The Simpsons: Hit & Run

The Simpsons: Hit & Run
"Whoa, Radical!" — Snake Jailbird
Protagonist(s): Homer Simpson Bart Simpson Marge Simpson Lisa Simpson Apu Genre(s): Action-adventure Platform(s): Nintendo GameCube PlayStation 2 Xbox Microsoft Windows Release: Nintendo GameCube PlayStation 2 Xbox NA: September 16, 2003 EU: October 31, 2003 AU: November 13, 2003 (PS2) Microsoft Windows NA: November 11, 2003 EU: November 21, 2003 Engine: Pure3D Developer(s): Radical Entertainment Publisher(s): Vivendi Universal Games Country: Canada Series: The Simpsons Predecessor: The Simpsons Skateboarding Successor: The Simpsons Game (by release date; console game) The Simpsons: Minutes to Meltdown (by release date; mobile game)

The Simpsons: Hit & Run is an action-adventure video game based on the long-running American animated sitcom The Simpsons, developed by Radical Entertainment and published by Vivendi Universal Games. It was released for the Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox on September 16, 2003, with a Microsoft Windows version released two months later. The story and dialogue were crafted by writers from The Simpsons, with all character voices supplied by the actual cast.

Plot

The story follows the Simpson family and their friend Apu, who witness many strange incidents that occur in Springfield: security cameras, mysterious vans, crop circles, and a "new and improved" flavor of the popular soft drink Buzz Cola (which causes insanity). When the family takes matters into their own hands, along with the help of Apu, they discover numerous shocking secrets, and soon realize these incidents are part of a larger alien conspiracy.

Why It's Radical

1. You can play as the main cast of The Simpsons series like Homer, Bart, Lisa, Marge, and Apu.
2. The gameplay is the same thing like the Grand Theft Auto series and makes it kid-friendly (or at least toned it down significantly). Hit & Run, inspired by the Grand Theft Auto series, shares some similarities with the games, including the radar, and open world map and a strong focus on their driving aspect but without the use of guns.
3. Hardcore and fun levels most of which are fun to explore.
4. This is one of the few games that allows you to skip certain missions if you fail a mission five times, except for the final mission which it expects you to complete in one go. This is good if players find a mission too frustrating and is good for kids.
5. A good story that involves the Simpsons trying to stop aliens from turning people into zombies by using a new soft drink called Buzz Cola.
6. Great voice acting with all of the cast reprising their roles.
7. There are 64 vehicles in the game with most ranging from normal cars to more recognizable ones like the Car Built For Homer, Mr. Plow, and the Family Sedan.
8. There are secret vehicles that are only found in levels that can not be accessed normally by phone booths nor by carjacking civilians apart from if one of your games is completed 100% and then do the “Unlock all Cars Cheat”. These range from an ATV to a Monster Truck.
9. In each level there are Collector Cards that are collectible items. Seven cards are located in each level and each card makes reference to an episode from The Simpsons. After collecting all collector cards in a level, a race track based on that level is unlocked in the bonus game mode.
10. There are other collectibles including environmental gags that are scattered all over each of the seven levels of the game that the player can interact with to make something funny happen, and wasp cameras which are a type of cameras disguised as huge flying wasps players must destroy to collect.
11. There are side missions in the form of street races that when completed reward the player a car. There are 3 kinds of races.
    • Time Trial: The player has to complete laps while going around in the same area within a time limit.
    • Circuit Races: The player has to become first in a 3-lap race, racing with 3 (or 1) CPU(s).
    • Checkpoint Races: The player has to pass through all checkpoints on the racecourse and finish first, racing CPU(s). Each one becomes harder in every level.
12. The game is really funny and has the spirit of the show.
13. When getting 100%, you're allowed to drive backward on the bonus courses, and on some consoles, lets you use a special cheat code that enables you to call otherwise-unobtainable cars from phone booths, such as the Milk Truck and the Black Alien Sports Car, and PC users get a cheat code that lets you play as any character model used in the game.
14. A lot of callbacks to previous Simpsons episodes especially in characters in-game dialogue.
15. Great soundtrack.
16. There are phone booths that can be used to call upon any vehicle the player wants. If a certain character is associated with the car, they show up as the driver with the player character as a passenger. However, if the driver is featured in the level as either an ambient or mission-critical NPC, then the vehicle spawns without them.
17. There are plenty of mods which most of which are fun such as car mods, character mods like Mario Bros., Sonic The Hedgehog, The Incredibles, and even mission mods such as the recreation of the famous "Steamed Hams" scene, etc.
    • The Donut Mod 4.0 (by Donut Team) adds a whole new campaign and extra content and improvements to the original game.
18. The graphics look great for 2003 standards and still looks good to this day.

