The Simpsons Game

The Simpsons Game is a video game based on the animated television series The Simpsons. It is playable on the Wii, Nintendo DS, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable. Each version has an exclusive cover art. It is a third-person action game featuring an original storyline written by Tim Long, Matt Selman and Matt Warburton. The plot is self referential in nature, with the family discovering that they are forced to participate in another Simpsons video game. Similar to the show, the game pokes fun at popular culture, other video games and EA, its developer.

Plot

Bart Simpson, after acquiring a copy of "Grand Theft Scratchy" video game and then having it confiscated by Marge almost immediately, is hit upon the head from unknown by a copy of "The Simpsons Game" game manual. Reading through the manual, he discovers that he and the rest of his family members have special powers; Bart uses his "Bartman" powers to stop Jimbo Jones, Kearney and Dolph from stealing from the Natural History Museum, Homer uses his ability to become a huge ball (the Homer Ball) to win an eating contest, Lisa uses her powers of meditation to stop a deforestation project Bart helps, and Marge with her powers to influence crowds to stop the release of "Grand Theft Scratchy" in Springfield. However, Kang and Kodos launch an alien attack upon Springfield, and Bart and Lisa, realizing their powers are not strong enough to defeat the aliens, visit Professor Frink who presently is in the "game engine", a factory-like realm where video games are made. Prof. Frink gives them "The Simpsons Game" player's guide to better understand how to use their powers, and the Simpsons family rally again to stop the alien invasion, including a takeover by dolphins and an attack by a giant Lard Lad statue. However, the alien attack persists, and in order to find out more, the family turns to the Internet to discover more about the powers they have in the game, but are accidentally sent back to the game engine.

There, they discover Will Wright, destroying copies of The Simpsons: Escape from Krusty Island purely on the basis that the game is dated and no-one is playing it anymore. The family manages to save their 8-bit predecessors, who tell them that as they too are just characters in a video game, they are also doomed to become obsolete when the next "Simpsons" game comes out, and that the only way to prevent this is to talk to The Creator himself. To get to The Creator, the Simpsons collect four key cards in four separate "Simpsons" video games currently in development: "Grand Theft Scratchy", "Big Super Happy Fun Fun Game", "Medal of Homer" and "Neverquest", and proceed to The Creator's home, which turns out to be Matt Groening. Groening refuses to help the family, and escapes after distracting the family with copies of Bender and Dr. Zoidberg from Futurama. Returning to their Springfield, the family realizes they have one last resort, God himself, but upon finding Him, they discover that He is actually playing a giant video game, of which "The Simpsons Game" was just a mini-game of, and had accidentally dropped the manual, leading to the events at the start of the game. God promises to restore Springfield and the obsolete games back to normal when Bart threatens to destroy his saved game memory card so He can go back to playing Oblivion. Before the Simpsons depart, Lisa asks God if He ever considered Himself as part of a video game - the game then is shown with Ralph Wiggum playing it, and Ralph then breaks the fourth wall by tapping on the screen and calling to his father that people are watching him.

Gameplay

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Screenshot of Marge and Lisa's section of gameplay. Maggie is sitting on Marge's back and can be thrown into air ducts at points.

Players are able to control four of the five members of the family with their own abilities. Maggie is an extension of Marge, briefly being playable in air ducts and other small spaces. Two different family members are playable on each level, aside from The Land of Chocolate tutorial where only Homer is playable, and the final level, which allows all of the family members to be used on the PS3 and Xbox 360. The game contains 16 levels, called episodes. Each episode requires specific skills related to the characters in that episode, such as in Episode 4: Lisa the Tree Hugger, you are required to use Lisa's Hand of Buddha skill to move large objects, and Bart's slingshot skill to shutdown numerous machines. Unique enemies are also featured in each episode, except for the last episode, in which the enemies are "recycled" with different colors. Several after-episode challenges exist. These include finding all the collectibles for each character, finding all the videogame cliches, completing the episode under a certain amount of time, not dying once, and in the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions, completing a certain task related to the episode's plot in a time trial. While the game for each system includes two episodes set in Springfield a Springfield hub is also included that can be explored freely without any goals, and contains additional collectibles and cliches. These two versions also have extra mini-games, including parodies of Joust, Pokemon and Space Invaders. All versions have mini-game parodies based on Gauntlet, Missile Command, Dancing games and Frogger.

Abilities

Each of the four main characters have their own special abilities. Homer is able to transform into a "Homer Ball" and break large structures. He also is able to turn into a large green gummy monster after eating the Gummy Venus De Milo and shoot projectile gummies at enemies. Bart can shoot projectiles with his slingshot (depending on each episode the collectible projectiles will change, ranging from gold bars to pinecones), climb walls, glide, throw a grapple hook to cross large gaps and transforms himself into "Bartman". Lisa has the "Hand of Buddha", which allows her to pick up large objects, slam her hand on enemies overhead, and cast lightning on enemies. Lisa's saxophone can be used to stun enemies, turn them against each other and knock them out with a jazzy tune. Marge's megaphone allows her to gather up NPCs and have them build or destroy structures. These NPCs can also fight enemies. The game also features co-operative multiplayer. A second player is able to connect a controller at any time during a single-player session and join in. The Nintendo DS version features some stylus-based gameplay while the Wii version of the game features gesture-based controls that use the Wii Remote, including a minigame in which it is used as a spoon.

Development

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Cover art for all versions

EA revealed the game on May 2, 2007 with a countdown timer in a parody of Rockstar Games' countdown to Grand Theft Auto IV in April 2007, with only the number "XXII" on the page (referring to the fact that it is the 22^nd video game in the Simpsons franchise). The game was officially unveiled at The Simpsons 400th episode party at 20th Century Fox studios on May 8, 2007.

Earlier, several sources had reported apparent plans that a game directly based on The Simpsons Movie was to be released as a tie-in, due to EA's handling of other licensed film tie-ins and after the game with the current title was found on a retailer product listing. The official site is featured as the viral site of a game named "Grand Theft Scratchy: Blood Island" , the same game which Marge is trying to boycott in the game's plot. It has four trailers, one with "Grand Theft Scratchy" based on Grand Theft Auto, one with "Medal of Homer", a parody of the Medal of Honor games, "Big Super Happy Fun Fun", a parody of Japanese culture and anime, and "Neverquest" a parody of Everquest, Legend of Zelda, and Lord of the Rings.

This game features cel-shaded graphics, in contrast with the "solid 3D" rendering used in the previous three The Simpsons games released (The Simpsons Road Rage, Simpsons Skateboarding and The Simpsons Hit & Run).The PS3 and Xbox 360 version uses a "flattening" technique to render true 2D graphics, instead of the traditional 3D cel shading method, and the DS is a 2.5D platformer. Many cutscenes feature the 2D style, shown like a normal Simpsons episode. The Nintendo DS version includes a special game titled "Pet Homer" which parodies Nintendogs. <ref>

Reception

Upon release, reception was mixed between versions. While most reviewers criticize its short and uninspiring gameplay, they praise the visuals and the writing of the game which lampoons the gaming industry and the show itself.