The plot is simple if not very meta. The manual for the game falls in front of Bart and soon the Simpsons are off doing various heroic things with their new-found game powers. Foiling robberies, destroying the evils that threaten Springfield, and um... entering eating contests.
"Homer needs food badly." "Hell yeah!"Homer can eat and eat and eat, but enough about his normal routine. In the game he can turn into a giant ball, rolling around squashing enemies and breaking down walls and stuff, he has super burps which stun enemies, but can be charged up for destructive power.
(PS2: Nope, just a standard burp which always needs to be charged up, and is incredibly hard to aim with. In fact, this is the same for all the Simpsons. Basically, if you wanted to use your super attack, you have to charge it up outside a group of enemies and rush in and release. Hard to do if you're surrounded.) Later on, he can turn into a Gummi blob and shoot gummi at foes. He can also inhale helium to float for a short while. He can also pick up Insanity peppers to become invincible.
"I'm going to triple-punch combo his ugly face!"Bart becomes Bartman, with an arsenal of Bartweapons at his disposal. He has a slingshot which can be charged up for a super shot, he can glide with his cape, and use wires to cross chasms. He can also pick up a power-up to turn him into Robo-Bart.
"I'm in your airship, killing your sumos!"Lisa's power comes from the gods. Literally. By praying at Buddha statues, she unleashes an awesome arsenal of attacks. She can pick up and move large items like billboards, and drop them where she wants (within a given area...
(PS2: Thank you for removing the easy to see barrier which tells me straight away where I can and can't go.)), and later on she can knock away enemies with a flick, or shock and freeze them with lightning/ice. She also plays a mean sax, that stuns/confuses nearby enemies. Her power up turns her into Clobber Girl for a short while. (which is awesome)
"I've heard about this game. You play a mean bo-beeny, who murders other mean bo-beenys!"Marge's power is nagging... nagging... nagging... Sorry. She uses a microphone to convince crowds to do her bidding. With gusto. She doesn't have much else, apart from the standard punching attack and super attack, but she can get the crowd to gang up on her opponents. But most of the time, she's ordering them to tear down stuff and build other stuff. At certain times she can get Maggie to crawl into air ducts and solve a puzzle. Marge's power up turns her into Officer Marge, which incites the crowd to throw rocks at enemies.
"Oh God. Can't we skip this level?"In every level, (barring the tutorial, which is just Homer, and the final level which is all four), you control two of the Simpsons, (if you have a friend, they can control the second Simpsons, otherwise the CPU does it) and they use both their powers to advance. Switching between them is very easy, and the only restriction is if you or your partner is doing something like jumping or climbing. Each level is specific for two of the Simpsons, so you can't just blaze your way through with your favourite two.
The levels themselves while fairly linear, don't get boring. Enemies will swarm, and you'll often need to think to move on. And every now and then, you'll come across an old game as part of the level. (Frogger and Missile Command are good examples)
(PS2: Um... isn't cutting out these minigames from the levels sort of defeating the whole point of the game parodying video games?)Also, just about every enemy you come across will have something to say as they charge towards you, as will the Simpsons. There will even be some cases where someone on a P.A. system or such will add something.
(PS2: What the hell. Yes, we like to hear them, but when you cut out half the dialogue and then have them repeat the remaining dialogue ad nauseam every five seconds, it's ANNOYING. Bart saying "You know, with this much equipment, you'd think video games would be better" is only funny the first time round, not the seventieth. Yeesh.)I don't know if you can call it a level, but Spingfield is in it's finest video game form since
Hit & Run. A huge hub that covers most of Springfield and it's totally traversable, with numerous buildings to enter. In fact, one of Marge's levels is set on the streets of Springfield, and you can suddenly find yourself walking along a familiar part of the hub.
(PS2: Hooray! No hub! Just the Simpson's house and backyard! Excitement!)"I must hasten home so I can play my carjacking game!"There are four levels that are direct parodies of well-known games,
NeverQuest,
Medal of Homer,
Big Super Happy Fun-Fun Game and
Grand Theft Scratchy. (Yes, that's still in there) The first three come with custom costumes which can be unlocked for use outside the levels (GTS doesn't however. Probably just as well, as it's about Marge and Lisa cleaning the game up. I'd hate to think what outfits they'd be forced to wear. *shudder*) Each level accurately parodies the genre they're portraying, Neverquest has Rod, Todd and Ralph as hobbits, Medal of Homer has Homer and Bart back in the War with Sergeant Abe and Pvt. Burns (that was cool), BSHFFG has just about every Japanese stereotype you can think of, (Milhouse as the King of Cosmos is rather disturbing...) along with quite a few RPG elements
(PS2: Gah, you disabled the turn based fight segments! At least you kept them in as cutscenes...) and GTS, well it's exactly like GTA only with I&S.
"You found another cliché. Am I supposed to be impressed?"Throughout every level, there's collectables for you to collect, e.g. Homer has Duff bottle caps, Bart has Krusty stamps and so on. While you'll collect a fair whack of them first off, quite a few will require searching. Also, as you play, you will definitely encounter video game clichés. Crates, trampolines, exploding barrels, bottomless chasms. A screen with the CBG will pop up as you encounter these, and 'congratulate' you on finding something that's been in every video game ever.
"The boss?! Quick, everybody look busy!"There are a few boss fights, perhaps the most memorable one is the one against Lard Lad, though they all have their merits, especially the second last boss. However, I can't help but feel a little gypped in some areas. Listen people, if you're going to have Sideshow Bob in your game, and actually have Kelsey Grammer voice him, you DO NOT stick him in a cutscene and then knock him out with a rake. We want to FIGHT him, not giggle madly as Bob pops up on the screen suddenly and just accept this tease, which is what you seem to want us to do. The last boss was kinda fun, but at the end of it all, it still was just a minigame.
"I've died a lot of times, and I mean a lot, but it's not like I have a 'limited' amount of lives." "Infinite lives?! Then where's the challenge? What's the point if you can just keep playing forever?"The game is not without its flaws. Camera is an issue,
(PS2: Boy is it ever. You know something's wrong when you die seven times... IN THE TUTORIAL.) the humour falls flat sometimes (YES, WE GET IT. Marge incites a bloodthirsty mob to stop video game violence. It was funny. Until you had Lisa point it out at the end of it all.
) and the plot... well... it kinda worked. The ending was kinda a cop-out by having everything resolved in thirty seconds, but I can see why it was done. (To have Springfield's hub traversable again.) But even so, it was still a cop-out.
(PS2: It's even more of a cop-out on the PS2, since you don't even have a hub to begin with...) They really piled on the meta, which was okay in some areas, but sometimes I think it'd be enough to give Kenneth multiple heart attacks.
And yeah, infinite lives.
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