Review: The Simpsons Game (DS)
Score: 82
Argghh! Break out the beer and the pizza - it's Homer, he's brought the family and he's got his own game!!
It's hard to put a score to this because it depends on whether you're a hard core Simpsons fan or not. If you are, then you're in heaven, with hundreds, if not thousands (literally) of voice samples (one liners and plot content), recorded by the original voice artistes.
If you're coming to the Simpsons from scratch then a) where have you been? and b) you need to know that this is a fairly straightforward and not that exciting platform side-scrolling multi-level game.
Taking the role of each of the four family members in turn (though often with more than one in tandem), you use their special 'powers' (e.g. Homer gets fat and rolls(!), Bart can climb, Marge can talk(!!), and all can throw punches) to defeat the cartoon baddies and reach each level's objectives.
There are cartoon cutscenes that link everything together and if you collect everything (usually food) on a level then you not only get to advance, you also unlock an extra or mini-game. Speaking of which, the best is pet-Homer, a spoof of Nintendogs.
So what we have here is half a dozen hours of smooth-scrolling platform gaming, underscored by almost nonstop chatter from the Simpsons cast, providing a great atmosphere along with some appropriate digital music.
It's not the greatest game title ever, but the voices alone are worth me bumping it up to a credible 82%.