The Simpsons Hit & Run

The Simpsons: Hit & Run
Cover art
Developer(s)	Radical Entertainment
Publisher(s)	Vivendi Universal Games Sierra Entertainment (PAL)
Distributor(s)	Fox Interactive Gracie Films
Producer(s)	Vlad Ceraldi
Designer(s)	Darren Evenson Chris Mitchell Joshua Mitchell
Programmer(s)	Cary Brisebois Nigel Brooke Darren Esau
Artist(s)	Vincent Chin Jaroslav Chorny Anshin Chu
Writer(s)	Matt Selman Tim Long Matt Warburton
Composer(s)	Marc Baril (lead) Jeff Tymoschuk Allan Levy
Platform(s)	PlayStation 2 Xbox GameCube Microsoft Windows
Release date(s)	PlayStation 2, GameCube NA September 16, 2003 EU October 31, 2003 Xbox NA September 16, 2003 EU October 31, 2003 JP December 25, 2003 Microsoft Windows NA November 13, 2003 EU November 21, 2003
Genre(s)	Action-adventure, Grand Theft Auto clone[1][2]
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

The Simpsons: Hit & Run is an action-adventure video game based on the American animated sitcom The Simpsons, developed by Radical Entertainment and published by Vivendi Universal Games. It was released for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube and Microsoft Windows on September 16, 2003. The story and dialogue were crafted by writers from The Simpsons, with all character voices supplied by the actual cast.

The game follows the Simpson family, who witness many strange incidents that occur in Springfield: security cameras, mysterious vans, crop circles, and a "new and improved" flavor of the popular soft drink Buzz Cola (which causes insanity). When the family takes matters into their own hands, along with the help of Apu, they discover numerous shocking secrets, and soon realize these incidents are part of a larger alien conspiracy.

The game received generally favorable reviews from video game critics. Praise focused on the interpretation of The Simpsons television series as a video game and its parodical take on Grand Theft Auto III, while criticism mostly surrounded some aspects of gameplay. The game received the award for Fave Video Game at the 2004 Nickelodeon Australian Kids' Choice Awards. As of June 2007, over three million copies of the game have been sold.

Gameplay

Hit & Run (top) and Grand Theft Auto III (bottom). Hit & Run, inspired by the Grand Theft Auto series, shares some similarities with the games, including the radar, and a strong focus on their driving aspect.

Hit & Run has seven levels, each with missions and sub-plot.^[3] The player can only control one specific character in each level. The game's playable characters are Homer, Bart, Lisa, Marge, and Apu.^[4] Homer and Bart are played as twice. When travelling by foot, the player character can walk, run, and perform three types of attacks: a normal kick, a jumping kick, and a smashing move.^[4] To drive, the player can either commandeer one of the vehicles that litter the road,^[3] a feature taken from Grand Theft Auto III,^[5] or use a phone booth to select a car.^[3] The game's driving missions are also similar to those of Grand Theft Auto III. In both games, the player races against other characters, collects items before a timer runs out, and wrecks other cars.^[5]

The game has a sandbox-style format that emphasizes driving, and the player controls their character from a third-person view. The character can perform certain acts of violence, such as attacking pedestrians, blowing up vehicles, and destroying the environment.^[4] The Simpsons: Hit & Run has a warning meter that indicates when the police will retaliate for bad behaviour. Located in the bottom-right corner of the screen, the circular "hit and run" meter fills up when the character runs people over or destroys objects, and decreases when they cease doing so. When full, several police cars chase the character for the duration of the hit and run.^[3]

Each level contains items the player can collect, such as coins, which can be gathered by either smashing Buzz Cola vending machines, Buzz Cola boxes or wasp cameras, the latter of which become more elusive as the game progresses. The coins can be used to buy new cars and outfits, some of which are required to progress through the game.^[4] The player can also collect Itchy and Scratchy cards. By collecting all 49 of them, seven in each level, the player unlocks a special The Itchy & Scratchy Show video.^[3] Several events can cause the player to lose coins; because the character cannot die, injuries cause the player to lose coins.^[4] If the player is apprehended during a hit and run, they will be fined fifty coins.^[4]

Plot

Mysterious happenings are occurring in Springfield, including wasp-shaped security cameras, mysterious black surveillance vans, crop circles, and a "new and improved" flavor of the popular soft drink Buzz Cola. A horde of these wasps descend upon the city at the beginning of the game. One enters the Simpsons' home and is smashed by Homer, emitting coins. Homer picks up one of the coins, and watches a commercial for the new Buzz Cola on TV, hosted by Krusty the Clown, noticing the logo on the coin resembles that of Buzz Cola. Homer decides he must get Buzz Cola.

