Despite its declining popularity I still have a warm damp place in my heart for The Simpsons and their universe. Or to put it another way, I'm a complete Simpsons freak, contantly torturing my friends with lines from the show and obscure Simpsons trivia (did you know Lenny and Carl's surnames are Leonard and Carlson?). I just love the show and all its characters and have extended my love to several of the Simpsons games, all of which from the first appalling one where Bart has to spray paint things to protect against space mutants, have sucked.

Strangely the most recently released Simpsons game for the Xbox 360 and PS3 hasn't graced any of my local disc drives. I finally gave it a bash over the last weekafter picking up a beaten old copy from my local video store for a mere $15 and found it to be oddly entertaining. It’s like an episode of the show you’ve never seen before but with some game bits wedged between the scenes.

Exploring the Simpson home and the scaled down Springfield game world is more fun than most of the actual game

Essentially when you play The Simpsons you’re seeing an episode of the show that you’ve never seen before in HD and that’s kind of cool. It’s what a video game based on a show should be like. Incidentally for fans the hard to come by Futurama game on the PS2 played out very similar, an episode of the show with a bunch of shooting gameplay bits mixed in.

The game opens with control of Homer as he dreams of the Land of Chocolate, the same one from season 3 episode 11 when Mr. Burns sells the power plant to Germans. This tutorial level runs through the basics of jumping and hitting stuff because that’s all you’ll do for the rest of the game. When Homer awakens from his dream you gain control of Bart as well; being able to switch between the two characters with the D pad. You begin in the Simpson home and can explore around the house before heading outside to a scaled down version of Springfield. The streets are filled with random characters, kids from school, Dr. Hibbert’s wife, Willie the grounds keeper. It seems like almost every single character who has ever appeared on the show is wandering around. In fact the only character who I didn't see wandering around spouting random dialogue was my personal favourite Hank Scorpio (From eight season, second episode titled You Only Move Twice, best Simpsons episode ever), but maybe they couldn't afford Albert Brooks to throw out a couple of one liners.

There’s a highlighted beam of light which shows you where you’re next mission is and after the first few you’ll get access to Marge and Lisa as characters as well. Although some levels require a certain combination of characters. When you activate a mission you're taken from Springfield to another location for some beat em up and puzzle solving action. It’s worth noting as well that even though the game says it’s two players you can only actually use two controls during missions, when you’re wandering around Springfield the game strangely reverts back to single player.

Boss battles don't get much more memorable than this, added bonus, the doughnut man roars like Godzilla

It’s the dozens of little things that make The Simpsons a gas to play, things like power ups turning the characters into super hero versions of themselves from the show and comic book guy appearing the first time you perform a gaming cliché like double jumping. Familiar jokes and scenarios from the show keep the momentum going but one of the best features is the games self aware plot. The characters accept at one point that they are video game characters, even meeting 8 bit versions of themselves from previous games. They discover the real enemy is evil video game megalomaniac Will Wright (yes really, the Sims creator is a cackling video game villain) and have to stop him by dropping into a number of familiar games riffed off Everquest, Medal of Honour and GTA to get a number of card keys to access Will Wright’s lair.

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The game is rife with in jokes and jibes at both Simpsons fans and gamers

Honestly the gameplay is just very okay. It’s a mish mash of simple platform and puzzle challenges that you’ve played often enough before if you've ever played a game. The developers seem to have worked to make the game as accessible as possible for non haming fans of the show who may pick it up. But the fun is almost destroyed by a truly god awful camera that can sometimes have you playing blind and often makes it impossible to judge distances, kind of a kick in the nuts for a game with lots of platforming. Some of the boss battles in the game are also unforgivably difficult and again here the camera is key in really, really pissing you off.

If you hate The Simpsons, like really hate it, then the game is going to displease you. But if you like the Simpsons you're essentially getting an hour long episode in HD, with all the humour you know and love, plus a heap of game play to keep you occupied for a few more hours. For $30 for a brand new copy that's a pretty good deal.

Oh, just so you know, you get an achievement on the 360 version just for pressing the start button, ha ha ha, classic.