Product Description

In The Simpsons Game, Homer, Marge, Bart, and Lisa use exciting, all-new powers to save the world from rising chaos.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #627 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Electronic Arts
• Released on: 2007-11-02
• Rating: To Be Announced
• Platform: Xbox 360
• Dimensions: .25 pounds

Manufacturer's Description
In The Simpsons Game, Homer, Marge, Bart, and Lisa use exciting, all-new powers to save the world from rising chaos. To help the Simpsons, gamers at home must journey through all of Springfield (as well as vast worlds beyond), vanquish an amazing array of villains, and fight their way through parodies of multiple popular games.

Customer Reviews

fun to be had if you perservere
Like many Simpsons fans out there, I was hoping that this would be the title to turn it around for America's favorite animated family in the video game arena. With two-player co-op and a focus on the humor that has made the show a primetime staple since 1989, The Simpsons Game has everything a fan could want...but not everything it needs to be a fun, interesting game.

The biggest problem is illustrated through one of the game's funniest features: the cliché. As you jump and punch your way through each mission, you will encounter hackneyed video game traditions like giant saw blades and pressure pads. Then the Comic Book Guy pops up and calls attention to the blatant unoriginality of these devices ("Ah, the crate. As seen in everything."). While this almost always gets a laugh, pointing out clichés doesn't make them any more fun to play.

The development team clearly knew that basic switch puzzles and time trials are tiresome, yet the player is forced to endure them. Even though the goals themselves are sometimes funny, the generic combat and platforming rarely make them fun to complete. There are also dozens of stupid collectibles like coupons and bottlecaps scattered throughout the world. Trust me, they are not worth picking up.

I know that I'm not making the game sound great - it isn't - but the important distinction here is unlike most mediocre platformers, you are actually rewarded for bullying through the levels. The comedy is so pervasive and well done that it still makes you want to keep going just to hear a good one-liner or see the next hilarious parody. This is the first licensed game I've seen that captures the essence of its source material so well; it sometimes feels like you are playing an episode of the show (albeit with poor cinematography).

For all of its self-referential humour and nods to gaming classics (there are brief segments mimicking the likes of Frogger, Missle Command, Space Invaders, and Wolfenstein 3D), the process of actually playing The Simpsons Game is unfortunately average. The chuckles along the way make it worth the trouble for fans, but unless you're the most ardent Simpson's fan then of the game's redeeming elements will fall on deaf, bored ears.

cartoon fun!
I rented this game from blockbusters just to ry it out and I must say the game is brilliant! The graphics are awesome, at time you can't tell the difference between the FMVs and the actually game itself. The game plays as a team one so you can control two the simpsons at any one time, then all have indivual powers and are so useful and needed for specific tasks within the game. There are loads and loads of rip offs of other games and films that are subtely done including, star wars, terminator, everquest, mdal of honor, grand theft auto. You can also walk around springfield itself going into loads of different places like moes, kwik-e-mart, simpsons house amd many more. This is a really good game but no real lastablility for me.

Why you little!!!!
Well, after many a dodgy tie-in game, finally a game based upon the Simpsons IP that isn't a complete failure. It's not ground breaking either, but a middling, fun game.

If you're a Simpsons fan, then the humour is spot on and the cutscenes superb to watch - as you would expect given that the Simpsons writers themselves were involved in the game.

The bane of all platform games (camera angles) makes an occasional appearance, but doesn't ruin the game completely. It's not as good as say, Lego Star Wars II, but much better than many platformers.

In my opinion, there's too much emphasis placed upon collecting things - Duff bottle caps, Marge's saving coupons, Malibu Stacey's, Krusty stuff - it's like the developers needed to pad the game out - and they did, because you will complete the story line fairly quickly.

The video game cliches are reasonably funny and at least take a different tact on the collectibles approach, but again, they are just padding.

So, aside from a collectible overdose, you might be thinking I like this game. As a Simpsons fan, you're right. I loved the main story, enjoyed it and thought it was a reasonable game. However, there's a problem with the Simpsons on the 360 which others have also found and been left annoyed by - the autosave mechanism.

As you progress, the game autosaves. It does so when you get a collectible, cliche or complete a chunk of the story. However, the autosave is buggy and is known to corrupt the save file. Theory seems to be that it sometimes takes much longer to save than the game indicates, so after the autosave logo disappears, you exit the game and hey presto - your save is corrupted. This is shocking and something EA should have picked up in QA.

Unfortunately I fell foul to this bug after completing the main storyline and was about to embark on getting the missing collectibles - what a kick in the teeth!