The Simpsons Game

It’s been many years since I picked up a good old-fashioned platformer but as a major Simpson’s obsessive it had to be done. I was surprised to find that actually, platformers seem to be harder when you’re older and out of practice! I guess I was just out of the natural flow of the genre. None the less I persevered and had good fun for my efforts.

One of the major plus points to this game is the story, which is written by the Simpson’s writers themselves and therefore provides a great deal of entertainment. I loved to praise how clever the ending is but don’t want to let out any spoilers! I also love the game cliches which instead of fleeing from the game fully embraces giving out achievements for collecting all the cliches!

Collectibles are a major theme for the game. Along with collecting cliches both in the levels and in the free-roam area of Springfield, you also collect collectibles for each character. The playable characters are Marge, Homer, Lisa and Bart and each have 75 collectibles in Springfield along with varying amounts throughout the levels. A nice touch on this is that once collected an translucent icon will appear where it was to avoid that “did i get this one or not?” scenario should the need to cheat arise.

Each of the characters has their own special abilities varying on their character development throughout the series. Bart can turn into Bartman, Lisa can stun with her Sax music, Homer can turn into a ball or a Homer de Gummi and Marge, well in my opinion this is the best thought out – she can put Maggie in vents in order to flick switches and can also command the citizens of Springfield by rallying a mob. With every NPC in the game originating from the series you can have great fun making a mob of all your favourite characters.

Unfortunately the game does have it’s fair share of flaws, but nothing you wouldn’t expect from a 3D platformer (will this genre ever actually exist without glitches?!). The camera angles can leave a lot to be desired in certain locations making jumps and collecting very tricky. In some cases, this can even mean you have can end up unaware of where to go next. Another common problem also occurs in distance judging – some jumps look impossible but can be made, whilst other smaller jumps leave you falling to your doom.

The game has an autosave feature, which lets face it, although 99% of games do now, very few get it right. In some places you can see it saving and wind up thinking “but I haven’t done anything yet!” whilst in other sections you can have many difficult encounters and a great deal of traversing only to die and realise it’s time to repeat the last ten minutes. Frustrating, but hardly surprising.


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One response to “The Simpsons Game”

  1. Best show avatar

    Nice. Thanks for this. Is there an easy way to subscribe to comments here?

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