The Simpsons: Road Rage for the GBA

Author's Rating:

Pros: Doh!

Cons: Eat my shorts

The Bottom Line: 
Only Krusty the Clown would enjoy something like this.

Author's Review
The Simpsons: Road Rage is just another bad racing game that tries to use 3D on the Game Boy Advance. It’s part taxi driver and part demolition derby as you have to deliver passengers to their destination while racking up points doing stunts and picking up items. This could have been a lot more fun if it weren’t for the technical limitations of the GBA.

In this game, you start out playing one of the main members of the Simpson family, then as you progress you can unlock other drivers and maps. You have several different modes of play, but the main part of the game involves you playing as a driver who must ride around looking for passengers and taking them where they need to go. There’s many different ways to rack up points/money, and this amount goes toward goals that help you progress through the game. There’s nothing new here, really.

The worst part of this game is the graphics. Not that the vehicles and people don’t look like they came out of the cartoon, but rather the layout of the driving tracks. The problem is that you can’t tell where the barriers are because the entire track is flat. You can be driving along and think you have a shortcut and end up running into an invisible wall. It’s basically just trial and error to see where you can go that’s not on the main road. Since most of your destinations are not on the main road, it makes the game navigation aggravating and takes a lot of fun away.

Because of the way the maps are laid out, it makes controlling the game a real pain. If you get stuck trying to get past a hedge or wall, you will have to bump all over the place until you find a way out. Since the game is played on a timer, you can easily lose out by taking one wrong turn.

The graphics do at least use the same basic color scheme from the TV show, so everything is bright and colorful. When you have a passenger in the car, it shows a little box with their facial expression to let you know how impressed or unimpressed they are with your driving. Too bad there’s no voice effects, like Homer saying ‘Doh!’ whenever he crashes into something. The music sounds like it came from the show, but the sound effects are nothing special.

Finally, there’s the awful password system. I hate it when GBA games make you write down passcodes instead of building in a savegame routine. This game makes uses a pictograph instead of numbers or letters, so you have to either write down the character’s names or draw a rough photo. It’s just one more aggravation that makes the game less fun.

In the end, The Simpsons: Road Rage just isn’t very fun on the GBA. From the limitations of the graphics to the hassle of keeping track of your progress, it’s just not worth the effort. The GBA just wasn’t made for this kind of game.