Homer at first goes to the Kwik-E-Mart and purchases Buzz Cola, then gets into more routine tasks, such as giving Lisa her science project or going to work. At the end of the day, Homer is sent home from work and watches a news report on TV, which informs him that the mysterious cameras and black vans are being spotted all across town. He notices one of the vans spying on him outside the house, and decides to pursue it, leading him to Mr. Burns' mansion. Homer concludes that Mr. Burns is responsible, and goes to confront him. However, Burns reveals that the black vans were pizza delivery vans, and proceeds to fire and release his guard dogs on Homer.

The next day, Bart skips school in search of the new game, Bonestorm II. After evading Principal Skinner, he does tasks for certain people who give him a lead onto finding the game. The trail leads him to Professor Frink who, in turn for a few errands, lets Bart see the new Truckasaurus. Bart is nearly attacked by it, but escapes before disappearing in a tractor beam. Lisa attempts to find her brother by exploring the Squidport for clues. She learns from Grampa that black sedans that have been appearing around town are connected to Bart's disappearance, she also learns from Chief Wiggum that government-style agents have been appearing across the Squidport area. Lisa destroys the sedans, but finds them to be empty. After completing a task for the Sea Captain, she destroys a black limo but discovers Bart got out of it and boarded a ship. She finds Bart on the ship; he appears to have memory loss and is mumbling unintelligibly, while occasionally mentioning the sedans and Buzz Cola.

Marge sets out to learn what has affected Bart. As she investigates a crop circle that recently appeared in Cletus Spuckler's crop field, Grampa tells her that the crop circle resembles the Buzz Cola logo. Marge gives a can of the cola to Bart, which snaps him out of his stupor. Bart reveals that the new Buzz Cola is an alien mind-control, which he was given while abducted. Marge decides to purge Springfield of cola trucks, but in spite of her efforts, the drink still maintains its popularity.^[6]

Inspired by Marge's efforts, Apu sets out to discover the source of the cola, remorseful for selling it in the first place. After some unsuccessful leads, he finally comes across Snake Jailbird, who tells him that the cola trucks are registered to the Springfield Museum of Natural History. Apu and Bart get to the museum, where they find a meteor as the source of the cola. They eavesdrop on a conversation between aliens Kang and Kodos, who are masterminding a scheme. Apu and Bart learn that the wasp cameras are filming the antics of Springfield for an intergalactic reality show, Foolish Earthlings. The aliens are using the cola to make people insane, by which time Kang and Kodos will distribute laser guns among the populace to drive the town to a violent massacre sure to draw many viewers.^[6]

Apu refuses to help any further, so Bart takes it upon himself to foil Kang and Kodos' plan. He asks Krusty for help, but Krusty informs Bart that he has already helped the Duff Brewery set up free laser gun stands around Springfield. Bart then goes to his father, Homer, for help, and the duo quickly pursue Kang and Kodos to the brewery. However, the aliens escape, and before departing, they reveal that they have already released Buzz Cola throughout Springfield's water supply. As the cola seeps into the ground, it releases the un-dead from the Springfield Cemetery, who invade Springfield.

On Halloween, when Homer collects supplies to protect his family and home from the marauding zombies, he decides to pursue a black sports car—which is a probe for the aliens' ship—to the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. There, he finds Professor Frink, who has discovered the aliens' weakness: nuclear waste. He plans to use the alien ship's tractor beam to suck up cars that are loaded with barrels of nuclear waste. After successfully loading Frink's car, along with three more, into the aliens' tractor beam, the ship explodes. The following day, Springfield is returned to normal, and Homer is seen as a celebrity among the viewers of Foolish Earthlings.^[6]

Development

The game's developer, Radical Entertainment, received the rights to create games for The Simpsons franchise when they demonstrated a playable prototype. Radical released its first The Simpsons game in 2001, called The Simpsons: Road Rage, a parody of the Crazy Taxi series of video games.^[7] After Road Rage was released, the development team for Hit & Run decided not to create a direct sequel to Road Rage (although there are files in the game's core that refers to it as "The Simpsons: Road Rage 2"); instead, Radical wanted to steer the franchise's video game series in a different direction by giving the game engine a complete overhaul. The developers felt that everything else needed a new approach, while only the driving portion of Road Rage was worth keeping;^[8] in Hit & Run, enhanced traffic artificial intelligence is introduced, which makes computer-controlled vehicles react better to the player's driving.^[9] The developers also decided to add an exploration element to the game to make players get out of the car and navigate the area on foot, so that the game offered a better experience of Springfield.^[8]

