After 18 years on TV, The Simpsons made a flawless transition to the big screen. But their crossover into gaming has been a much bumpier road. Up until the recently-released The Simpsons Game, past efforts simply threw a yellow skin over some lame driving or skateboarding games.
OK, the way old four-player Simpsons arcade game totally ruled. But even the best of the 21 previous efforts, Simpsons Hit & Run, squandered its Grand Theft Auto-inspired premise. Yes, there was a virtual Springfield, but it never really felt like you were living in it. Plus, the driving missions were totally out-of-place.

What fans want is to be able to walk out of 742 Evergreen Terrace and wander about the familiar small town--see what’s on the church sign, throw a few strikes at Barney's Bowl-A-Rama, grab a squishee from the Kwik-E-Mart or play nicky nicky nine doors on the stupid Flanderses. The Simpsons Game isn’t quite that perfect Springfield sandbox, but it comes pretty damn close.

With brightly crisp cell-shaded graphics that look even better than the show’s early seasons and about 8,000 lines of dialogue (around a season’s worth) spoken by the real voice cast, there's considerable temptation to just wander around chatting up the likes of Prof. Frink, Uter and the Bumblebee Guy or otherwise revel in the Simpsons minutia onhand.

But there is a game in here as well--albeit one with a piss-poor camera, loose controls and absolutely no ambition to break new ground in gameplay. It’s actually rife with gaming clichés--you can tell because every time you see a wooden crate, exploding barrel or conveniently-placed pressure pad, Comic Book Guy shows up to mock the game.

The whole shebang is a savage parody of the gaming industry with each level satirizing different genres, from WWII shooters and massively-multiplayer RPGs to Dance Dance Revolution and Super Mario (complete with green transport pipes and Nintendo sound effects). Plus, there‘s an awesome subplot about controversial videogame Grand Theft Scratchy and Marge’s hypocritically violent attempts to get it banned.

Meanwhile the overarching storyline--penned by show writers with a surprisingly strong handle on gamer in-jokes that go from Gauntlet to God of War--has the family realizing they are videogame characters and setting out to stop more crappy Simpsons games from being released. This leads to the ultimate boss battle--against Matt Groening!

Videogames are good at a lot of things, but humour isn’t usually one of them. So this wins points on laughs alone and is absolutely indispensable for anyone who’s fan enough to fondly remember the Land of Chocolate.