Clarity Potion

Hit and Run is a game about driving cars, smashing things, collecting stuff, buying stuff, and doing outrageously dangerous and illegal errands for people across Springfield because they asked nicely. Not only is it the best Simpsons game ever made, but it’s also one of the best GTA-style games ever made too. The dialogue, the music, the care put into this game’s version of Springfield, and all the things to do and collect come together to form a timeless masterpiece that people of all ages can enjoy. Licensed games don’t often do well, but in Hit and Run’s case, everything came up Milhouse.

Story

Above all, writing and delivery make Hit and Run stand out among a sea of GTA-style games. The dialogue is consistently funny, whether coming from one of the five playable characters (Homer, Bart, Lisa, Marge, and Apu) as you hurtle around town, the many NPCs you encounter on your travels, or the pedestrians who yell at you ineptly as you run them over or kick them in the shins. The script, despite not being written by the showrunners, is damn close to the show’s quality. The only indication that it wasn’t is that the comedy leans a little more on the silly side than the show does, a forgivable flaw considering all the characters are voiced by their actors from the show. If you’re a Simpsons fan, or were, this fact alone should be enough to entice you into getting this game immediately. The plot begins by laying out several intriguing mysteries. A swarm of robot cameras that look like bees descend on the town and start spying on people. A bunch of black vans with cameras on their roofs also appear and also start spying on people. These mysteries form the starting points of a plot that gets progressively more ludicrous later in the game. As you progress you’ll do errands for characters across Springfield. These can range from simple things like picking up groceries to slightly more morally questionable things like destroying a bunch of cars (presumably with people inside them) because their radio signals are messing with Professor Frink’s giant killer robot. Whatever the context behind a mission is, the solution usually involves recklessly driving at high speeds, smashing up other people’s cars, and stealing things that fall out of the backs of trucks. Part of the comedy comes from the fact that, in the world of Hit and Run, reckless driving is a totally normal solution to most of life’s problems. The absurdity of the missions is almost 4th wall-breaking, but the game somehow manages to play it straight, which makes Hit and Run’s video game logic even funnier.

Springfield

Hit and Run takes place across three maps. Some maps are reworked in subsequent levels, giving the game seven levels in total. When a map is revisited, parts of it are changed: the time of day, characters, gags, coin placements, pedestrians, cars, costumes on sale, shortcuts, and many aesthetic details. All these changes make revisited levels look and play slightly differently. It can be enjoyable to notice how they differ. That being said, it’s still disappointing each level doesn’t have a map of its own. Every map is doughnut-shaped except the seventh and final level, which is line-shaped. Driving along the main route through each level thus inevitably leads you back to where you started. Attached to the main routes like icing on a doughnut are shortcuts, on-foot areas, and indoor areas. The streets are littered with destructible objects, pedestrians, ramps, big glass windows (which are very satisfying to smash through), spanners to fix damaged vehicles, and conveniently placed telephone booths to call for new vehicles when needed. The maps may be small, but they contain a lot of interactable stuff and a lot of sights to see. It’s impressive how many iconic locations from the show they could fit inside this collection of relatively small maps. It may not be as impressive as a fully open world, but considering the technological limitations the developers had at the time, the developers should be commended for creating what is still the biggest and most detailed rendition of Springfield in a video game. On top of all this, each level has its own music, as does each mission. Every track is catchy as hell and sets the tone perfectly for careening around Springfield with a callous disregard for the law.

