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07/11/2007 THE SIMPSONS (PS2/3, Xbox 360, Wiim Nintendo DS, PSP) People will never agree on music, politics or babes. I mean, Michael Jackson – genius or freak? George Bush – great patriotic American of reak? Pamela Anderson – sexiest woman on the planet or, er, freak? The one thing I guarantee EVERYONE agrees on is The Simpsons. Everyone LOVES The Simpsons, eh babeluvers? So when this new game arrived in the office I had to physically wrestle it off the babeboss to get it home for my review (it wasn’t easy, I can tell you – I lost three good nails in the process – last time I looked, they were still embedded in the babeboss neck). They’re leaving nothing to chance, either – making the game available in every computer format known to man or Simpsonkind. As you’d hope and expect, it’s very funny, irreverently lampooning the whole gaming industry, opening with a family contretemps over them having to participate in the game in the first place. Cue loads of sharp pins being stuck into rival games and the whole culture of sitting in front of your computer for hours on end twiddling your controller. The graphics are great and the game itself is secondary to the sense of fun as it feels rather surreally as if you’re inside a weird Simpsons episode. Just as well the game itself is secondary as it’s not much cop, to be honest – a battle to break through various scenarios to reach the big bad game creator intent on destroying The Simpsons game. But the jokes are good and the game that Bart discovers – Grand Theft Scratchy – is a very neat parody of Grand Theft Audio. It also encompasses clever parodies of Pokemon, Medal of Honor (or Medal of Homer, as they have it here) and Everquest (or Neverquest, as they call it). All this and a disapproving, megaphone yelling Marje continually popping up trying to put a stop to the whole thing and get it banned. You get to control four members of the family (five if you include baby Maggie, who springs to life at isolated times) with some nice hidden features – Bart as Bartman and Lisa with special meditative powers. It’s relatively short and I’m not entirely convinced it surpasses the three previous Simpsons games, but hey, it’s The Simpsons and who would you rather getting into a games consul with? Okay, apart from Sienna Miller, Pamela Anderson and Keeley Hazell… | ||