When developing the game's graphics, the team decided to include landmarks from Springfield. The player is able to enter some of them, including the Kwik-E-Mart, Moe's Tavern, Springfield Elementary School, and The Android's Dungeon and Baseball Card Shop. During Hit & Run's development, 20th Century Fox, Gracie Films and Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, played important roles in bringing The Simpsons universe into a 3D environment. All character voices were supplied by the actual cast, and the series' writers wrote the entire story for the game, including dialogue.^[8] Tim Ramage, the associate producer of the game's publisher, Vivendi Universal Games, considered it a blessing to have the opportunity of working with The Simpsons cast, along with the writers, whom Ramage called "the best there is [sic]".^[8]

Reception

Reception
Aggregate score Aggregator Score Metacritic GC: 79%[10] PC: 82%[11] PS2: 78%[12] Xbox: 81%[13] Review scores Publication Score Game Informer GC: 85%[14] Game Revolution Xbox: B[15] GameSpot PC: 8.0 out of 10[16] GameSpy PS2: [17] IGN Xbox: 8.0 out of 10[18] OXM Xbox: 88%[1] Play Xbox: 83%[19] TeamXbox Xbox: 80%[20]

The game was released by Vivendi Universal for the Nintendo GameCube, Xbox, PlayStation 2, and Windows in the United States on September 16, 2003 and in Europe on October 31, 2003.^[21] Several reviews considered Hit & Run to be the best Simpsons game to date, and it was given generally favorable reviews, receiving an aggregated score of 81% from Metacritic for its Xbox version.^[13] Praise focused on the move from the Simpsons television series to the video game format, while criticism targeted some aspects of gameplay. Hit & Run won the award for Fave Video Game at the 2004 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards.^[22] Over one million copies of the game were sold as of June 2004,^[23] and three million as of June 2007.^[24]

A number of reviews complimented the transposition of the Simpsons television series to a video game. Game Informer and GameSpot commented on how well the game depicted the fictional city of Springfield from the television series, and called it the most accurate representation of Springfield ever put into a game.^[14][16] Official Xbox Magazine said that the game did the show justice,^[1] and Play Magazine felt that it was "essentially the show in real time", summing up its review by calling the game a "truly great cross-over product".^[19] GameSpot thought that the humor that the game offered included many excellent self-referential jokes,^[16] and TeamXbox concluded its review by predicting that the game would be extremely appealing to gamers, especially hardcore Simpsons fans.^[20] Entertainment newspaper Variety surmised that Hit & Run was the first Simpsons game to include humor comparable to what was in the television series.^[25]

Hit & Run's parodical take on the Grand Theft Auto III video game was praised by several reviewers. It was considered to "deftly satirize Grand Theft Auto while being almost as entertaining" in a review by GameSpy, which suggested that Hit & Run improved several gameplay aspects that it borrowed from Grand Theft Auto, including instant mission restarts, a superior guidance system, and an easily accessible collection of vehicles.^[17] Official Xbox Magazine agreed that Hit & Run was an excellent game in its own right, and found the game to be a "brilliant" clone of Grand Theft Auto.^[1] The combination of the Simpsons universe with the gameplay of the Grand Theft Auto series was also praised by IGN as "pure brilliance".^[18]

Positive reviews of Hit & Run focused on its graphics and gameplay. Play Magazine appreciated the virtual world that the game offered, describing it as "grandiose in its expanse and artistic rendering".^[19] GameSpot found the gameplay to be very engaging.^[16] The game was found to be "very fun and very funny" by Zach Meston of GameSpy,^[17] and Game Informer called it "nothing short of astonishing".^[14] Despite positive reactions, the game also had serious issues that were brought up in several reviews, which focused on the game's bugs and glitches. Both TeamXbox and Game Revolution pointed out that Hit & Run had a few gameplay issues and graphical shortcomings that included strange artificial intelligence behaviour and a broken camera system, which they felt hindered the overall experience of the game.^[15][20]

References

External links

• The Simpsons: Hit & Run at the Internet Movie Database
• The Simpsons: Hit & Run at MobyGames