Available on PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube
The Simpsons. A true tv classic, loved by families around the world, The Simpsons hasn't had a new video game installment in almost a decade. Looking back at the the series' track record, it's easy to see why: most of these games suck dick, and the ones that don't are mediocre at best. Case in point: The Simpsons: Road Rage.
Here's a quick rundown of the story: Mr. Burns buys up the local bus system and replaces the diesel engine buses with nuclear powered buses to dramatically increase efficiency and lower fuel costs. The citizens of Springfield object to this change out of concern for their health, and decide to pool together to buy the bus system back. strapped for cash and scared to use public transit, local citizens come up with the brilliant plan to raise funds by operating as private taxis.
"Threat to public health eh? That gives me an idea..."
That's the entire plot of the game, with no aditional story cutscenes. I mean, after every run Mr. Burns pops up to grumble at you for legally protesting his shitty bus system, but other than that there aren't any more cutscenes. It may be weird, but I support the devs and their bold choice to focus on the gameplay purely. So, let's see what the game is all about.
Right, so as you might expect, The Simpsons: Road Rage is a post-apocalyptic themed top down 2D hex based RPG with squad based tactical battles and a heavy focus on gunplay. No wait, wrong game...Yeah, Road Rage is a taxi simulation game.
It's the standard kinda gameplay you'd expect from this kind of game; you pick a driver, pick a map, and race against the clock to pick up and deliver passengers as fast as possible. Play continues until the player eventually makes a mistake in their route and runs out of time, at which point all earnings are banked and the player can enter their initials on the highscore table. After hitting certain savings milestones, the player can choose to unlock one of six maps, or one of 17 playable Springfielders.
I have to say, the driving feels really solid in this game. Cars are light and zippy like RC toys, with incredible acceleration and dangerously loose turning, letting a skilled driver zip in and out of the traffic flow quickly and effectively. The cars also stop fairly abruptly and immediately go into reverse with the press of one button for quick corrections when you bounce off of walls and other cars. You can also perform insanely tight "on-a-dime" turns with a quick tap of the handbrake, and even smooth powerslides to set up your exit path from a location as you drop your passenger off.
A realistic depiction of what you could look like after 2 minutes in B.D. Joe's cab
Even though there are technically 25 cars in the game, every car has more or less the same stats, with minor tweaks like Moe's slightly lower top speed, or Bart's slightly different car physics. You're more or less just picking which quote pool you want to hear while you drive around. The real variety here comes from which of the 6 maps you choose to play on. Each map is distinct from one-another, not only visually, but in layout as well.
From the open and hilly suburbs of Evergreen Terrace to the unforgiving one-lane mountainside trips of the Springfield dam, each level has its own unique challenges and feel. I think my favorite level has to be the high risk/high reward industrial power plant district, with it's deceptively open parking lots to it's harsh turns and dead ends, this level always keeps me on my toes.
What? I'm just following the arrow.
Aside from the arcade mode, there's also a head to head VS mode, a time limit free mode, and a mission mode. The mission mode is disappointingly lackluster, however. It features 10 missions to complete in order, but they're all the same shit with different characters. Knock down X amount of things in under 40-50 seconds to continue. There are only 3 missions that don't follow this formula, namely a mission where Bart has to sneak Homer back to work from a baseball game, a mission where Frink and Quimby have to get back to city hall without being wrecked by Smithers and Burns, and a boss fight mission where Homer has to wreck Burns' lawn.
These missions add some variety to the mix, but again, they're all less than 1 minute of game time. That's the main problem with this game, honestly: the lack of content. Being that it's more or less a blatant clone of Sega's Crazy Taxi, (The two games being so closely related that Sega sued over it) Road Rage feels more like an arcade machine than a home console game.
I suppose the lack of any substantial content on offer can be blamed on the fact that this game was rushed out to be a launch title for the newly released Xbox and Gamecube consoles. For a game from 2001 with less than a year of work time, on never before seen hardware, I guess it turned out pretty alright. Although I would have loved to see this game had the dev team been given another year of leeway to play with the hardware, perhaps we could have seen the full open world game the devs originally built before they had to break the game into sections due to hardware and time constraints.
Note the mini-map in these two different levels
Overall, it's an ok game. It holds my attention pretty well, decent sound design, decent music, passable graphics, fun gameplay. I wouldn't pay 60 bucks for it, even at the time, but I didn't pay for it at all, so no big deal. :P