Buy me Bonestorm or go to hell!
Videogame spoofs popped up occasionally in the TV series ("Buy me Bonestorm or go to hell!") but The Simpsons Game seems to exist purely to parodying the medium. As you leap around the game's sixteen or so levels, you'll run into riffs on Shadow of the Colossus, Medal of Honour, Grand Theft Auto and EverQuest. The big set piece parodies are funny but like the TV show, the real belly laughs come from the throwaway lines and quick gags ("Hey Bartman, have you ever danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight?").
The story tying the parodies together is suitably ridiculous and remarkably meta. Bart stumbles across an instruction manual, which reveals that the Simpsons family are characters in a videogame and have special abilities. Bart can become Bartman, who can glide around using his cape and use a grappling hook; Homer can inflate himself into a giant ball and do things that only a giant Homer ball could do; Lisa can use the hand of Buddha to shift bits of scenery around; and Marge can recruit the residents of Springfield into an instant mob. The game's plot twists and turns, making hilariously obtuse leaps as it works in eating contests, Kang and Kodos invading Earth again, giant advertising mascots, killer dolphins, and Mr Sparkle. It's pretty clear that the gags and parodies came first and the plot thrown together to give them some context, rather than the jokes growing organically from the storyline but it's still an undeniably funny game.
Like the best parodies, the spoofs in The Simpsons Game come from an obvious love of the things being lampooned. But there is a sneaking suspicion that The Simpsons Game emulates the games it sends up a bit too closely. Sure, having 31 hidden Game Clichés to find is funny but the question is whether delivering a cliché with a knowing wink negates the predictability or is just hiding your games flaws in plain sight.
And sweet Moses are there flaws. As an actual platformer, The Simpsons game falls to prey to some of the issues that have plagued the genre since the leap to 3D. The biggest problem by far is the camera, which seems to be determined to irritate you in the shortest time possible. If it's not giving you the worst view of the platforms you're trying to leap between, it's snapping back into the worst position possible after you've pain stakingly moved it into place. The camera constantly twitches when you need it to hold steady and then takes up a fixed position when you need to swing the view around. As an example, there's a section that involves using a gas canister to inflate Homer then manoeuvring him over to a ledge before he deflates. Fairly simply in theory but in practice a frustrating pain in the arse. You're wrestling with both Homer's altitude and the camera, so you constantly miss the ledge because you can't tell where you're going to land. There are a few sections where you feel that the game just doesn't offer the level of control you need to be able to do what it asks of you.
Even if you manage to get the camera under control, the levels you're running through aren't all that spectacular. It's not that the levels look bad per se, in fact this is far and away the best looking Simpsons game so far, with the character models and backdrops really capturing the Simpsons look (except for in engine cut scenes, which get a bit too close to the characters and make them look rough), and it's not the overall ideas and aesthetics behind the levels are anything short of inspired, it's just that the level design can be a bit dull and predictable. The game does throw the occasional puzzle at you but they're rarely complex and mostly involve combining the special powers of the two family members you're playing as that level.
If you're playing by yourself, the AI manages to to keep up fairly well, managing to pull off some of the trickier leaps surprisingly well. But they do manage to get the crap kicked out of them with frightening regularity. The combat in the game subscribes to the 'hammer one button' school of fighting but the computer controlled character still manages to get knocked onto its backside an impressive/horrifying number of times. It's not a huge problem as they'll bounce back up fairly quickly but they do seem to get knocked out at the most inopportune moments, normally when you need them to keep enemies off your back while you use a character's special power.
Obviously the AI partner problems evaporate if you have a buddy and a second controller. There's no online co-op, which seems a bizarre over sight. But then, The Simpsons Game lends itself so well to two people sitting around cracking up to the on screen action that the lack of online play isn't a huge loss. And, given how the pace of the game can take a nose dive when one player has to make an awkward leap and that patience is so very rarely a virtue exhibited by online folk, it's probably for the best.
The Simpsons game is essentially critic proof. It looks like The Simpsons, it sounds like The Simpsons (the entire cast of the show are here and are pitch perfect), and so it's going to sell like a Simpsons game. As a game, it's not particularly great but as a piece of entertainment, it's a decent but not brilliant attempt at working the family into a game.