In this review, we smash through everything in the GameCube game, The Simpsons: Road Rage. We find out how well this racing game plays.
This game was released in 2001 and is one of many games released based on the animated TV show.
The story is that Bart is playing a video game. Homer then stops him and demands to watch the news. After that, they turn on the news to find out that Mr. Burns has bought the transit system of the entire city of Springfield. He then started converting them to nuclear powered buses. In the process, he has begun irradiating the citizens who ride those buses. In response, Homer decides to start his own taxi service to buy back the whole transit system. The total they need to raise is $1 million. Homer is joined by other members of the family as well as citizens around Springfield in this quest to buy back the transit system.
There are three general playing modes in this game: Road Rage, Sunday Drive, and Mission Mode.
Road Rage is the main mode for this game. You are given a minute and fifteen seconds to start with. From there, you have to pick up and drop off as many passengers as possible. Passengers are denoted by the domed blue rings. Park within the dome and you’ll initiate a pickup. After that, you’ll be quested to go to a destination. It is marked on the mini-map. Drive there any way you feel like, but there is a pointing finger that offers you the quickest way to your destination on the main roads. So, if you don’t know the area all that well, you can follow the hands direction until you start figuring out shortcuts.
Of course, shortcuts are actually quite plentiful. Some are obvious. This includes a nice large parking lot or an open field. Others are less obvious like a small gap on the side of the road or a mound of dirt that you can use as a ramp to go over a wall. Some shortcuts are even concealed such as a drop off covered by a breakable fence. The thing with shortcuts is that they save time. The more time you save, the more likely you are to get a high score.
Along the way, you’ll encounter small bus shelters with Mr. Burns’ face on them. Destroy them to get a two second bonus to your clock.
One thing to note is that there are actually two time limits: one is for your overall time limit for the round while the other is for your passenger. Obviously, the passenger time limit is never going to exceed your overall time. If you run out of time for your passenger, then the passenger will jump out of your car and you won’t get the bonus cash for making it to your destination. There is one minor exception to this, though. Regardless, your passenger time limit will be determined by how far you have to drive.
The destination will be denoted by a square or rectangle shaped yellow line area. Stop your car in that area and you’ll successfully drop your passenger off. You’ll get a general cash bonus for a successful delivery. A slow time will net you a bonus $25. A moderate time will get you $50. A fast time will net you a nice $100 bonus. You’ll also earn cash for the time you drive from pick up to drop off. While longer trips will net you slightly more cash, you also have increased risk for getting there on time.
If you are short on time (which simply will happen sooner or later), then you can keep in mind that if you are driving at a slow page within the drop off zone, your passenger will jump out of your car as if you lost the attempt. However, because the passenger left right on the drop off zone, then you can get a successful completion anyway.
While there are standard bonuses for a successful drop off, you can get even bigger bonuses for special events. There are two special events that can trigger when you pick up a passenger: safe drive and road rage.
Safe drive challenges you to avoid hitting other vehicles. Hit three and you lose the bonus. If you successfully make it to your destination without hitting three vehicles, then you get a $250 bonus.
Road rage, however, encourages you to break objects. While it can be more challenging as the number required ranges (going up to 13 at times), breaking objects will also generally slow you down (though if you can hit a bus shelter for a two second bonus, you actually increase your time in the process). However, if you successfully complete your trip with the required number of broken objects, then you’ll net yourself a whopping $1,000 bonus.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the required trip time will get added to your overall time. Getting to your destination successfully or quickly will also net you a small time bonus of a couple of seconds. This is critical because the game is designed to eventually end your run. A great strategy, if possible, is to stop your car at the destination while guessing where the pickup threshold is for the next passenger. As a result, you will not only not lose time driving to your next passenger, but you’ll also retain both the time left over and the added time bonus as well. The biggest time loss in this game is where you search for your next passenger.
At the first part of your run, you’ll notice that time is given to you generously. You’ll easily make it to your destination even if you accidentally take a small wrong turn. Getting fast times early on is also pretty easy. However, as you get more cash, the time limitations will gradually tighten. Eventually, even driving full speed from one destination to another isn’t enough to get there in time.
This is what makes getting your first $1,000 easy, but makes getting to $8,000 so difficult. So, ideally, you’ll want to save as much time as humanly possible when the time limits are generous because those previous seconds are valuable late in the round. Also, hitting those bus shelters are huge in squeezing every second out of a given round. The shelters don’t change positions, so remembering where they are will help you make it to that $10,000 upper scoring limit.
Eventually, you’ll run out of time and everything you earn will be dropped into your total. You’ll also be able to add your name to a top 10 list if you did particularly well. you’ll also be given a rating based on how much cash you were able to earn in the round. The higher the score, the more insane your rating.
After a round or two, you’ll be given the opportunity to unlock either a new destination or a new character. New destinations will give you more variety and more places to explore. The more starting locations you unlock, the more likely you’ll find your cash cow starting location (for me, it was the Entertainment District, so I didn’t have to go far). Note that the top 10 list is for any starting location, not just for a specific location. There is generally no cash incentives to pick one destination over another – it’s just whatever location you happened to be good on.
