RePlay: The Simpsons Hit & Run

Does a Simpsons GTA sound fun to you? Well this is just what you need. With all your favourite characters from The Simpsons all in Hit & Run, there’s no limit to the amount of gags and references you’ll encounter.

Over the Easter holiday, I was stuck for things to do other than write essays (yawn). My solution was to reorder the Simpsons Hit & Run for the GameCube, my favourite game as a kid, off eBay. This has resulted in many hours driving round Springfield as Homer and the other Simpsons, running over Tomacco plants and the Springfield residents.

The charm behind the game is its simplicity and attention to detail, with so many references, whether small or large, dotted around the map. You’ll find the Stonecutters Hidden Tunnel (handily signposted), the solid gold mansion, and the Monorail, along with many more. It also manages to capture the essence from the TV series and put it into a game, which is very rare for licensed games like this.

The driving is very smooth as well for a game from 2003 with good damage physics.  Managing to swing round corners GTA style in the Canyonero or the Honor Roller is especially smooth. The ‘sat-nav’ is a bit… Useless, as it’s just green arrows on the ground rather than having a clear way of showing the directions.

The missions are pretty repetitive with it mainly revolving around races and collecting things for people. But they are very fun to do and once you get the hang of it, you’ll never fail a mission. The plot is also very intriguing and you get to see the progress with the plot as you play through the missions. What’s not repetitive is the change in area with each character. With switching from Evergreen Terrace to Downtown Springfield, there are plenty of different areas to explore.

On a whole, the transition made from series to game was incredibly successful. Let’s hope that the creators decide to stop doing that money-grabbing The Simpsons: Tapped Out and release a good game to buy once again.