Nov 11, 2002  A Skate Tour has come to Springfield, and the entire town has gone skate crazy on the half-pipes, ramps, and rails. Super skater Bart Simpson is the favorite to win the whopping $$ Mega-bucks $$ prize of $99, but Homer, Krusty, and many others are going to show just what they're capable of when money's at stake. The Simpsons Skateboarding is an extreme sports video game based on the animated sitcom The Simpsons. It was released for the PlayStation 2 in North America on 12 November 2002 and Europe on 6 December 2002. The game was developed by The Code Monkeys and published by Fox Interactive and Electronic Arts.

The Simpsons Skateboarding is an extreme sports video game based on the animated sitcom The Simpsons. It was released for the PlayStation 2 in North America on 11 November 2002 and Europe on 6 December 2002. The game was developed by The Code Monkeys and published by Fox Interactive and Electronic Arts. The story and dialogue were crafted by writers from The Simpsons, with all character voices supplied by the actual cast.

This game has been given largely negative reviews and is considered one of the worst games ever made.

Gameplay

Springfield has been converted into a skate park for the Annual Skate Tour, full of skate-able objects and landmarks from the television series. Players are able to choose one of the nine characters available to compete for the grand prize. All of the characters' voices were recorded by the actual voice actors from The Simpsons. Each character has over forty unique moves. Players can test their skills in either a two-player head-to-head skate off, or in one of the fast and furious modes: Freeskate, Skate Fest, Trick Contest, and a game of skateboard H-O-R-S-E, unlocking additional characters, locations, and skateboards. Players can also choose to learn all the skateboard moves and tricks before they begin the actual game in the Skillz School mode.

Why it Sucks

1. Extremely weak plot; the prize for winning the skateboarding contest is $99. Which is a small amount of money when you think about it, because how are you supposed to buy a Ferrari? Or pay for a month's rent? Even the easiest objective in THPS2 pays more than this!
2. Every time you pick a character, you have to wait for that character to finish talking to show his/her stats.
3. With almost every challenge, you get rewarded with only $0.10 initially.
4. Clumsy controls don't fully copy what Tony Hawk's Pro Skater does, making the game extremely frustrating to players used to the controls in that series.
   • The worst offenders are the left analog stick used for forwarding movement which just doesn't feel natural nor even comfortable, and the L1/R1 buttons used for spinning which doesn't even work most of the time. Instead of being tight and responsive, the controls just feel slow and sluggish. The physics also don't help the least bit.
5. Poor level design that does not take combo potential into consideration. Going back to Tony Hawk, the levels had set pieces that were subtly integrated into their designs and they felt natural as a result; here though, rails and ramps are randomly plastered throughout the map with very few combo opportunities.
6. Only a handful of tricks that you can perform; there's no wallride or reverts here to extend your trick combos in any way, for example.
7. Grinding is far too easy as the balance meter will stay at the dead center as long as you don't move to the left or right while you're actually on the rail.
8. The ollie height is very inconsistent, making even simple flatland tricks hard to pull off.
9. Lengthy load times that almost veer into Sonic 06 levels (no pun intended) of long.
10. Many unoriginal goals. Like getting Ralph's golf ball out of the water.
11. Many bugs and glitches such as passing through rails.
12. The game's overall tone tries way too hard to be hip and cool, including pluralizing everything with a Z (as Caddicarus said: 'Make it more hip')
13. Kent Brockman never stops talking. For example, he constantly says the name of every trick you do. Some of his other lines are unfunny (ex. 'Somebody get a really big band-aid!')
14. Very poor graphics, comparable to an early Dreamcast game. Jet Set Radio looked better than this!
15. Poor lip-syncing.
16. No GameCube, Xbox, or PC versions exist despite the other 6th gen Simpsons games being multi-platform, not that they are missing anything from this game!
17. Recycled voice clips from Road Rage.

Redeeming Qualities

1. The voice acting is good, backed up by the actual Simpsons cast.
2. Good soundtrack.
3. You can turn Kent Brockman's voice off.
4. You can upgrade your character's stats from the Pause menu, something that even Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 and 3 didn't allow you to do.
5. Easily the best out of all of The Code Monkeys games, as at least this, along with Shrek: Treasure Hunt, is at least playable (even if it's broken) and slightly enjoyable compared to theirlater'games'.

Videos

Comments

Hayden B.

The Simpsons Skateboarding is basically Simpsons' Tony Hawk's Pro Skater ripoff. It was critically panned upon release, and at the time considered one of the worst games ever made to mankind.

• 1Unused Graphics
• 2Unused Text

Simpsons Skateboarding Online

Unused Graphics

E3 Leftovers

Leftovers from an E3 demo.

The Simpsons Cheap Skater

An early loading screen, with the game's original name, The Simpsons Cheap Skater.

No Level.dat

A screen that says 'No Level.dat'.

Unused Text

EA.FP

Simpsons Xbox Game

A seemingly random chain of numbers and letters. This is in fact the copy-protection string, which can be seen in other games including The Sims 2 and Freedom Fighters.

Unknown Tune

Text for an unknown music track.

Save Error

An error for when the file structure of a saved game changes. This was likely included for QA testers, when trying to use old saves on newer builds.

Error Messages

There are lots of humorous error messages in the executable. These are the most interesting ones.

Simpsons Skateboarding Ps2 Cheats

Simpsons Skateboarding Xbox One