Let's not beat about the bush and get straight to the obvious: Simpsons Skateboarding is diabolical. It doesn't take a genius to work out that licenses like this are hacked together in fifteen minutes by marketing 'geniuses' just before they all knock off to some seedy club for the evening. As a fan of the Simpsons for as long as I can remember, it irritates me that some fabulous characters have to be put through the mill like this - just leave it alone.
D'oh!
'First of all, we'll take Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and ruin it.' And they have; using the RenderWare engine, the designers have proceeded to suck the basic - and I mean basic - mechanics of THPS and present them to the unwitting audience with all the style and grace of Liam Gallagher taking ballet lessons. On each level there are the usual assortment of objectives required for unlocking subsequent levels like letter collecting and object locating, although unlike THPS there is no clock for the session, only for individual challenges. Accompanying each level is a trick tutorial and a competition round, although the latter is unreasonably hard due to the former's complete inability to be of any use to anybody whatsoever, only teaching you the simplest of grabs and grinds which are printed in the manual anyway.
Nov 14, 2002 Players can go for broke in five, fast and furious modes, including: Freeskate, Skate Fest, Trick Contest, Skillz School and a good game of skateboard H-O-R-S-E. The more you skate, the more. Nov 13, 2002 I played it once and to this day I have not picked it up again. This is no advanced skateboarding game like the Tony Hawk's series and it isn't a likable Simpson's game like 'Hit & Run.' This game is slow, annoying and extremely hard to control. I don't recommend this to any Simpson fans, any skateboarding fans, I don't recommend this to anyone.
The stages are huge, but perversely this is another down point as timed challenges (e.g. find five kids skipping school) become ridiculous goose chases trying to find objects in the over-large levels. Despite the enormous working space, the level designers also seem to harbour a complete inability to create a decent skating line and so interesting combos are an extreme rareity. However, even if the developers had been able to design properly, the controls are so damned unresponsive that you'll be hard pressed to pull off even the most rudimentary of lines, particularly with a mysterious manual function that seems to make its own mind up as to whether or not it's going to work.
As if the gameplay weren't bad enough, it's coupled with some of the most truly abysmal graphics we've had the misfortune to see moving in a long time, and a whimsical non-event of a soundtrack - why couldn't they have incorporated the proper Danny Elfman theme and elements of a decent comedy cartoon score instead of shoving in some dodgy pieces of synthetic Ska crap which sound like they were hashed together in five minutes with Dance eJay? The voices are the game's only saving grace for about five minutes, until the spot comments from your boarder and the constant repetitive quips of commentator Kent Brockman begin to grate as much as the rest of the game.
Make it stop!
It's a simple conclusion really: avoid at all costs. Simpsons Skateboarding is a cash-in in the purest sense of the term. There are barely any redeeming features, it's practically devoid of any humour, the graphics, levels and physics are terrible, and it simply exhausts any entertainment value it does harbour in about five minutes flat.
2 /10
| The Simpsons Skateboarding | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | The Code Monkeys |
| Publisher(s) | Electronic Arts |
| Artist(s) | William Brand Daniel Hughes Paul Hunter |
| Writer(s) | Tim Long Matt Selman |
| Composer(s) | Christopher Tyng |
| Series | The Simpsons |
| Engine | RenderWare |
| Platform(s) | PlayStation 2 |
| Release |
|
| Genre(s) | Extreme sports |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
The Simpsons Skateboarding is an extreme sportsvideo game based on the animatedsitcomThe 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 story and dialogue were written by writers from The Simpsons, with all character voices supplied by the cast.
The game was widely panned by critics and is considered one of the worst video games of all time.
