The Simpsons: Hit & Run

Save Springfield! By car. By foot. By the seat of your pants.

NA release: 16th September 2003
EU release: 31st October 2003
JP release: N/A
Developer: Radical Entertainment
Publisher: Vivendi Universal Games
NGC Magazine Score: 80%
Mods Used: Widescreen Code

The big Simpsons game, heralded as GTA for kids and well thought of even after all this time. While it was fun revisiting the game, it doesn’t really have the depth deserving of it’s status, and is more an expansion of Road Rage with a small amount of platforming thrown into the mix.

The vast majority of missions are vehicle based. You either drive to a location (sometimes times), chase cars or avoid cars. The CPU drivers are terrible so it’s easy to get them stuck somewhere to destroy them, and to evade them, you just bash them into an awkward situation and drive away. Luckily , the driving itself is a lot of fun, especially as you can bash into pedestrians and smash objects along the way and send them flying (it’s fine, they always get up and walking away, even the kids).

The main reason for being on foot (other than walking into buildings for a few objectives) is collecting coins across each level. You’ll need a ridiculous amount to buy required items and it’s not recommended to buy anything extra until the end of the game, as the aren’t actually enough coins in the levels to unlock everything, you’ll have to grind smashing respawning objects or constantly redo races to get enough. Throughout the game, you’ll be asked to buy a specific car or item and it really hampers the flow of the game.

The levels themselves are “open world” at first glance, but once you get used to them, you’ll realise that each one is a loop with a couple of built up areas. There’s a ton of fun references and sparkles will mark pieces that you can interact with and they’re still enjoyable to drive around. However, there’s only three, with them repeated at different times or the day to make the different chapters, where you’ll play as Homer, Bart, Lisa, Marge and Apu, with Bart and Homer getting second chapters.

Hit & Run is a game that’s a lot of fun to play the odd spurt in, mowing over Simpsons residents or kicking Millhouse down the street as Lisa. The voice acting is great (although lines repeat a lot, especially in some missions with the same line immediately following itself), and it’s a really fun novelty. But the game itself? It’s rather basic.

Fun

There’s also a lot to be said for the simple pleasure of making the Simpson family behave appallingly badly. Each character has a couple of attacking moves, which are only supposed to be used for kicking the spy cameras or breaking money crates while on foot. But they’re handy for venting your frustration on the good citizens of Springfield.
Martin Kitts, NGC Magazine #87

Remake or remaster?

A remake would be good, preferably with a more balanced coin collection.

Official Ways to get the game

There is no official way to buy The Simpsons: Hit & Run