Platform reviewed – Playstation 2
Other platforms – Xbox, Gamecube, Game Boy Advance
Developer – Radical Entertainment
Publishers – Electronic Arts
Rating – 3+Genre – Racing
Release dates
PS2 – November 2001
Xbox – March 2002
Gamecube – May 2002
Ah, there’s nothing like some Simpson’s hilarity mixed in with hectic driving in a crazy bid to earn money as a taxi service, right? The wind in your hair (or lack of in Homer’s case) as you rip up the streets, picking up other Springfieldians and taking them to their destination on time; the overall goal? To earn as much cash as possible in the time limit.
Sound familiar? Well if you’ve played Sega’s Crazy Taxi it should. Radical Entertainment aimed to take this extremely popular arcade gameplay style and blend it with The Simpsons, creating a funny, easy-to-grasp game for all ages. In fact, the game was so much like Crazy Taxi that Radical Entertainment was actually sued by Sega for patent infringement. The case of ‘Sega of America, Inc. V. Fox Interactive, et al.’ was settled in private for an undisclosed amount. (For a related article about the case to find out a little more, go here.)
Now the plot is fairly simplistic due to the main feature of this game merely being a driving, taxi-based game, but is still something you would expect to see in an actual episode of The Simpsons. Charles Montgomery Burns with his money and power has bought all the transit systems in Springfield in a bid for control and on top of this has created a new form of transport; a radioactive bus.
The safety of these busses though is left to be desired though as the bright green glow that surrounds it looks the complete opposite of safe.
Hearing how the busses are a threat to public health Homer gets the smart, yet crazy, idea to take to the streets and use his own car as a means of safer public transport. Others quickly follow him in this wacky idea though as together the residents must earn one million dollars altogether to be able to take back the transit system, effectively returning the town to normal and overthrowing Mr. Burns’ transit reign of terror..
All’s fare in love and war!
The greedy corporate stereotype won’t go down without a fight though and aims to slow you down throughout levels by bashing into you with ramming speed and depending on whether he hits you or not results in a funny line being spewed by the rich old man’s mouth.
Now in order to gather up the money the game takes you through six large levels, each jam-packed with memorable places such as the Simpsons’ household, the Kwik-e-Mart, the Nuclear Power Plant and even Springfield Gorge in which you can actually cross (hopefully more successfully than Homer’s attempt when on that skateboard). Though you only start off with Evergreen Terrace you can unlock more places to visit through gathering money and reaching certain milestones, allowing you to explore more places in Springfield and experience more challenges.
Now the main gameplay takes form in the Road Rage Mode, which is where the main storyline ties in. In this mode you are given a certain amount of time, depending on the difficulty you have selected, in which to find, pick-up and deliver passengers to their destinations. You receive money each second you have a passenger with you and receive a bonus in form of a tip depending on how long you took to get there.
A time bonus is also given out as well as the tip and is the key to staying on the level for long periods of time. Beware though of the additional time limit which starts when picking someone up; if that runs out then the passenger flees the vehicle, leaving you without a money or time bonus.
Other bonuses such as Safe Trip and Road Rage are given if you avoid traffic or destroy a certain amount of the destructible environment while driving. These can be hard to achieve though if you allow the many hurdles and hazards you are faced with to get the better of you. Other vehicles, transit busses, pitfalls, Mr.Burns and the occasional invisible wall (due to slightly poor design) are what you must look out for to enable a successful taxi run.
Meet the Family!
Though you start off with Homer, Bart, Marge, Lisa and Grampa you have the ability to unlock twelve other characters such as Krusty the Clown, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon and even Ned Flanders as the game progresses and the milestones mentioned previously have been hit. Classic vehicles such as Marge’s Canyonero, Bart’s space shuttle Soapbox Racer and Mr.Plow’s snow plough are some examples and offer a range of different handling and quotes from the series itself.
The invisible barriers that are left in the game, which links to the game’s graphics and poor design, can make the game a tiny bit annoying, though on the whole it does not affect the overall gameplay at all and is still possible to score extremely high scores. The learning curve and controls are easy enough to grasp and through the crazy mesh of cars and destroyed objects, which is nice to see still fallen and not instantly disappear.
Feeling in the need for speed?