Gameplay

Each level has seven main missions, a bonus mission, a time trial race, a circuit race, and a checkpoint race. The objectives in each mission can be grouped into six categories: Race, Collect, Destroy, Follow, Evade, and Go Somewhere, often under a time limit ranging from generous to a little bit tight to haha fuck you. Technically, there is also a ‘don’t crash’ objective, but it only exists in the final three missions where you must carry a barrel of nuclear waste without dropping it. Almost every mission focuses primarily on driving, although some basic platforming sections also exist. Platforming adds variety to the game, and it’s nice to be given a reason to get out of the vehicles every once in a while, but the controls – particularly of the camera – are too awkward to be used reliably. It’s no surprise that the platforming sections are so few and so simple. Completing bonus missions unlocks one vehicle each, and completing all three races in a level unlocks another. Each level also has three vehicles and three costumes for sale and comes with a default vehicle too, making for a total of seven new unlockable vehicles per level. And then there are the non-unlockable vehicles. Each level includes four traffic vehicles you can hop into and control, plus one hidden vehicle for an additional 35 vehicles. Some vehicles come with their owners occupying the driver’s seat. When you enter such a vehicle, the driver is not kicked out. Rather, you take control of the car with them in the driver’s seat, as if you’re playing as them. This gives you a much larger cast of characters to listen to as you drive beyond Apu and the four playable members of the Simpsons family. Each vehicle has different speed, acceleration, toughness, and handling stats. These stats determine how each vehicle feels to drive and what purposes they’re best used for. The hoverbike is fast, but it’s hard to control and a single crash at high speed will often result in an explosion. The school bus is quite slow, but crash into another vehicle at top speed and it will be annihilated. When destroyed, most vehicles turn into burnt-out metal frames. While these things are pretty useless as means of transportation, it’s hilarious you can drive them at all. They serve as a great example of a feature with little gameplay value but is nevertheless great fun. To buy vehicles and costumes, some of which are needed to progress the story at certain points, you need to collect buzz cola coins. The most lucrative sources of coins are in the boxes, vending machines, and robot wasps scattered throughout each level. Each level also contains several gags that, when activated, trigger a reference to the show, plus seven collectable cards containing yet more references. All this purchasable and hidden content, in addition to all the things there are to see and all the characters there are to talk to, makes thoroughly exploring each level very rewarding, especially for completionists and die-hard fans of the show. As for difficulty, I wouldn’t say Hit and Run is hard. My younger self, though, would strongly disagree. While the early missions can be beaten easily, some of the late-game missions have extremely strict timers. One mission, for example, tasks you with collecting twenty-six items. Eleven of these fall from the back of a truck. The truck can sometimes get stuck, stopping it from dropping anything. The rest of the items are spread throughout a huge open area requiring you to get out of your vehicle and jump across rooftops. You’ll probably be very short on time the first time you do this. But that’s okay, you’ll tell yourself. The mission should end after I collect these items. It doesn’t. After collecting all the items from the back of the truck and the rooftops, you must return to where the mission began–on the other side of the map. You’re not given any extra time to do this. The game expects perfect efficiency from you from beginning to end. As a kid, this mission was almost impossible. But as an adult, I find it relatively easy. Maybe even too easy. While playing it, I wished the game would throw more challenging missions at me. Since the game was made primarily for kids, however, the difficulty level is appropriate. Many kids may have struggled with some of the later missions, but they’re not so hard that it isn’t reasonable to expect a child to do them if they just put their mind to it. Speaking of difficulty, the police are absolute maniacs. Whenever you damage something or hurt someone, the bar around the minimap will fill up a little more. When it fills completely, the police will spawn and start chasing you down. Only one car will chase you at first, but from the fourth level onwards you’ll be chased by two cars. The police are hard to avoid. They’ll often come at you from unavoidable angles and ram you into walls. If they get you to stop or slow to a crawl, you’ll be fined fifty coins,. The substantial consequences of being caught, combined with their high speed and relentless aggression, make them a terrifying force to be chased by.

Conclusion

The Simpsons: Hit and Run is a timeless classic. The size of the maps may have been limited by the technology of the time and a development deadline that was shorter than the developers wanted, but the compromises they made were good ones; they worked around their limitations to make a game that captures the spirit of a fully open world game without actually being one. Despite some late-game problems with mission objectives repeating a few too many times, the writing, gags, art style, music, rewarding exploration, vehicle variety, and attractive collectables make Hit and Run not only one of the best licensed games ever made but one of the best GTA-style games of all time.