Introduction: Bored already with the games he bought yesterday, and his underage purchase of 'Grand Theft Scratchy' snaffled by Marge, Bart's day starts to look up when he discovers a game manual for 'The Simpsons Game' which describes his, and the rest of his families, super powers. Meeting Homer - about to make his own entertainment with some other of Bart's confiscated goodies (a copy of Swimsuit Monthly and a BB gun) - they set off to try out their powers by apprehending the town bullies Jimbo, Dolph and Kearney who look like they're planning to wreck the Natural History museum. Chaos ensues as each family member and their super power is introduced, until the slobbering aliens Kang and Kodos invade. It's then up to our favourite dysfunctional family to defeat them and save the day.

GamePlay: This is a pretty standard platformer (albeit imbued with classic Simpsons comedy throughout). Each episode has you take control of two of the family members (occasionally three when Maggie gets a brief look-in crawling through air vents during Marge's sessions). And as mentioned earlier, each character has special powers that get enhanced as you play through the game. Bart (as 'Bartman') uses his cape to glide around, can fire a grapple & slide down wires. Homer can turn into a big fat 'Homer Ball' which can roll around causing major devastation, especially when combined with a Homer Slam. Lisa can stun enemies with her sax playing and can also meditate at specific locations to create a 'Hand of Buddha' which she uses to levitate and move objects around or smash enemies. Marge uses her megaphone to incite the mob to do her bidding (like smashing up the 'Grand Theft Scratchy' advertising boards. In between levels we're treated to a little cinematic scene to move the story along. These look pretty similar to the style of the Simpsons Movie and are nice touches.

Some of the sections are incredibly easy, while others are incredibly frustrating - mainly being caused by the infuriating camera. Jumping from platform to platform can be hit & miss because you can't see where you're supposed to be going and you'll either over or under jump, plummeting to your 'death' into the lava/water/poisonous gunk/whatever. Although you don't actually ever die - you just end up a little way back ready to try again, and again, and again. At the end of each level you'll be told how many times you died - but there seems to be no real incentive to keep this low. And there was no way I'd replay a level just to see if I could do it with losing less lives.

Dotted around the levels are various pick-ups, targeted specifically towards certain characters. Homer has beer caps, Marge has discount vouchers, Bart has Krusty tokens and Lisa has Malibu Stacey tokens. Collect them all and you'll get a trophy. Again, after the first couple of levels I just couldn't bring myself to bother with the all the character switching and searching involved. I didn't really care whether I got them all or not.

The game contains a few special 'Wii Moments' - minigames vaguely appropriate to the level you're on, where you use the Wii controls to do things like snatch plates of food before your opponent can get to them. After a couple of goes they're really not worth bothering with.

Control: Controls are pretty standard fare, with rather spurious use of WiiMote shakes & flicks to invoke the special attacks. The game has serious camera issues which can make certain sections incredibly frustrating as you either can't convince the camera to point in the right direction, or, it veers about as your running along causing you to walk off the edge of a platform. Control of the camera is through the D-Pad, with centering possible (sometimes) using the Z button. But, it's sluggish and unwieldy and often just makes things worse. The B button is used for attacking and sometimes feels a bit weird - I would have preferred it to be the A button myself.

Graphics: The Simpsons Game looks a whole lot like the Simpsons cartoon - and that's a good thing. Characters and backgrounds are drawn really well and the character animation is superb. I love the way Bart hops off the top of a ladder. Some of the shine got knocked off for me though during the between-level animations as these are movie quality and it left me wishing that the in-game graphics were of the same level.

Sound & Music: The audio quality of the game is great, with game characters being voiced by the voice cast from the show. It sounds just like you're playing through a real Simpsons episode which to be honest is exactly what it should sound like. Level specific music and sound effects are also spot on. One thing that grated on my nerves after a while though are the phrases uttered by your and other characters. Once you've heard Lisa wonder if there will be time to do her homework for the 20th time you will seriously not care! I suppose it is one of the problems of giving characters one-liners to voice every now and then. You will eventually run out of 'new' content & the choice is either to start repeating or shut up - my vote is to shut up!

Final Comments: If you're a Simpson fan then this is a must buy, although whether the Wii version is the best to get is a moot point. You'll love guiding your favourite characters around the streets of Springfield and spotting all the references. If you're not a Simpsons fan, well, then you probably wouldn't be interested in this game anyway and you should probably steer well clear.

Pro: Great writing; funny, funny, funny;
Con Irritating controls & camera; underneath it's a pretty average 3D platformer;
Final Score: 6.5

Reviewed by: Douglas Andrews