The Simpsons: Hit & Run Review

With regards to sound effects, there really isn’t a whole lot to this game. You will hear the car engines, you will hear impacts with basically anything you crash into, you will hear car horns, and you hear the impact of you busting open anything that is destructible for the coins that you can obtain. But none of these are really new so nothing ever really stands out in terms of the overall experience. But nevertheless, they are there, and serve their purpose, but don’t really expect to be wowed by anything. They do what they need to, and that’s really enough to satisfy any Simpsons fan.

Overall, the voiceovers are very good, and each are done by the corresponding actor who takes the role of each character on television. The music, while odd sounding in some areas, does a great job of keeping you in the game and maintaining the entertainment level. The sound effects aren’t anything special, but like stated previously, they serve their purpose.

This game features 3 main engines of playing, and to keep this section as organized and flowing as possible, it will be broken up into 3 different sections, driving, foot navigation and main missions!

Driving: Now this game could obviously be compared to the Grand Theft Auto franchise, because you can take control of pretty much any vehicle you come into contact with. But where this game differs from GTA is the fact that if you don’t actually “own” the car yourself, you simply get in the passenger seat of a vehicle and have the original driver of the car take you where you want to go! Now that doesn’t mean you actually have to “tell” the person literally, you just drive whatever vehicle you’re in with your Simpsons character in the passenger seat.

There are a handful of vehicles that will eventually be at your disposal the further you get into the game. You can unlock new vehicles by either purchasing them from sale booths with your coins that you can obtain a number of ways, or you can unlock them through participating in 3 hidden circuit races under each set of missions! It doesn’t matter how you net them, but if you want to progress through the story, you almost HAVE to just because you need a faster or more physically dominant vehicle to accomplish some of your objectives.

Now you might think of this as a hassle, but it really isn’t. You can switch vehicles at pretty much any time, you simply have to visit a phone booth to do so, and when you do, the car will appear right next to you ready for use! Now if you actually destroy your car, you will have to pay a small fee to get it fixed before you can use it again, but normally it’s not really detrimental to your funds to actually have to do that.

However, what IS actually similar to GTA when it comes to this game is the very reason why it’s called “Hit & Run.” You do have a meter on your screen, and every time you do something that could be considered “a crime” such as hitting innocent pedestrians walking down the sidewalk, hitting others’ cars and taking out other peoples’ property, your meter will begin filling up. If you manage to fill the whole thing up, you will trigger a “Hit & Run” sequence. During such, Officer Quimby will basically come after you full force either by himself or with a backup unit or 2 and will do everything they possibly can to stop you dead in your tracks! If they manage to stop you dead, you will be tagged with a pretty hefty fine, and you will have to go from there! No you don’t actually go to jail, but making up that lost money certainly isn’t any easy task!

As much fun as it is sometimes to cause needless destruction, it’s in your best interest to stay away from filling that meter at all times!

As for how the game controls with all the various vehicles, it really couldn’t be any more realistic and smooth. Bigger vehicles such as Marge’s personal SUV are clunky, difficult to control and very resistant to physical damage. But other vehicles like Bart’s space shuttle vehicle and some of the more luxurious looking vehicles are fast, very nimble but VERY susceptible to the slightest bump into anything! Even bumping Bart’s space shuttle vehicle front end into a mailbox can cause his windshield to crack!

Foot Navigation: If you couldn’t figure out the title means walking on foot and running, then we have problems here. But hopefully with having passed that, we can get into what is encompassed in this field of gameplay!

You are basically free to go wherever you want on foot, and this is actually how you obtain most of your money and destroy most of those “flying bee cameras” that were mentioned earlier. A lot of the environment in this game is interactive and destructible, including crates, mailboxes, trash cans and even vending machines! Each character basically has “kicking” motions that are what are used to destroy these items for your money, as well as those bee cameras. Each character can also jump, and that’s how you get to the harder to reach places that might contain hidden unlockables and those inconspicuous bee cameras that don’t particularly like to “show themselves.” Kind of ironic isn’t it?