The Simpsons: Hit & Run

The Simpsons: Hit & Run is an action-adventure video game based on the long-running American animated sitcom mh:besttvshows:The Simpsons, developed by Radical Entertainment and published by mh:crappygames:Vivendi Universal Games. It was released for the Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox on September 16, 2003, with a Microsoft Windows version released two months later. The story and dialogue were crafted by writers from The Simpsons, with all character voices supplied by the actual cast.

Plot
The story follows the Simpson family and their friend Apu, who witness many strange incidents that occur in Springfield: security cameras, mysterious vans, crop circles, and a "new and improved" flavor of the popular soft drink Buzz Cola (which causes insanity). When the family takes matters into their own hands, along with the help of Apu, they discover numerous shocking secrets, and soon realize these incidents are part of a larger alien conspiracy.

Why It's Radical

 * 1) You can play as the main cast of The Simpsons series like Homer, Bart, Lisa, Marge, and Apu.
 * 2) The gameplay is the same thing like the Grand Theft Auto series and make it kid-friendly (or at least toned it down significantly). Hit & Run, inspired by the Grand Theft Auto series, shares some similarities with the games, including the radar, and a strong focus on their driving aspect.
 * 3) Hardcore and fun levels.
 * 4) The game allows you to skip missions if you fail a mission five times, except for the final mission which it expects you to complete in one go. This is good if players find a mission too frustrating and is good for kids.
 * 5) A good story that involves the Simpsons trying to stop aliens from turning people into zombies by using a new soft drink called Buzz Cola.
 * 6) Great voice acting with all of the cast reprising their roles.
 * 7) There are 64 vehicles in the game with most ranging from normal cars to more recognizable ones like the Car Built For Homer, Mr. Plow, and the Family Sedan.
 * 8) There are secret vehicles that are only found in levels that can not be accessed normally by phone booths nor by carjacking civilians apart from if one of your game are completed 100% and then do the “Unlock all Cars Cheat”. These range from an ATV to a Monster Truck.
 * 9) In each level there are Collector Cards that are collectible items. Seven cards are located in each level and each card makes reference to an episode from The Simpsons. After collecting all collector cards in a level, a race track based on that level is unlocked in the bonus game mode.
 * 10) There are other collectibles including environmental gags that are scattered all over each of the seven levels of the game that the player can interact with to make something funny happen, and wasp cameras that are a type of camera disguised as a huge flying wasp that the player must destroy to collect.
 * 11) There are side missions in the form of street races that when completed rewards the player a car. There are 3 kinds of races.
 * 12) *Time Trial: The player has to complete laps while going around in the same area within a time limit.
 * 13) *Circuit Races: The player has to become first in a 3 lap race, racing with 3 (or 1) CPU(s).
 * 14) *Checkpoint Races: The player has to pass through all checkpoints on the racecourse and finish first, racing CPU(s). Each one becomes harder in every level.
 * 15) The game is really funny and has the spirit of the show.
 * 16) When getting 100%, you're allowed to drive backwards on the bonus courses, and on some consoles, lets you use a special cheat code that enables you to call otherwise-unobtainable cars from phone booths, such as the Milk Truck and the Black Alien Sports Car, and PC users get a cheat code that lets you play as any character model used in the game.
 * 17) A lot of callbacks to previous Simpsons episodes especially in characters in-game dialogue.
 * 18) Great soundtrack.
 * 19) There are phone booths that can be used to call upon any vehicle the player wants. If a certain character is associated with the car, they show up as the driver with the player character as a passenger. However, if the driver is featured in the level as either an ambient or mission-critical NPC, then the vehicle spawns without them.
 * 20) There are plenty of mods which most of them are fun such as car mods, character mods like Mario Bros., Sonic The Hedgehog, The Incredibles, etc.
 * 21) *The Donut Mod 4.0 (by Donut Team) adds a whole new campaign and extra content and improvements to the original game.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Some missions are really difficult, with the most infamous examples being the missions "Never Trust a Snake", "Set to Kill" and "Alien "Auto" Topsy Part III". "Set to Kill" in particular has a very tight time limit.
 * 2) The game has very little variety as most of them have to do with following someone, outrunning them, collecting a set number of items (mostly by crashing into a vehicle), destroying a vehicle,
 * 3) The PC version is missing a lot of effects due to Radical was not able to port every piece of the code over.
 * 4) The PS2 version suffers from a slightly choppy framerate.
 * 5) The graphics/textures haven't aged too well.
 * 6) The game was slightly rushed to market, leading to mediocre graphics as previously mentioned, as well as part of level 7 being left out.
 * 7) The game has padding in the since of having to force the player to grind for coins to buy specific clothes and vehicles.
 * 8) Aside from explaining how Bart is kidnapped (in the final cutscene, no less), Level 2 has absolutely no relevancy to the plot. Bart spends the first three missions trying to get his hands on a copy of the Bonestorm 2 video game, then suddenly shifts gears to helping Professor Frink build a Truckasaurus, neither of which actually play into the aliens' plan.
 * 9) * Level 1 is also like this, with the only story relevance being the opening cutscene and tutorial mission and Homer helping Marge destroy the copies of Bonestorm 2, setting up Level 2.

Videos
ie3XG8bjMEU aCl3l7J1u8I