Review: The Simpsons

Saxamaphone.

Grade: C+
Time Spent Playing: Around five hours

It should be noted that had the Simpsons game started out with a Hostel parody in which Lisa is gruesomely murdered I probably would have given it an A++. Tragically, EA did not have the wherewithal to make my common sensical suggestion a reality. What's more, they actually force you to play as Lisa. Ignoring the urge to send a bullet barreling through your brain everytime you hear her proclaim "Girl Power!" is a mini-game in and of itself.

Which takes me to my larger problem: Why am I playing anyone but Homer? Homer Simpson is late 20th century's sole addition to the ongoing endeavor of western literature. Marge is fine as his foil but after hearing the same intentionally bad joke 20 times over, you forget the intent of the writers and realize it's just bad. Lisa is Lisa, and if you can't intuit why she sucks you probably should swallow some tacks or something. Bart is ok, and is probably necessary because it doesn't make much sense for Homer to interact with myriad of kid characters from the show, but in all honestly he stopped being cool when I turned 13 or so.

Yes. Homer is who we crave to play.

The Simpsons is an action/puzzler/platformer. The puzzling is its strongest element. The fighting is infuriating as the characters' melee attacks are so limited and unpowerful and their ranged attacks have a seriously limited ammo supply. The platforming is ok, but never great. That's the overall impression of this game. It never works the magic that truly good games do. I had to literally play the game in 30 minute intervals lest I get too bored. All the pieces are there, they're just not working as they should. Taste the mediocrity.

The graphics are pretty good, though they really should have have drawn thicker lines around the characters to help them pop out and to reduce the jaggedness. I was playing in 1080 resolution and the lines still didn't look clean.

The saddest part: I don't remember laughing more than a handful of times during my entire play through.