Simpson's Road Rage
Score: 97% ESRB: Teen Publisher: EA Games Developer: Fox Sports Media: 1/0 Players: 1 - 2 Genre: Mission-Based Driving
Graphics & Sound: What happens if you take a brilliantly successful cartoon series, and bring it to the PS2 via the hip Toon Renderer technology? You get a mighty fine looking game, if you ask this Simpson's fan. If you don't ask this Simpson's fan, then Simpson's Road Rage still looks awesome! First and foremost, the characters had to look like they do in 'real life.' Radical took care of their end of the deal by making ALL of the characters look rip roaring good. From Snake's wavy hair, to Monty Burns' scowl, the characters all look like they've been cut and pasted right onto the console. Each of the cars the characters respectively drive are hilarious as well. Marge drives a beautifully-rendered Canyenero , while Apu cruises around in his sports car. Of course, what good is a good driver and car, if you don't have a good city to drive around in? A map-like Springfield (that's to scale for all you cartographers out there) invites you to drive on its litterless streets, and accommodate the citizens with rides to their various destinations (a la Crazy Taxi ). As you progress, you can unlock different drivers and areas. While driving, you can hit virtually everything, and this too is a testament to the graphics. People will dive out the way, but for the unfortunate slower citizens, they go flying into the street as Janitor Willie plows them with his tractor. If you find yourself going headlong into a wall, then the screech marks will bond with the road, and be there for the rest of the level. I really appreciated such a great attention to detail for such a fun, toony game. Apart from the horns, braking, and overall superb city sounds, you have the voice-over which is done with the original talent. The voice-overs totally take Simpson's Road Rage over the top! They are excellent. To hear Ralph say: 'The leprechaun tells me to burn things,' is absolutely classic. The music is appropriately toony, with the zany theme song peeking its way here and there all through the game. Simpson's Road Rage is a well done game, especially trying to mimic the cartoon. Everything was in its proper place, and when a guy like me, who practically craves Simpson's cartoons, sees something so impressive... well, let's say I whoop and holler' like a two-year old.
Gameplay: The gameplay is step for step with Crazy Taxi . For those of you unfamiliar with this style, it basically translates to driving a car around as a main character, picking up a customer, following an arrow to the customer's destination, and dropping them off for money and time. The more money you earn from 'delivering' more customers, the further you progress in the game. The gameplay initially juts off of the fact that Mr. Burns has closed down the Springfield transit system, and is charging ridiculous fees to ride his nuclear buses (he's the owner of the nuclear plant in town). Of course, this outrages the citizens, so they take up arms, or cars in this case. Simpson's Road Rage has Road Rage Mode which allows you to earn money and complete the major portion of the game. Mission Mode is for anyone that wants a direct goal-oriented game without having to pick up customers. Things like knocking over newspaper stands strewn about town are some of the agendas at hand. You can go Head to Head Mode if you like to challenge your friends in a little driving mayhem. Or for those of you that want to relax, and take a congenial drive around the block, try Sunday Drive Mode. There are no goals, or time limits to this Mode, and it's generally nice to explore so you can find short cuts and efficient routes to use during Road Rage Mode. In Road Rage Mode, as you progress (by progress, I mean earn a certain amount of money), you can unlock over 30 characters, and 6 new areas. Unfortunately, there is no Night at the Opera Mode, where you can strap on a pair of ballet slippers and dance the night away. Alas, I have as much fun as a bowl full of jelly when I play. Replayability is good.
Difficulty: Simpson's Road Rage is neat in that no matter how much of an amount you have left to go to unlock someone, there is no limit to how you do it. For instance, to unlock the last character, I believe I had to make a ludicrous amount of money. Well, I did it in relatively few tries, while my friend did it in much more. We both got our playing time's worth out of the game, and it wasn't too hard where either one of us gave up. The only semi-difficult thing is the Mission Mode, where the time allotment can be a bit stingy at times. That being said, SRR is by no means too easy either. It's a fun game, that's meant to be entirely fun. It provides enough challenge to keep you on your toes, but nice enough to be accomplishable. If you do find that it's too easy, then there are Easy, Normal and Hard options, which cuts the amount of time you have down. The controls are very responsive, and adjust pending on the car you drive. Otto's school bus will NOT handle as impressively as Moe's sedan. Radical definitely put some thought into this one, and it is intertwined just nicely with the graphics and sound.
Game Mechanics: The camera angles are as smooth as a freshly poured glass of chocolate milk (or Orange Juice for all you citrus lovers!). The controls are extremely easy to learn, and are probably only trivial to newborns and mealworms. The manual sets you on the straight and narrow, giving you all the information that you need to know, while making it an amusing read as well. Granted, its no Harry Potter novel, but a good read nonetheless. Everything is here for a high scoring game. The only thing that really killed me was the horrendous load times. IF you're impatient, then this game will drive you batty. Usually I'll snip at load times, but in Simpson's Road Rage , it's really annoying to have to wait for the PS2 to have to load this game for such a long period of time. Here comes Christmas. Riot Rundown: All the elements were here for a great Simpson's showing. This game is downright fun. If I had to pick between SRR , and skydiving lessons, I'd take the lessons, but only because the load times held this wonderful game back a tad. If you are a fan of the series, or just love a fun little, recreational type of game, strap yourself in, because you're going to enjoy the ride.
-Sydney Riot, GameVortex Communications AKA Will Grigoratos
Rugby 2002 State of Emergency