Price: £39.99 Players: 1 Widescreen: No Dolby Digital 5.1: No 60 Hz: No The Simpsons: Hit & Run follows on from last year's Road Rage game, although that one was released any time between 2001-2003 depending on which platform you chose. The show has really dipped in terms of quality in the last few years, but this game still retains the original style of humour that makes all the early seasons continually worth watching. All it takes is the usual catchphrases, not endless, pointless appearances by famous people we don't care about and have no real relevance to the show. Basically, this is a mission-based driving game with various sub-missions along the way. It's very GTA3/VC-inspired with slightly different controls in some respects, such as the reverse button, so I would've liked an option to change them. You'll also collect coins along the way and there are various things around town that you can smash into, kick or simply jump up and down on like Crash Bandicoot

You'll play as various Simpsons characters starting with Homer and each level is preceeded with a humourous newspaper front page, such as level one's picture of Homer and "Local man ruins hot dog eating contest - contestant disqualified for vomiting" plus the extra sideline, "Study: 90% of video games start with easy tutorial level." Initially, Bart will take you through the tutorials, which can be turned off, and before long you'll come across the numerous catchphrases such as when Homer picks up a coin, "Mmm.. brain likes shiny things."

In fact, here's a slice of more references to past shows I found soon after starting to play the game. There's "Behold Frostillicus", where Jasper the blind man stored himself in Apu's freezer to be thawed out some time in the future, Milhouse shouting, "I swallowed my retainer.", Nelson the bully laughing, Homer's Muumuu outfit, for when he ballooned to 300lbs so he could claim as disabled and work from home, and also his Chosen One outfit from when he became the leader of the Stonecutters club. In Moe's bar you can have a go on the Love Tester and in Apu's Kwik E Mart, play "Larry the Looter" (well, see Homer fail as he did in the series). In fact, there's a massive amount of gags that relate back to individual episodes so are providers of plenty of hilarity for real fans fo the show.

The graphics are fun and colourful, but will no doubt look a tad better-defined on the Xbox release. The sound is frantic and includes everything you know about the TV show in terms of the theme and extra episode-specific moments here and there. Anything bad about it? Well, there's limited scope of vehicles and the catchphrases spoken by by the cast tend to repeat themselves quite often. There's also no real depth to the challenges laid out before you. Still, on the plus side it really does engage your attention and it's actually always interesting which is more than can be said for most recent games, and will have all Simpsons fans coming back for more. For those who watch all the repeats regularly (since most of the new episodes are woefully lacking), you'll love this. Non-Simpson fans may as well get Grand Theft Auto Vice City since they won't begin to appreciate the effort that's gone in here.

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Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2003.