Seriously, this thing is just about unplayable.
For the record, I liked Simpsons: Hit & Run and would not be adverse to another game showing up along those lines. This new The Simpsons Game is supposed to be pretty much just that (sans the driving stuff)... but with the intriguing bonus of containing a lot of video game parody material.
But if you can't get the fucking camera to work right, all the HI-larious Final Fantasy and Metal Gear jokes in the world won't get me near this turd.
The demo level has Homer and Bart (you control both, in an obnoxious and unnecessary complication for a frickin' demo) dropped into the middle of a burned out Springfield, with a rampaging Lard Lad on the loose.
(Sidebar: Here's the Big Problem with Simpsons games... the same episode refs over and over and over. Oh ho ho, fucking Lard Lad, god that's great.)
There's a lot of weirdness that I'll bash shortly, but what completely kills any fun you might squeeze out of seeing Lard Lad again is that the camera never has any idea what you're trying to do. The point of the demo is to target the buttons on Lard Lad's back, shoot him with your slingshot so a hidden panel opens, then jump to the panel and tear out his circuitry. Thanks to the game's Tourette's-enabled camera, you might as well play with your eyes closed.
Example. As Bart, I climbed up the construction zone in the middle of the map. Lard Lad's buttons get progressively higher, so you need to go vertical to attack him. With much difficulty (because there are little enemy Krusty robots everywhere wrecking shop), I target his weak spot. By the time I score a hit - meaning Lard Lad stops walking and the panel pops open - he is too far away for me to glide to the panel, so I need to quick scale a different building to make the jump. And when I hop down, the camera helpfully points straight down, so upon landing I am completely disoriented and have lost Lard Lad's location and waste precious seconds finding him... so the panel shuts back up and I have to start again.
And even though that sounds like a case of the camera simply doing an overly-good job of following the player, falling three stories seems to be about the only time it ever follows you, unless you're lucky enough to be running in a straight line. Try to double-back or do a fast turn and the camera will lag or twitch just to screw with you.
Stand between buildings and inevitably you'll see nothing but solid, cel-shaded walls. Stand between buildings with a swarm of Krusty-bots around you and they'll kill you while you frantically rotate the camera to find that sweet angle that lets you see yourself. I thought we solved all of that shit two generations back.
Just forget it. Unless this demo is showcasing The Simpsons Game's parody of Lousy Video Game Camera Controls, this game is going to suck hard. And there are other reasons...
The platforming controls themselves are floaty and jumping is inaccurate. Scaling a construction beam so you can leap to Lard Lad's back is awful enough thanks to this, even without figuring in the camera screwing you up, or the Krusty hordes hitting you off your mark every second.
The punch button isn't fast enough; the character animations slow it down. You can hit the punch button a dozen times, but you'll only actually punch three times. And you'll get hit by a robot five times during all of that.
And what's up with giving Bart and Homer super-powers? I guess that's the "video game parody" bit at work. First of all, the Bart-does-Batman Bartman thing is, like, one of top five worst moments in Simpsons history. It's right up there with the terrible "Lisa, It's Your Birthday" episode. And yet each game feels the need to have Bart pull on the purple cowl every damn time. In a masterful stroke of stupidity, this particular game has the Bartman outfit only appear sporadically! You have to actually turn it on in order to do the glide jumps.
And Homer. Homer has the ability to expand himself into a huge fat ball. You know, like he does in the cartoon all the time. It's not even Muumuu Homer. It's just fat Katamari-ball Homer. The purpose of the ball mode is to smash a few very specific level elements... in this level, you smash hydrants to create an updraft of water that Bartman can use to glide. Like you couldn't just have Homer kick the hydrants over?
Just to prove that no bad idea is above being used twice, you can also have Homer suck on one of Springfield's commonly found helium tanks so he turns into a fat balloon.
The promo movie seems to indicate that you will be doing Bartman gliding and fat Homer rolling throughout the game, so this isn't even just one-off stuff that is limited to the Lard Lad Attacks level. GREAT.
But I could even give the thing a pass on all of that overtly-gamey crap. I could get past seeing the same recycled gags and scenery jokes. If only the goddamn camera worked.
Shame. Had a great Kent Brockman opening, and I'm happy to see this one go fully cel-shaded after the subtle oddity of having Hit & Run be all "realistic." But.
Consider this one off the list.
