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Doh

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: December 09, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I really wanted to enjoy "The Simpson's: Road Rage" because I am to the point where I pity the "The Simpson's" license in the context of the incredibly competitive video game world. The last string of "Simpson's" games have been nothing but complete, almost unplayable disasters. It's not saying a whole lot when I hear people are raving that "Road Rage is THE best Simpson's game!" Yes, it is the most competent "Simpson's" game undoubtedly but still somehow manages to a sad, highly unoriginal bore.

"Hello. Am I speaking to the legal department of Electronic Arts? Yes, this is the legal team at Sega America and we are just calling to let you know that we are suing you breaking copyright." How that call never happened is beyond me. "Road Rage" rips EVERYTHING from the stellar Sega hit "Crazy Taxi" except the fun! Considering Sega's title is way over a year old so it's very peculiar that "Road Rage" in no way, shape or form decides to build on the "taxi" formula and make it into something of it's own. Yes, "Road Rage" has arguably better graphics (considering the hardware leap from Dreamcast to XBOX, it's nothing to write home about), many more vehicles and arenas, faster gameplay and the occasional hilarity of "The Simpson's" license but the gameplay surprisingly is nowhere as fun, challenging or deep as Sega's "Crazy Taxi."

There are 4 gameplay modes: Road Rage, Sunday Drive, Mission Mode and Head to Head. The premise of "Road Rage" is simple. You choose one of various Simpson's characters, drive around picking up various Simpson's characters and drop them off as quickly as possible while listening to audio excerpts of the characters dialog repeat. Depending on how quickly you delivered your passenger the higher the pay you receive. Sounds mighty familiar hey? This cycle is fun for about an hour then torturous soon after. "Road Rage's" in game clock is incredibly inconsistant and will sometimes give you less then 5 seconds to get your passenger to their destination a few blocks away when you still have a fair amount of time left of total game time or it'll give you 40 seconds to drive one block; it flat out kills the fun. Sunday Drive is exactly what the title implies; driving around town with no time limit or objectives exploring the arena's whatnots. Mission Mode is a pathetic, abundantly unfun exercise in running various objects over within a set amount of time. Head to Head is the only reason to play this game. The 2-player madness can be very entertaining but Head to Head has lame restrictions and doesn't flow as seemlessly (I mean this very loosely) as the 1-Player experience.

Cars or characters - which ever you want to call them - handle one of three ways. There are the fast cars are extremely touchy (Apu's Sports Car), balanced cars that have a satisfactory top speed and handle adequately but sound like they are stuck in second gear (Marge's 4x4 Canonaro) and the slow, borderline useless clunkers (Auto's School Bus). Most people will find themselves sticking to the unforgiving, speed orientated cars because once mastered (which doesn't take a whole lot of time) domination is inevitable.

The arenas range from o.k. to barely playable. "Evergreen Terrace" and the "Entertainment District" are the most balanced levels and the majority of gamers will find themselves playing those two most often. While their premise is novel arenas like "The Springfield Dam" and "Springfield Mountains" are too difficult to navigate due to their immensity and poor level design. "Downtown" suffers from sporadic slowdown and frame-rate dives that create a slightly nauseating experience. Roads in these are too narrow and hitting the side of the course can bring your cars to a complete stop. Not to mention Mr. Burns and his entirely spastic "atomic buses" blocking the road entirely and pushing your car into walls will leave an extremely bitter taste in your mouth.

Graphically "Road Rage" in really nothing to get excited over. The colorful, Simpson'esque atmosphere is suiting but visuals aren't as crisp as one should expect from the XBOX. There is a minor texture blur that reminds me a great deal - to a lesser degree - of the graphical style of the N64 title "South Park."

I am really happy the voice actors from the TV series recorded some new material for the game. I am really annoyed that they recorded so little. Phrases are very funny the first 10 or so times, but by the time the second or third game loads up using the same character you will have had it. Lisa, one of my favorite character on the show has very few things to say and soon becomes unmistakably irritating. Same can be said for the almost the entire cast of characters.

Lastly I have to touch on how unacceptably glitchy "Road Rage" is. I've had cars get stuck on walls, in the middle of the road and occasionally get stuck onto another car. Sometimes I had to quit the game because my car was wedged indefinitely. The collision detection needs a great deal of work. I can't tell you the last time I played a game where if you got enough air time you could fly through background scenery into gray, video game limbo and float there until your time eventually expires. Also the load times, which are nowhere near as horrible as the PS2 version's, are still noticeably bad. Consider how low tech this game appears and how powerful the XBOX is, the time spent at the "Now Loading..." screen is utterly unsatisfactory. "Road Rage" has "rushed" plastered all over it.

Don't waste your hard-earned cash on this uninspired rip-off. I heard Sega will eventually port "Crazy Taxi 2" to the XBOX. I recommend investing in the originator, not settling for a half-baked designer imposter.

junk

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 10
Date: August 20, 2002
Author: Amazon User

this game stinks the gamecube one is so much better

It's a chore to play

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 7
Date: March 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game stinks. The graphics of the people are okay, but the rest of the world stinks. The point is to hear people say stupid things pointlessly. Then you drive them to places and they pay hundreds of dollars. The cars don't even flip over. It's extremely repetitive. Hey haven't driven you somewhere 10 times already? That's what you'll be asking yourself. You have to do the same thing over and over again and get money. Then once you have the money you pointlessly buy people or areas. The worlds are terrible, but just like the T.V. show. Don't waste your money and get excited when you buy it, just don't even bother. Don't just try my review though, look at all the others on this site.

