Difficulty:

Very Easy

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Total letdown"

This game is abysmal to say the least, a rip off of crazy taxi, which wasn't a great game in itself, to say the most. I never gnashed my teeth while playing it, but I did feel sorry for whoever else has had the displeasure of wasting good money and time with it.

The premise in itself is stupid. Burns bought all the buses in springfield (god no!) and now the simpson's characters are using the cars as taxi services to buy them back. This plot is never really covered well, save for the slightly humorous beginning.

Gameplay is divided, I think, into three types; forcing my mind to remember this experience brings up symptoms similar to post traumatic stress. One is a mission mode, where almost all missions consist of the simpson characters running into (or trying not to run into) one object or another while reaching a certain goal within a time limit. The Only real challenge here is paying attention through the sheer boredom.

The more general mission is the one which feels like it was ripped from crazy taxi. Your on a clock and you pick up fairs. Sometimes they complain, sometimes they praise. All the cars seem to go the same speed, so it doesn't really feel like you can make a difference no matter how hard you mash x. You basically keep dropping people off until the clock runs out (earn more time buy pulling fares). You get money which buys more simpsons cars, plus a rating. Oh and there's a free drive, which is pretty self explanatory.

Overly easy gameplay is broken by humorous (yet quickly repetitive) simpson phrases, as well as many invisible walls. These frustrating breaks will make you want to curse EA (maybe that's why they have to make tons of expansions).

The graphics are cartoony, yet waring on the eyes after a while. Even for a ps2 game, this ain't pretty. The only thing worse is the music. Noise consists of simpson music, and of course the characters, all of which can try your nerves after a while.

I played this game with the knowledge that it would most likely be like most games milking of a title, abused. I was certainly suprised to see that under the shallow gaming was an insult to both gamers and simpson fans. Matt Groening, shame on you for allowing such a game to hit the shelves. It isn't the worst game I've ever played, but it's just good (I should actually say not terrible) enough that I can't repress it from my mind.