The Simpsons Road Rage

Move your keister, Meister.

The Simpsons Road Rage is a shameless rip off of Crazy Taxi. Which makes me feel somewhat guilty because I like Road Rage more than Crazy Taxi. The basic premise is identical: you’re in a taxi, pick up passengers and race to their destination before the time runs out, following the guidance of a large arrow at the top of the screen. There are a few differences.

The core driving is much simpler. Spinning around and turning is very easy, but there are no special moves like Crazy Taxi’s dash. Some of the other nuances of Crazy Taxi are gone, such as how parking close but safely next to the person you pick up is important. In Road Rage, the timer pauses when picking people up, so it’s not something you have to worry about. This makes it simpler to play, so it’s easier to enjoy initially, but not as deep.

But there are things it has going for it. The game captures the style of The Simpsons extremely well, with loads of references littered everywhere. And as this was made during the golden age of the show, so much stuff was thing I still remembered, even though I haven’t seen the show for many years. The voice acting is also true to the show, and while some lines do get annoying after a while, you unlock new characters at a steady pace, opening up new interactions to listen to.

Which is another thing the game does right: stuff to unlock to keep you coming back. On top of the large cast of Simpsons characters, there are also six maps to unlock, covering various locations in Springfield. Some have things in small spaces, others are more spread out, and the Power Plant is just awful. Each map has plenty of shortcuts to discover to help you out, so learning the maps is still vital for a high score. One odd thing is that on the minimap, these maps are all connected, so I wonder if they were attempting having them all available in the Sunday drive mode. There’s also a woeful missions mode, only worth it for the cool extra car for Homer.

While the amount of copying is appalling, it’s just so much fun that you just want one more go, especially with the destruction you cause and being able to hit Simpsons characters and watch them bounce around. Again!

Fun

But beyond a few smirksome lines from the Springfielders, and the odd bout of engagingly frantic two-player action, Road Rage is disappointingly average. The graphics are straight out of the PlayStation 2 textbook, with no real feeling of solidity or finesse, and certainly unworthy of Nintendo’s glorious new console.

Steve Jarratt, NGC Magazine #68

Remake or remaster?

It would be nice to see a re-release of this in a Simpsons compilation.

Official Ways to get the game

There’s no official way to play The Simpsons Road Rage.

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