Bad Qualities That Ate Every Dessert in the House

1. Some missions are really difficult, with the most infamous examples being the missions "Never Trust a Snake", "Set to Kill" and "Alien "Auto" Topsy Part III". "Set to Kill" in particular has a very tight time limit, luckily these can be skipped.
2. The game has very little variety as most of them have to do with following someone, outrunning them, collecting a set number of items (mostly by crashing into a vehicle), destroying a vehicle,
3. The camera is limited as you can't move it around.
4. The PC version is missing a lot of effects due to Radical was not able to port every piece of the code over and is hard to run on modern systems, it can be fixed using the mod Lucas' Simpsons Hit & Run Mod Launcher, this mods also adds 60FPS and Widescreen Support, FOV Increasing and even free-camera moving.
5. The PS2 version suffers from a slightly choppy framerate.
6. The game has padding in the sense of having to force the player to grind for coins to buy specific clothes and vehicles.
7. Aside from explaining how Bart is kidnapped (in the final cutscene, no less), Level 2 has absolutely no relevancy to the plot. Bart spends the first three missions trying to get his hands on a copy of the Bonestorm 2 video game, then suddenly shifts gears to helping Professor Frink build a Truckasaurus, neither of which actually plays into the aliens' plan.
   • Level 1 is also like this, with the only story relevance being the opening cutscene and tutorial mission and Homer helping Marge destroy the copies of Bonestorm 2, setting up Level 2.

Reception

The Simpsons: Hit & Run received "generally favorable" reviews on all platforms according to the review aggregation website Metacritic, and many consider it to be the best Simpsons game to date.

Over one million copies of the game were sold as of June 2004, and three million as of July 2007. It had sold 500,000 copies in the United Kingdom by January 2004. The game's PlayStation 2 version received a "Diamond" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 1 million copies in the United Kingdom.

Praise focused on the move from the Simpsons television series to the video game format, while criticism targeted some aspects of gameplay. Hit & Run won the award for Fave Video Game at the 2004 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards.

A number of reviews complimented the transposition of the Simpsons television series to a video game. Justin Leeper of Game Informer and Alex Navarro of GameSpot commented on how well the game depicted the fictional city of Springfield from the television series, and called it the most accurate representation of Springfield ever put into a game. Official Xbox Magazine said that the game did the show justice, and Play felt that it was "essentially the show in real time", summing up its review by calling the game a "truly great cross-over product". Navarro thought that the humor that the game offered included many excellent self-referential jokes, and Eric Bush of TeamXbox concluded its review by predicting that the game would be extremely appealing to gamers, especially hardcore Simpsons fans. Entertainment magazine Variety surmised that Hit & Run was the first Simpsons game to include humor comparable to what was in the television series.

Hit & Run's parodical take on the Grand Theft Auto III video game was praised by several reviewers. Zach Meston of GameSpy considered it to "deftly satirize Grand Theft Auto while being almost as entertaining", and suggested that Hit & Run improved several gameplay aspects that it borrowed from Grand Theft Auto, including instant mission restarts, a superior guidance system, and an easily accessible collection of vehicles. Official Xbox Magazine agreed that Hit & Run was an excellent game in its own right, and found the game to be a "brilliant" clone of Grand Theft Auto. The combination of the Simpsons universe with the gameplay of the Grand Theft Auto series was also praised by Douglass C. Perry of IGN as "pure brilliance"

Trivia

• The game is still popular to this day as multiple mods are released.

Comments

Loading comments...