Road Rage Mode is not the only mode there is to play through though, by all means no. There is in fact a number of other types of play modes to smash through; one of them being Sunday Drive. This pleasantly serene mode is one where you go around locations at your own pace, picking up customers with no time limit and effectively allowing you to explore at your own leisure. This mode is particularly useful when you just want to have a relaxing, stress-free play as well as being useful for finding shortcuts to help you in Road Rage Mode and gathering the strengths and weaknesses of certain characters driving styles and bulk.
Another single-player mode is Mission Mode which is a very fun 10 mission filled section. In this mode you take the role of different residents of Springfield who are playable in the other modes mentioned with the overall goal of clearing the mission objective. The price for completing them all is a secret and shall not be discussed, want to find out look elsewhere.
The final mode you can play on is Head-to-Head, and yes as you can guess by the name it is in fact a multiplayer mode. In this game play mode you and your opponent must drive around to pick up the same passenger and deliver them to their destination while aiming to reach a pre-determined amount of earnings.
Your rival can bump into you to steal your customer away and try to claim the fare, so beware. Overall thought this mode allows more hilarity and craziness (as well as more road rage) as you both tear up the streets to win. In my opinion all these modes make this game really great.
In terms of replay value there is some, though not much. It’s nice to drive around in Sunday Drive and Road Rage mode and try to get a high score, and it’s nice to go head-to-head with a friend, though once that one million dollar mark has been reached there is no longer anything to strive for apart from being top of the leader board. I know all good things must come to an end though and the use of the milestones as a means of unlocking new content is a nice touch.
The game has nice camera angles, only changing when going over a long jump or something similar though doesn’t impact on the gameplay and mainly keeps you in check as you weave in and out of traffic.
Got Road Rage?
The graphics are nothing amazing and state of the art but were not so terrible that watching the cut-scenes or playing the game was difficult or cringe-worthy. You can tell what is what when driving around and even though the trees, ground and water look fairly simplistic this suits the style in which the television show is done in, creating more of an element you are in The Simpsons world.
With nicely destructible environments you can crash into tree trunks, go through fences and smash through glass, but there is only one problem I have encounter a number of times, and that one sign could be easily rammed into and knocked down, while another is solid, causing you to have a head-on collision, wasting valuable time and money.
Another annoying element is already destroyed objects latching themselves onto you, or a pile up of objects and cars which block your road as the time limit is getting scarily close to ending, though this element is just part of the hectic gameplay style of the game. This next point though is an element which isn’t a hazard the developers intended to have in at all and is the fact of invisible walls. These annoying obstacles are usually found when investigating shortcuts or flying into areas during jumps which were not meant to be crossed causes you to flail about again wasting time and money.
(Video created and posted on Youtube by; damsoft1.)
On terms of sound the game features the original cast of voice actors for the characters proving both new dialogue and that of voice clips from the TV show. As well as this the much-loved humour is also present, and with both of these elements combined with the overall Simpsons-style of appearance the game gives off a nice, warm, familiar feel which I love.
The witty, classic jokes and quotes are used throughout and are trigged in numerous ways, causing a smile to appear on my face as I recall or try to remember what episodes they are linked to (back in the day I was a massive Simpsons fan). This linked with the gags and believable cut-scenes allows you to believe that this sort of thing could happen in the actual television show. The only problem with the quotes is the fact that over numerous play-throughs the dialogue will become somewhat repetitive, though in my opinion the humour is something which is hard to become annoying, and even after hearing the same line over and over I still cannot help but find it enjoyable.
The music is nothing to write home about though, the music for the main menu is interesting though as it involves the classic Simpsons tune but given a new style and sound. I cannot quite name what style it is, but I like what I hear. For each of the levels the music isn’t one of the strong points, as the frantic gameplay as well as the voices sort of take over the music, though it isn’t boring or irritating to say the least, more cheery and the sort of music which would suit a quick-paced taxi-service game.
From what I can see online on CEX the price of this game, considering its age, is quite reasonable (for the PS2, the Gamcube price is sort of pushing it). The pricing on Amazon goes for quite a bit of money due to it not being in circulation for such a long time though on ebay it can go from around £5 upwards on Buy it Now.
In my opinion I feel this game was a good addition to the Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox (there is a Game Boy Advance version, but that version is quite different then the home console) and deserves the platinum hits title it was bestowed with. With a piece of my late primary school childhood embedded within it I feel this game was good and playable then and still the same now. With alright but colourful graphics, funny, memorable quotes and humour with a dash of craziness this game is a must have for any Simpson fans collection. Not the best game in the world, but by no means the worst.
7 rupees out of 10
Green Rupee Gaming 