Yet another lousy licensed game

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 13 / 19
Date: December 11, 2001
Author: Amazon User

The Simpsons: Road Rage is, at best, a Crazy Taxi wannabe. This is the worst title I've played on the Xbox yet. The Crazy Taxi premise is okay - CT is one of my favorite games - but Road Rage suffers on many levels.

The voice talent, while authentic, is very limited. Characters start repeating phrases within the space of a single run. It's annoying.

The graphics are a cross between bad cel-shading and an intern's first attempt at 3D extrusion. Blech.

The load times before and after each run are insane. I wonder if it's not a result of a "simple" port from one platform to another. This game was clearly not designed to take advantage of the Xbox's memory or graphic capabilities.

Rent it, play it, then get it out of your system - literally and figuratively.

Simpsons License wears off too soon

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: December 21, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I rented this one and I'm glad I did. You might enjoy a rental, as well. If you absolutely love The Simpsons (like me) and think there's no way you wouldn't enjoy anything Simpsons related (come on, you've got the first season on DVD, don't you?), you will still be disappointed. If you aren't convinced, I still say rent it, just so you are sure.

It is not as horrible as Simpsons Wrestling. This game is at least playable. Still, it never feels like you are driving a car, however, or any of the other vehicles you supposedly drive. It's more like you are just pivoting an arrow on its axis and pushing a button to move forward and backward. No I'm not expecting a sim experience like Project Gotham, but at least a driving experience, like Crazy Taxi.

After you unlock a few levels, you'll get bored. It becomes even more repetitive than Crazy Taxi ever did. The most ardent Simpsons fanatic might insist on unlocking the relatively large cast of characters, and who doesn't want to drive Homer as Mr. Plow?

But the fun wears off. In a short time, you'll have heard all the banter of every character and gotten over the fun of driving around a very sparsely detailed Springfield. Not that all the Springfield landmakrs aren't there, they just look terrible. Once you've played Halo, you expect a little more than buildings that are nearly flat shaded boxes. I hear this looks better on Xbox than PS2, but that's not saying much.

I think the development team also made a major mistake trying to make the Simpsons a 3D world. It looks funny. Your Simpsons heroes don't look right. If you have the First Season DVD you've heard (in the commentary) that the show producers realized early that the 2D side perspective of faces were so much more expressive than the other views they tried in that first season. A similar view holds for this game. The Simpsons Road Rage would have looked beautiful if done in the style of Cel Damage. Cel Damage's engine does 3D but it looks flat, like you are watching a cartoon. It is absolutely stunning in that perspective (gameplay problems in that title aside). The Simpsons Road Rage would have benefitted greatly just by using a similar engine and graphical feel.

When you finish a level you'll be irritated that they couldn't have the real Krusty voice give you your rating. Instead, you get a horrible imitation. You'll also wonder why you have to view a loading screen (on the Xbox no less!) to go from the game to your summary screen. Crazy Taxi on the Dreamcast didn't even do this!

You'll also realize that the key to unlocking items has nothing to do with your ability to play the game. You just play long enough and you'll eventually unlock it all. But it won't matter if you get better at the game.

This is a game unworthy of the Xbox. However, the Simpsons tie-in is not too bad. I would suggest renting it for a week and getting your fill of Simpsons laughs. Hence the two stars.

Disappointing

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: April 09, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I have been a simpsons fanatic for the past 5 years and am humiliated by this ...video game. for 1 thing the Simpsons is a great show so it shouldnt have a scummy video game like this one. they must have been on a low budget making the game. Here are 5 good reasons why this game shouldnt have been invented 1. The graphics are bland, their entrances to the car are absurd. (Hans Moleman doing a flip into a car?!) 2. The mission mode is unbelieveably sinchy. 3. They dont even have all of the characters. (No Patty + Selma, no Julius Hibbert, No Lenny + Carl to name a few) 4. The lines get dull + repetitive in 10 minutes and most of the lines are from old simpsons episodes. 5. This is just [an]... imitation of some game i forget the name of........ oh yeah, CRAZY TAXI!!!!!! I rest my case.

This game is a rental (from a huge Simpsons fan)...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: December 11, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Graphics are well done, although you'll never get the level of character detail found on the actual Simpson's cartoon... Gameplay is very straightforward although I was able to get the car "stuck" easily by going off some jumps and flipping over.

However, the game lacks the depth that games SHOULD possess for the XBOX platform... there are only 5 town areas and they are very quickly covered. Replay value is very low. Characters are well done (although they all have the same animation patterns). The voiceovers are the best part of the game in terms of entertainment value for Simpsons fans("Thank you, come again" -Apu)...

Good program, Bad game

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: April 25, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Same old, same old. If you played Crazy Taxi, then you played Simpsons Road Rage. The olny good thing about it is the voices.

Doh!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: January 15, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I initially held off getting Simpson's Road Rage after some mediocre reviews. Well, after this self-imposed waiting period, I finally broke down and bought it. Man am I sorry I did! The graphics don't take advantage of the Xbox's capabilities. The controls are buggy. Most annoyingly, as much as I like the Simpsons, the phrases are too repetative and the gameplay is just plain boring! Save your money. Rent it if you have to, but do not buy it. Shame on you Electronic Arts for spoiling Springfield! Jebediah Springield would turn over in his grave if he saw this.

Don't Buy It

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 4
Date: June 10, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This game is a waste of money. It is ok for 2-player mode if you're waiting for the glue to dry on an RC plane, but other than that, it is a bad game.

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