The Simpsons Road Rage
Review of The Simpsons Road Rage
In time for Christmas EA unleash their Crazy Taxi clone: The Simpsons Road Rage on the world.
In an effort to increase his wealth, greedy Mr Burns takes over the tried and trusted bus service and jacks up the prices. This forces the locals to hop into their cars and start running private taxi businesses. Have you ever fancied going for an insane ride around Springfield in Barts Rocket Car, Barnies ‘Mr Plow’ truck or Homers faithful red 4-door… well here’s your chance..!
A short opening movie sets the scene nicely. The 3D graphical style used for the characters will seem very familiar to those of you who saw the episode where Homer falls through the wall at home and ends up in the real world.
The aim is simply to race against the clock to find a customer and then race to their chosen destination. Some will ask you to drive safely, while others will give extra cash if you smash into trees, street-lamps and mail boxes on route. Extra bonuses are available for trashing Mr Burns bus-stops. The faster the journey, the bigger the tip; so it pays to memorize each location and find the short cuts as quickly as possible. Once you get their money, its time to find someone else whos looking for a ride.
The menu screens are ultra-easy to use and most of the main characters can be selected to drive their vehicle at the very start. Each time you play, the total taxi fare earned is banked and the option of unlocking a new driver or neighbourhood is offered as the total cash reaches target amounts. This means that no matter how bad you are, just playing over and over again will eventually reveal all of the extras on offer. This level of simplicity gives the impression that the game is aimed squarely at the pre-teen market.
The in-game graphics are pleasant in their cartoon style and colours but are plagued by a great deal of pop up; making ‘safe’ driving almost impossible. All the shows characters are instantly recognisable and the environments are solid; except for a couple of ‘iffy’ moments when you get too close to a wall while picking up a passenger and cant see what’s going on.
The character speech is without doubt the high point of the whole game. All of the actual voices are used and although repetitive after a while, they will still crack you up !
Sadly the simplicity of the driving aspect to Simpsons Road Rage means that all but very young or rookie gamers (who enjoy smashing into everything in sight), will quickly tire of it. Arcade style driving is the norm for games of this type, but many of the vehicles are very ‘twitchy’ and there is little difference in performance from car to car.
Overcome the nuances in relation to the car control and you soon forget about the difficulties and actually begin to enjoy the game. Its much more fun than my final score suggests.
OUR PLEDGE: We promise that we have fully played 'The Simpsons Road Rage' before writing this review. The scores given above are our honest opinion and were not influenced in any way by the manufacturer or distributor of the game.
This review was written by Rory Kelly © Absolute PlayStation
Click here to view our 11 The Simpsons Road Rage in-game screenshot slideshow
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