| The Simpsons: Road Rage | |
| Developer: | Radical Entertainment |
| Publisher: | Electronic Arts Fox Interactive |
| Series: | The Simpsons |
| Released: | PlayStation 2 Xbox GameCube Game Boy Advance |
| Director: | James "Vlad" Ceraldi |
| Designer: | Carey Du Gray |
| Composer: | Christopher Tyng Tomoyoshi Sato (GBA) |
| Genre: | Vehicular combat |
| Modes: | Single-player, multiplayer |
The Simpsons: Road Rage is a 2001 racing video game based on the animated television series The Simpsons, and is part of a series of games based on the show. It was released for PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube. A Game Boy Advance version was released in 2003.
The game stars Homer, Marge, Bart, and Lisa, as well as Mr. Burns and several other characters from the show. The Simpsons: Road Rage is similar to Sega's 1999 video game Crazy Taxi, in that the main objective is to drive picked up passengers to their destinations as quickly as possible. These similarities led to Sega suing developer Radical Entertainment and publishers Fox Interactive and Electronic Arts for patent infringement, though it was settled before going to court. The game was met with mixed reviews from critics, many of whom pointed out its bare-bones Crazy Taxi mimicry and poor graphics. A spiritual successor, , was released in 2003 and also developed by Radical Entertainment.
The Simpsons: Road Rage is based on the animated television series The Simpsons. In the story of the game, Mr. Burns has bought all transit systems in Springfield and has begun to create radioactive buses that threaten the public health. Because of this, the citizens of Springfield must use their own vehicles as a means of safer public transport. Their goal is to earn money in an attempt to pay back Burns, get rid of his radioactive buses, and return the town back to normal.[1]
The main form of gameplay, titled "Road Rage", is an arcade-style taxi game where the player chooses a character from The Simpsons and earns money by picking up passengers and taking them to their destinations within the shortest possible time. The quicker the player is able to drop off passengers, they are rewarded with higher ratings and more time. Regardless of how the player performs, passenger ratings deteriorate and time will eventually run out, ending the session. After each session, if the player meets a certain threshold of earnings, they can choose to purchase one out of twelve new Simpsons character drivers accompanied with their own vehicle, or one out of five new starting locations.[1]
While playing, players have to avoid certain hurdles, such as other vehicles, Burns' nuclear transit buses, or Burns himself, who occasionally rams his limo into the player's vehicle. Each character, depending on if they are familiar with their passenger in the series, will often share a comedic or referential exchange. When the player unlocks all locations, characters, and earns one million dollars in earnings, they effectively cease Mr. Burns' transit system and are shown a special cutscene.
The other form of gameplay, titled "Missions", are ten consecutive missions set within the games five locations, where the player is assigned a character and tasked with a vehicular objective. In order to complete missions, they must complete them within a limited span of time (such as protecting Krusty the Clown from a fan mob by driving him away, getting Homer to his workplace unnoticed, or mowing over mascots as a drunk Barney). When all missions are completed, the player is awarded with the vehicle "Homer's Own Car" to select in "Road Rage", in reference to the vehicle designed by Homer in the 1991 episode, "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?".
There is also a multiplayer mode in which the two players compete to pick up the same passengers and drive them to their destinations.
Depending on which date the player's console is set on, the player will be able to choose a character with holiday-oriented vehicle, such as "Christmas Apu" or "New Years Krusty", among others.[1]
The Simpsons: Road Rage was developed by Radical Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts. The PlayStation 2 version was released first, on November 19, 2001 in North America, and the Xbox and GameCube versions followed in December of that year.[2] The cast members of The Simpsons reprised their roles for the game. Voice samples original to the game, as well as one-liners from the show, can be heard in Road Rage.
A version for the Game Boy Advance, developed by Altron and published by THQ, was released in North America on July 3, 2003. THQ reached a publishing agreement with Fox Interactive in 2002 that gave them the rights to publish this version and a Buffy the Vampire Slayer game. Germaine Gioia, vice president of licensing at THQ, said "The Simpsons and Buffy properties have enjoyed tremendous consumer appeal in nearly every product category, including video game successes. Both properties will serve to further bolster our leadership position on the Game Boy Advance."[3]
The music track heard during the "Sunday Drive" gameplay mode is a loose remake of American funk band Con Funk Shun's 1977 song "Ffun".[4]
The Simpsons: Road Rage received "mixed or average reviews" on all platforms, according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.
Amer Ajami of GameSpot said that the PlayStation 2 version "suffers from a number of problems, not the least of which is bad collision detection. You'll often find yourself clipping a corner of a building or slamming into another car even though you have room to spare." Ajami was also disappointed with the extremely slippery and overly sensitive control. Ajami added, however, that fans of the show should enjoy the game.
IGNs David Zdyrko said of the same console version that "the gameplay just isn't deep or compelling enough to warrant picking this title up unless you absolutely MUST have every single product with The Simpsons plastered on it." Zdyrko also criticized the graphics, stating that the "framerate chugs in some of the levels when there are a lot of cars on screen and the textures are generally low resolution and completely bland." Zdyrko also said the "hilarious voice samples" were the "lone bright spot" of the game, although he admitted that some of them can get a bit repetitive.
NextGen said of the Xbox version, "It's strange. Crazy Taxi is great, and The Simpsons is great, so the two together should be gaming magic, right? Yet the result is less than the sum of its parts. In the end, Road Rage is significant only as the most shameless incident of design burglary in recent memory."
By July 2006, the PlayStation 2 version had sold 1.6 million copies and earned $41 million in the U.S. NextGen ranked it as the 25th highest-selling game launched for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, or GameCube between January 2000 and July 2006 in that country. Combined sales of Simpsons console games released in the 2000s reached 5.2 million units in the United States by July 2006.[5] The same console version also received a "Platinum" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA),[6] indicating sales of at least 300,000 copies in the U.K.[7] The game has a total of at least 3 million copies sold.[8]
During 2003, Sega, creator and owner of the Crazy Taxi franchise, filed a lawsuit against Fox Interactive, Electronic Arts, and Radical Entertainment, claiming that Road Rage was a patent infringement of the former as both games feature nearly identical gameplay and objectives with the Crazy Taxi game engine. According to IGN, "Road Rage features similar game play, to the point where some reviews commented negatively on the parallels."[9] The case, Sega of America, Inc. v. Fox Interactive, et al., was settled in private mediation for an undisclosed amount.[10]