First Encounter:

Grand Theft Otto

By Danny Chihdo

When The Simpsons Hit & Run™ was announced by Vivendi Universal Games and developer Radical Entertainment and described as a free-roaming, mission-based driving game ala Grand Theft Auto: Vice City or True Crime™: Streets of L.A.™, it left a lot of people (this reporter included) scratching their heads. A GTA-style Simpsons game? Wha?

And it works! Better yet, it works really, really well. Like the Buffy games, Star Wars®: Knights of the Old Republic™, and Futurama™, The Simpsons Hit & Run is a model of how to take a popular license and successfully translate it into a video game. With the entire original cast providing voices—really, would anything else be acceptable?—and thousands of lovingly crafted details, The Simpsons Hit & Run is (for now) as close as you’re going to get to being a yellow-bellied Simpson. Unless your name is O.J.

Springfield is one crazy town.

Homer’s Odyssey
In The Simpsons Hit & Run, you’ll step into the yellow footsteps of Homer and other characters from The Simpsons TV series. You’ll drive, walk, and occasionally run around a virtual recreation of Springfield, U.S.A. The coolest part? With an open-ended game design and a painstakingly recreated Springfield, you can play the game any way you want to create your very own Simpsons episode.

After 14 years on TV and an effect on a generation of TV watchers that can not be underestimated, exploring Springfield is like visiting your own hometown. Every building, car, character and location is pulled straight from the series. Unlike Futurama, a game also based on a Matt Goening creation, Radical has avoided cel shading and chosen a more real-world (after a fashion) look that is really pretty darn close to that Halloween episode with 3-D Homer (You remember … “I’m somewhere where I don’t know where I am!”).

That 3-D suits you nicely, Homer.

Simp-son, HO-mer Simp-son, He’s the Greatest Guy in His-to-reee …
You’ll begin as Homer, on a typical morning in the Simpson house. Marge will have some errands for you to run right away, so after you talk to her and see what the family needs are, it’s off to the Simpson-mobile! When I tried out a pre-release build of the game, my first job was to hit the Kwik-E-Mart for some groceries, which sounds dull … until you get to the store and see how insanely detailed Radical had made their virtual town outside and in. Bart pops up with tutorial tips throughout that are both helpful and hilarious, but even without the tutorials the game is simple to pick up and hard to put down.

The addictive appeal stems from the mix of solid game design and the masterfully captured feel of the show. Like The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (and believe me, I know how weird it is to see that game mentioned in this piece) there’s always something left for you to do and explore, which gives the game a “just one more turn” vibe that keeps you playing long past the time the daily Simpsons reruns have ended. The dialog, characterizations, graphics, and even the focus on driving fit perfectly into The Simpsons’ universe. Your choice of cars, for example, includes the Plow King truck, the pink Simpson-mobile, and a host of other familiar Springfield vehicles, and they handle appropriately. Heck, you can even run people over and hear Homer start singing the “I am evil Ho-MER!” song. But don’t worry, it doesn’t look like you can kill anyone.

A stop-over in trailer country.

You might remember me from such episodes as …
Like any good role-playing game, you can collect money and objects to get new equipment, repair your mangled car, and pick up new outfits. For example, you can acquire a pair of BVDs for Homer—and nothing else (it’s called “Homer Casual”); you can play as Obese Homer in a muumuu, or even in the Last Emperor-inspired Chosen One outfit. Who controls the English crown? Who keeps the metric system down? HE do!

The Simpsons Hit & Run lets you get inside one of the most popular TV shows in history like never before. Up and at ‘em!