| The Simpsons: Road Rage (Rated T for Teen) Do you often find yourself quoting episodes of The Simpsons? Do you have every episode aired in weekly syndication programmed to record on your TiVo? Then �The Simpsons: Road Rage� is the game for you. I have absolutely no clue why this game has gotten such bad reviews in other publications. It�s an awesome game. Essentially, it's the same type of game as �Crazy Taxi.� You drive around, pick up passengers, and get them to their destination quickly for a big fat reward. Just like �Crazy Taxi,� right? Well if you�d think that the Simpsons would stop at being just a �clone,� you�re dead wrong. While Crazy Taxi seems satisfied with four drivers and cars to choose from, "The Simpsons: Road Rage" has at least 20 characters and even more cars to pick from. All of the drivers and passengers have amusing one-liners that will have you laughing out-loud, just like in the show. If you liked the music in �Crazy Taxi 2,� which I don�t see why you would, then you don�t want to play Road Rage. While Crazy Taxi 2 recycled the same 3 songs off of the Offspring�s �Americana� album over and over again, �Road Rage� uses music that sounds like it�s off of the show. So "Road Rage" isn�t nearly as annoying when it comes to the music as �Crazy Taxi 2.� Of course the game has its flaws, which I�m sure is what other reviewers killed the game over. It�s very glitchy, sometimes your car will journey through scenery and become trapped, ruining a game. Sometimes you�ll become fused to other vehicles. Sometimes the characters dialogue doesn�t happen fast enough, so the dialogue tries to play catch-up to the rest of the game. Another problem is there aren't enough cut-scenes as I would have liked there to be. In this day and age of high power game machines not having enough movie scenes can be bad. Also, with all the talent from the show that Electronic Arts managed to secure, you'd think they could have gotten some of the animators from the show to make some of the cut scenes, but no. The CGI cut-scenes were great, don�t get me wrong, however it�s awkward to look at the Simpsons characters in the third dimension when they could have just made an animated segment and put it in the game. And to top of the list of ways in which "The Simpsons: Road Rage" is lacking, the Two-player mode is far from challenging. You have to beat your opponent in collecting fares, but it�s not even necessary to stop the car, so it�s more like a game of capture the flag. If they had put in another month of work it would have eliminated at least 70% of these problems. It is really sad that they were in such a rush to get this game on the market that they let all these glitches slide. Is this game worth buying? Well I bought it and I thought it was great. However if you are extremely picky about game glitches or can�t stand the Simpsons, then this game might be just a one-time rental. However this game is just too good to not play it at least once. Back |
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