Gameplay[edit]
Springfield has been converted into a skate park for the Annual Skate Tour, full with 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.[1]
Development[edit]
The Simpsons Skateboarding was developed by The Code Monkeys and published by Electronic Arts (EA) under license from Fox Interactive. Before EA made an official announcement about The Simpsons Skateboarding, an advertisement for the game was featured on the back page of the instruction manual for The Simpsons: Road Rage, and on in-game billboards, which was released in 2001. There were no mention of a console in the advertisement and no gameplay details were revealed. In November 2001, EA representatives said they were not ready to comment on the product.[2] On 16 May 2002, a few days before the E3 Media and Business Summit, they released the first information about the game.[3] All of the characters' voices were recorded by the actual voice actors from The Simpsons.[1][4]
Reception[edit]
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The Simpsons Skateboarding received 'unfavorable' reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.[5] It was criticized for its chunky graphics, poorly recorded sound and music, lack of skateboarding tricks, and poor controls whilst the in-game dialogue were mixed.
Andrew Reiner of Game Informer said: 'Never before have I seen a developer put forth such an effort to secure the Worst Game of the Year award. I'll even go as far to say that this may very well be the worst PlayStation 2 game on the market.'[9] Kevin Murphy of GameSpy said that 'The Simpsons Skateboarding should be a case study in bad game design.'[11]
References[edit]
The Simpsons Skateboarding Trailer Videos
- ^ abc'Shred and Grind Springfield in the Simpsons Skateboarding for the PlayStation 2 From EA and Fox Interactive'. Business Wire. 14 November 2002. Retrieved 20 August 2016.
- ^IGN staff (27 November 2001). 'The Simpsons Go Skateboarding'. IGN. Retrieved 20 August 2016.
- ^Smith, David (17 May 2002). '[The] Simpsons Skateboarding (Preview)'. IGN. Retrieved 20 August 2016.
- ^'Here's a nostalgia inducing list of skateboard games'. Magneto. 8 November 2015. Retrieved 8 November 2015.
- ^ ab'The Simpsons Skateboarding for PlayStation 2 Reviews'. Metacritic. Retrieved 20 June 2013.
- ^Marriott, Scott Alan. 'The Simpsons Skateboarding - Review'. AllGame. Archived from the original on 14 November 2014. Retrieved 20 August 2016.
- ^EGM staff (January 2003). 'The Simpsons Skateboarding'. Electronic Gaming Monthly (162): 176. Archived from the original on 14 May 2004. Retrieved 20 August 2016.
- ^Taylor, Martin (1 January 2003). '[The] Simpsons Skateboarding'. Eurogamer. Retrieved 20 August 2016.
- ^ abReiner, Andrew (December 2002). 'Simpsons' [sic] Skateboarding'. Game Informer (116): 123. Archived from the original on 12 January 2008. Retrieved 20 August 2016.
- ^Davis, Ryan (26 November 2002). 'The Simpsons Skateboarding Review'. GameSpot. Retrieved 20 August 2016.
- ^ abMurphy, Kevin (2 December 2002). 'GameSpy: The Simpsons Skateboarding'. GameSpy. Retrieved 20 August 2016.
- ^Valentino, Nick (24 November 2002). 'The Simpsons Skateboarding - PS2 - Review'. GameZone. Archived from the original on 8 December 2008. Retrieved 20 August 2016.
- ^Smith, David (19 November 2002). '[The] Simpsons Skateboarding'. IGN. Retrieved 20 August 2016.
- ^Rybicki, Joe (January 2003). 'The Simpsons Skateboarding'. Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine: 132. Archived from the original on 29 March 2004. Retrieved 20 August 2016.
- ^Rubenstein, Glenn (25 November 2002). ''[The] Simpsons Skateboarding' (PS2) Review'. X-Play. Archived from the original on 25 November 2002. Retrieved 20 August 2016.
- ^Boyce, Ryan (25 October 2002). '[The] Simpsons Skateboarding'. Maxim. Archived from the original on 24 November 2002. Retrieved 20 August 2016.
The Simpsons Skateboarding Trailer For Sale
External links[edit]
- The Simpsons Skateboarding on IMDb
- The Simpsons Skateboarding at MobyGames