job of poking fun at everything, including itself.  At points you’ll be asked to work with The Fighting Hellfish to run an escort mission (an obvious cliché), you’ll be asked to do tons of collection (again, another obvious cliché), and you’ll be asked to collect a ton of multicolored keys near the end-game (cliché? You betcha).   The gameplay suffers a bit from a fairly straightforward approach to nearly all of its puzzles and combat, but this seems to actually be done on purpose.   Ensuring that the whole family can get involved in the adventures of The Simpsons seems to have diluted the water a bit for the hardcore audience, but at the inclusion of a new audience.   In short, The Simpsons rides the center line in terms of gameplay.

There is no denying that The Simpsons Game is laugh out loud funny.  Squarely aimed at true Simpsons aficionados, levels like the Mr. Sparkle themed Super Happy Fun Fun Land are an absolute gem to play.  The levels are relatively short, none of them spanning more than 40 minutes in length to complete with the average being closer to half that.  If you’ve got a friend over and a large enough TV to run split-screen you’ll be able to fight with the camera to enjoy the fantastic humor present.  The problem that I see is when you don’t have someone over to play co-op with.

As I said earlier, the AI does a decent job of making sure that buttons are pressed for puzzles and the like, but against the bosses in the game, Lard Lad especially, you need true coordination to beat the level.    Playing against the behemoth with the AI was an exercise in frustration that took me over 40 minutes to complete.  With another player it took just under 10 and could easily be done even faster with a bit of practice.  That said – where is my Xbox Live support?  Unforgivably, the game has absolutely no multiplayer component!  For a game where co-op is so heavily engrained in the core gameplay, I can’t imagine a good reason why this was left out.  If I can get co-op Spartans in Halo 3, why can’t I get co-op Bart and Lisa?

The collectables mentioned earlier are just one of the goodies you can track down in this game.  Combining the clichés, the character-specific collectables, and the movies that you can replay at any time from the main menu give the game a great deal of things to do, but since you’ll really only get a trophy and some achievement points, it is hard to push you back in front of the awful camera to try to collect them all. 

This game is fan service in its most pure form.   It is a shame that the camera is, as Mr. Sparkle would say “Most-ah Disrespectful-ooh” to the polish present in much of the rest of the game.  True fans of the series will find a lot to laugh about in this game, as well as those of us who are gamers since childhood.   While the lack of online co-op play is unforgivable, there is a lot to like here.  Unfortunately the unruly camera and shallow platforming elements make this game less “Ribwitch” and more “Krusty Burger”.

Gaming Trend Score

74

1. Graphics: 90
2. Audio: 90
3. Controls: 60
4. Gameplay: 70
5. Value/Replay: 65
6. OVERALL:74