Alternatively, you can also unlock another character. Generally, all the vehicles drive the same, but some vehicles have some minor advantages over others. Some vehicles are a little quicker like Bart’s car. Others, like Abe’s car, are small and can dodge through traffic a little easier. Then there are the larger vehicles like Willy’s tractor that can just plow through things more easily. There are certainly advantages to be had with different cars. You generally start with the Simpsons family (Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Abe). However, you can unlock a large number of different characters.
When you pick to unlock a character, the game actually allows you to pick which character you want to unlock. This is great because the lines will get old after a while anyway.
After each round, the game will save your progress.
The second mode in this game is Sunday Drive. You can pick from any unlocked locations and drive at your own pace. This will allow you to find shortcuts without the pressure of a time limit. You’ll also be able to better explore the city in the process. What’s more is that this will also give you the chance to get used to the characters vehicle.
The final mode is Mission Mode. You get a linear line of ten missions. You have to beat each mission to unlock the next. The missions are generally just you either picking someone up and dropping them off or destroying objects. Each mission gets progressively harder. The ultimate goal is to beat all ten missions.
One of the most common comments is that this game is just Crazy Taxi with a Simpsons theme. Generally, I agree. This game doesn’t offer an indicator when a passenger is a longer haul passenger or a quick short trip. This game features more breakables then I remember and the bonuses are given a little differently. Otherwise, it’s just Crazy Taxi with a different theme and more characters you can play as.
Still, it does offer a few small mission trees unlike the original Crazy Taxi game, so it has a slightly less cheap and short feel to the overall game. It’s still not that big of an overall improvement, though.
At first, there’s a nice amount of stuff to like about this game. You get to unlock characters and new locations. So, you’re always getting something new out of it. Each round is short and the unlockables just keep rolling in. After a while, though, you’ll unlock every location and the goals get longer and longer. So, it just becomes and increasingly long grind after a while. So, once you max out the locations and have your fill, you’ll realize that you still have 90% of the game left to go. It’s just figuring out which method earns you the most cash and repeatedly pounding this over and over again until you are bored.
What’s more, the track designs are not that great for the most part. There are some interesting parts on the map such as being able to cut through a gas station or smoothly zipping along a highway. Other area’s are fairly jagged and play like an early Carmageddon game.
Still, what I do like about the game is the fact that there is a fully functioning highway system complete with vehicles. If a car crashes and you happen to drive by that area a little while later, that traffic tie up is still there. What’s more is that breakable objects stay broken throughout the round. If you happen to be doing particularly well and last a particularly long time, then the city can really look like a mess. This is complete with downed signs and absolutely cluttered roads.
Probably the biggest problem with this game is the physics. This mainly revolves around collision detection. Sometimes, you’ll crash into something that you clearly missed, but the game thinks you hit that object anyway. Other times, you might slightly clip through an object. This can really be a pain especially when you got a road rage objective or are trying to evade vehicles. It also forces you to play more on the safe side of things.
Overall, this is definitely one of those games that can be entertaining at first, but after a while, does get to be repetitive. Probably one of those games that can be played in small doses, really. The collision detection is pretty buggy, the gameplay gets repetitive after a while, and the road design can be pretty hit and miss. On the plus side, the breakables is actually pretty good and the unlockables keeps this game interesting for a little bit longer. So, a fairly mediocre play in my books.
Graphically, if there’s one thing I’ve noticed, it’s that some things translate well into a 3D environment and others, well, not so much. Some of the characters who look quite good in the 2D space look, well, not that great in the 3D environment. An example might be, sadly, Lisa who just looks… odd. Mr. Burns, however, translated surprisingly well, so it’s not a universal ugliness. Just that some characters didn’t work out so well. The environment, however, is fairly decent looking. Still, there’s not a whole lot in the way of special effects.
Audio is actually surprisingly good in this game. In fact, a standout feature are the lines. While some lines kind of miss each other, the conversations can work quite well. Many of the single lines are actually quite funny. An example would be Chief Wiggum saying that the seat belts were stolen in his police car. Another is Homer, while driving, asking if he can come along too. Passenger lines can be quite amusing such as Snake wanting to go to the police station because he won something or Moe asking to go to the Low Expectations dating service. The large variety of lines really made this game quite entertaining to listen to. The music is pretty solid as well. Sound effects are fairly sparse in this game, though the jingles are quite plentiful. So, a great overall performance on that front.
Overall, this game is entertaining to play, but does get old after a little while. The grind is a particularly annoying aspect of this game when the goals start getting particularly large. Unlockables early on do keep this game reasonably fresh and the traffic system and breakables do work quite well. However, the collision detection is pretty bad in places and it does feel like a Crazy Taxi clone with little added to the overall gamplay to differentiate it. Graphics are fairly mediocre, but the audio is quite good. So, a fairly average game in the end.
Overall
Furthest point in game: Unlocked all locations and unlocked 8 characters. Beat mission level 7. Highest score: $10,171. $184,636 total.
General gameplay: 14/25
Replay value: 7/10
Graphics: 6/10
Audio: 4/5
Overall rating: 62%
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.
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