The Simpsons Game on Wii

Could have been better

JKH from Scunny , 28/11/2007

The game itself is ok, levels are fun, but the really off putting is the camera angles that you get. even the kids ddnt like them. other wise its fun an entertaining but the camera really put me off.

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Dreadful

LPope from Manchester [Highly rated reviewer] , 07/01/2008

I had high hopes for this game as I loved the Simpsons arcade game when I was a kid, which involved up to 4 players (as either Homer, Marge, Bart & Lisa) running around beating the baddies & therefore I'd thought the wii version would take on similar format. It does not. My 1st disappointment was that you can only have 2 players & even then the 2nd player literally does nothing for 90% of the time which of course makes it very dull for whoever is player 2.

The graphics are appallingly bad & this becomes all the more noticable because before the game starts a Simpsons cartoon quality clip is shown which makes the contrast between the 2 all the more stark. The camera angles are also shocking, most of the time you can't even see what you need to even if you move the character around, this makes it very hard to complete challenges especially when you have to jump from platform to platform.

If you want a platform game with challenges buy Mario Galaxy instead, everything about it a million times better. The Simpsons game is for die hard Simpsons fans only

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Hugely ironic

Danja from Tewkesbury , 28/11/2007

Games based on the Simpsons have generally, like most other licensed video games, not really been all that good. From bog-standard 8 bit platformers to the increasingly desperate cash-ins of popular genres more recently, they've always been plagued by an overwhelming sense of mediocrity and lazy development. The Simpsons Game is, unfortunately, not much different.

The script is brilliant, continually harkening back to when the show was genuinely hilarious, both with the interaction between its characters and it broad swipes at the video game industry and culture. There are parodies ranging from quirky Japanese games like Katamari Damacy to popular Western franchises like Medal of Honour and are generally incisive and funny. This is aided by the regular cast of the show providing the voices and by most of the cut-scenes looking like footage straight out of the show.

The gameplay is where things fall down though, as it's all rather average. The controls never feel particularly tight, with the button mapping and activation of certain special moves, like Bart's cape-gliding, continually not working properly. The camera seems to go out of it's way to be unhelpful, twisting to obscure jumps and platforms. The combat is rather dull and repetitive with little made of the Wii's motion control.

Throughout, Comic Book Guy will pop-up to bemoan video game cliches and while that's funny, it doesn't stop the game from actually forcing you to use said cliches to progress. The game's script plays off the idea that the Simpsons are being thrown into a mediocre video game, but ultimately, you're playing a rather mediocre video game. While I'd love to think that this is an intentionally ironic statement by the writers and developers, it seems very unlikely.

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Not Good

A customer from Northamptonshire , 18/03/2008

I was bored of this after about 30 mintues, I found the story line silly and the game play sometime pointless.

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Great promise...bit of a let down.

monkeyboy1980 from Walsall [Highly rated reviewer] , 17/07/2008

The Simpsons franchise has been one over the years that has produced a variety of games, from poor to atrocious.

There are lots of elements here that could have made this game great, beautifully animated, fun and original moments, voice acting from the shows cast, but unfortunately there are one too many flaws that really let this game down.

The first is the atrociously poor camera, it can make some battles particularly long and drawn out, and when switching between characters is usually facing in exactly the opposite direction to the one you need to be. Jumps are quite difficult in several places, and need to be timed exactly, with you standing in just the right place, which leads to several hair pulling moments.

The game parodies several others, and gaming itself, which could have been fun, but in doing so, it ends up in some places preachy and patronising, and in others it points out its own flaws.

The story for the first three quarters of the game is quite fun and interesting, but it seems to lose its way towards the end and becomes quite confused. It also seems to suffer from a need to squeeze in as many characters as possible from the world of The Simpsons, which distracts from the positive elements.

It's worth renting for a few fun days, but it's certainly not going to set the video game world alight.

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Could have been better

JKH from Scunny , 28/11/2007

The game itself is ok, levels are fun, but the really off putting is the camera angles that you get. even the kids ddnt like them. other wise its fun an entertaining but the camera really put me off.

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