The Simpsons: Hit and Run

I am so Smart. S.M. R. T. I mean- S. M. A. R. T

It might make me grimace and scrunch of my toes nowadays, but back when I was a stupid kid who just liked to see the same faces everyday on the moving picture box, there was nothing I loved more than a licensed game. We could be talking Spiderman 2 or Iron Man 2, as long as there was a recognisable person attached to the box I was all about it everyday of the week. Which is part of the reason why my back catalogue is full to the brim with the sorts of games that, in hindsight, belong in an on-fire bargain bin being wheeled off of a canyon. I mean come on; the Captain America tie in game? What was I, and they, thinking? Later years and countless burns would eventually hammer it home that 'tie in' almost always meant 'half assed', but even with that knowledge today there are some old school tie in games that I refuse to look back on with anything other than love. One of the least controversial of that number being the beloved 2003 hit game, 'The Simpson's Hit and Run'.

Who couldn't bring themselves to loving a game based on the Simpsons? Back in the early 2000's that family were pretty much the mainstays of every TV screen, even all the way across the pond and down in the cesspit which is my local community. Simpsons was as close as we got to a 'Marvel' back then, in that it was a property which every could relate under because we'd all been watching it, maybe not so much to keep up to date but enough to bond over the humorous hijinks of our favourite lemon family. I think we were just aged out of the demographic where actually quoting the Simpsons was still cool (thank god. I don't need traumatic childhood memories of me running around saying 'Ay Caramba' at people) but I, at least, was definitely far gone enough down the fandom rabbit hole that when I was presented with a box of video games, this was one which stood out like a sore thumb. A Simpsons video game? Something that would allow me to, even in that most fleeting of ways, enter the world of Springfield? Count me in.

In premise, 'The Simpsons: Hit and Run' is approachable, simple and straightforward; all it does is throw all your recognisable Simpsons lead characters into various different parts of Springfield and gives them various challenges that they can only do by driving their cars really fast and smashing things. That's about the extent of the gameplay loop and back in 2003 we didn't really ask for anything else because games could be just that basic and as long as it was handled decently we wouldn't really complain. (And even if it was handled poorly, we wouldn't know who to complain to.) Still I think that what makes this game stick out even now is simply the fact it remains on of the only games to give people their near unbridled access to the town of Springfield, where dreams are made. You get to drive up Evergreen Terrace, swing past Apu's store, and even do donuts on the Elementary School's lawn. Sure, all of Springfield is sort of warped around what looks feels like a linear race track (with shortcuts) from one part of the neighbourhood to the other, but all the important landmarks were there so who are we to say the town shouldn't be laid out like that? Seemed to work fine at the time.

Of course, any reviewer at the time, or since, has that one buzz-phrase to throw around when looking at a game like this, the one practically all free-form driving games got before Dark Souls launched and that became the comparison king of the day. "It's The Simpsons meets GTA". But is there any truth to that comparison? Well, you do drive around and smash things, and the police can get called out to pull you over (which they tend to do rather violently, and they'll throw you a fine if they catch you); but that's about the end of the similarities. There's no hard-core crime element to the story, you never actually kill anyone and as for the eponymous 'car stealing', you can feasibly do it but every single car in the world is so embarrassingly inferior to every one of yours that there's pretty much no point to doing so. But apart from that, sure, Simpsons GTA all day. (It was clearly inspired by GTA, isn't that enough?)

The story of the game is technically an original one, but with the amount of actual substance to it, I find it difficult to call it a 'narrative'. Robot wasps descend upon Springfield alongside the unveiling of a brand new energy drink 'Buzz Cola' which is eating up the airwaves and becoming widespread fast. The mystery of who is behind all of this is pretty clear from the get-go to anyone with a passing familiarity with the series, but that investigation aspect is really just the dressing, a vehicle for the onslaught of references to the series. Nearly every single mission is a direct reference to an episode or something that happened in an episode, the cars you can unlock through the coins you get from smashing things are all featured from the show, and there's even alternate costumes you can (and sometimes are forced to) buy from similar origins. In this way, Hit and Run was just a celebration of Simpsons culture and fandom, pointing lovingly to series highs whilst handing out little anthropomorphic blue berries and saying ' 'Member when Marge was a cop? 'Member?'.

My favourite part of the whole experience when I was a kid was the exploration, as I slightly hinted, because as with many other adventure titles of the time, this game was a collectathon and I just couldn't get enough of that noise. Climbing up Bart's famous Treehouse, (it's always bigger in the show) jumping atop Apu's secret rooftop garden, trying to navigate ceiling propeller fans in the nuclear plant; all of this was nectar to a Simpsons fan like me. And the fact that every chapter not only put you in charge of a new character with their own set of outfits and vehicles, (from Homer, Bart, Lisa, Marge and Apu) but also moved you to a new parts of town so that there always more to see and collect the whole way through the campaign, was just everything to little me. Even cooler than that, the final area is a homage to the non-canonical part of Simpsons 'Treehouse of Horror', which means a Springfield filled with zombies! If only more big open world games realised the potential of adding zombie modes onto their games. (Red Dead Redemption 2 and GTA V)

Simpsons Hit and Run would go down as a classic, even amidst the deluge of Simpsons games that hit us in the early 2000's, with it remaining the gem of it's age and console. In fact, the reason I started thinking of it again recently was because of a Youtube video the other month of a coder who just sat down and remade the framework of the game in a week, stitching the entire game world into one map as he did so. (A fascinating watch if you're interested in the building blocks that would go into such a project) Yet with all that love, and considering the game is about 18 years old now, one might wonder why the game never got a sequel. Well, one was actually in the works for a time, before it was killed by, who else could it be, EA. Radical Entertainment would pretty much dissolve shortly after the release of Prototype 2, with mass lay-offs, and the studio would be drafted into working on Destiny under Activision. Whatever's left of them now, they aren't going to be making Hit and Run 2 anytime soon.

So a sad ending to our little celebration blog, but that doesn't mean we can't glow in the brilliance of our nostalgia. Unfortunately, nostalgic memories is about as far as we can legally go with it, because no one has the rights to the game and thus no modern gaming storefront sells the thing. (Although the PC files are said to be floating around the internet somewhere, for anyone who might find that information interesting for whatever, totally legal, reason.) But whilst this was easily the most beloved, Hit and Run is not the only Simpsons game floating around out there from this golden age of PS2. In fact, there's a whole bunch of them, and I played a lot of them, so stay tuned for the next few weeks as we take some time out to go on a trip down a rollercoaster of memories. And yes, I played the bad ones and the really bad ones too. Lacking any way of playing the game again to see how it holds up today, I'm forced to give Hit and Run my utmost recommendation for those that haven't played it. Perhaps not to modern day Simpsons fans, as they'll find little they recognise here, but to anyone with a heart for the basic games of yesteryear. Just bear in mind it can get a little frustrating near the end. (Those finale timers are no joke.)