The Simpsons Hit & Run Review: A Great Licensed Grand Theft Auto Clone

The Best Simpsons Game EVER!!!

Developer: Radical Entertainment
Publisher: Vivendi Games
Version(s): PlayStation 2, Gamecube, Xbox, and Microsoft Windows
Price: $19.99
Release: September 16th, 2003

Back in early 2000s, Sony's Playstation 2 took the world by storm with it's many awesome games and great third party support. While there were a lot of great games of the PS2, the third party support also had the effect of draining the system in a sea of derivative games. Meaning that for every masterpiece like Kingdom Hearts or Shadow of the Colossus there was about a dozen crappy licensed games like Catwoman and Alvin and the Chipmunks. Licensed games have always had a bad reputation of being slapped together to capitalize on recognizable franchises, but occasionally you would find a diamond floating in the middle of the river of shit that was third party PS2 games. The Simpsons Hit & Run is one such game.

The Simpson's Hit & Run might look a lot and play a lot like Grand Theft Auto, but it is without a doubt an authentic Simpson's experience.

Developed by Radical Entertainment and most recently known for their Prototype series. The Simpsons Hit & Run is a spiritual successor to the studio's previous Simpson game The Simpsons Road Rage. The story is the city of Springfield is being spied on by mysterious bee shaped camera and black vans all while a new soda called Buzz Cola is seemingly driving the populous of the town insane. It is up to the Simpsons family (and Apu) to get to the bottom of this mystery and figure out who is behind all the madness. If you are a fan of The Simpsons, especially the early years of the show, you will love this game. You can tell just by looking at the game that the designers absolutely love The Simpsons. The game features most of the show's massive supporting cast with all of their repective voice actors, but is written by the actual writers of the show. Leading to a funny and authentic Simpson's experience.

There are costumes that you can purchase for each character. Some are just for fun and others are required to finish missions.

The game is divided up into seven chapters, three zones, and five playable Simpson Characters. Each chapter has you take the role of one member of The Simpson's completely missions, finding collectibles, and taking part in side missions. While the game only has three zones to explore they often change between chapters meaning that you will likely find something or visit a new locations that wasn't there in a previous chapter. There are also 42 cars to collect with an extra 7 hidden in each of the chapters. The game is nothing ground breaking or original, but it is well designed fun that will leave you entertained from beginning to end.

There are a lot of references to many episodes of The Simpsons throughout the game.

Today, the reputation of licensed games being doomed to be giant pieces of crap is thankfully becoming a thing of the past. Video games have become a center of popular culture and even the most shady of companies would think twice before shitting out a half baked, piece of crap game based on a popular franchise these days. (Unless it's on mobile phones in which case avoid them like the plague.) Still, The Simpson's Hit & Run was a great little game from an era where licensed games were basically dead on arrival. You can find The Simpson's Hit & Run at most game shops and shopping websites for pretty cheap these days and as long as you have at least one of the sixth generation platforms ( PlayStation 2, Gamecube, and Xbox) you can enjoy this wonderful game too.