Hit & Run is a game with the most questionable reputation. A lot of people regard it as an all-time classic or the best Simpsons game ever made.
After playing it to the end, I feel like I have been tricked by popular opinion.
Outside of the many Simpsons references and the excellent soundtrack, Hit & Run is just a terrible and painfully repetitive game that’s pretty much on-par with any other crappy licensed game.
Most of, if not all of the missions in this game revolve around nothing but driving. Sometimes you’ll have to race somebody or reach another destination or pick up something and then come back to pick up another thing, or go on fetch quests. This would be bad enough, but the game has a serious obsession with strict time limits, which is probably the game’s most critical flaw. Later missions from mission 4 onward start forcing you to take obscure or elaborate shortcuts just to pass the mission, and some missions have a chain of tasks to do so if you fail the third task in a mission, then you have to start the entire mission over again, no checkpoints. The time limit is just plastered onto every mission, sometimes for no reason! Like why do I have to harvest ketchup in a specific amount of time? It makes absolutely no sense because each level takes place in the span of one day, and the mission says to harvest ketchup before WINTER, and yet the level itself is only three days from Halloween!
Having an unforgiving time limit is one thing, but the driving physics are another key element as to why this game fails miserably. They feel extremely floaty and unnatural. More often than not, running into anything is only going to halt ALL of your momentum and not most of it lime other competent driving games. Hitting a car would normally have both of you go off track, but here, it just stops you completely and lets the NPC drive like nothing happened. Your vehicle is also absurdly sensitive to damage and because of how many pedestrians and drivers there are to get in the way of the mission, you’ll find yourself failing because of some idiot on the road or you hit too many pedestrians to alert the cops, have them fine you, and waste so much of your time!
In fact, the wanted system is just poorly implemented, it’s way too sensitive and the fine is enough to hinder your progress because you’re required to purchase specific costumes and vehicles at certain times, so if you get fined before you earned enough to buy that cool looking car, then tough luck loser, go and grind some more!
Look, I’m not trying to bash this game for the sale of trying to be different or cool, I just have to point out some glaring issues that other people seem to ignore. Hit & Run could’ve been a good game, but like Simpsons Skateboarding and Road Rage, it tries to copy elements from another popular game at the time, but completely fails to understand what made that game so good. Hit & Run is not an open world game like GTA as people seem to lie about. It’s just a terrible driving game with repetitive missions bogged down by horrible physics and a time limit so unforgiving that it would make Superman 64 blush.
If you want a GOOD Simpsons game to play, then just go and play the amazing Simpsons Arcade game or the 2007 game. This game is not worth your time whatsoever.
After playing it to the end, I feel like I have been tricked by popular opinion.
Outside of the many Simpsons references and the excellent soundtrack, Hit & Run is just a terrible and painfully repetitive game that’s pretty much on-par with any other crappy licensed game.
Most of, if not all of the missions in this game revolve around nothing but driving. Sometimes you’ll have to race somebody or reach another destination or pick up something and then come back to pick up another thing, or go on fetch quests. This would be bad enough, but the game has a serious obsession with strict time limits, which is probably the game’s most critical flaw. Later missions from mission 4 onward start forcing you to take obscure or elaborate shortcuts just to pass the mission, and some missions have a chain of tasks to do so if you fail the third task in a mission, then you have to start the entire mission over again, no checkpoints. The time limit is just plastered onto every mission, sometimes for no reason! Like why do I have to harvest ketchup in a specific amount of time? It makes absolutely no sense because each level takes place in the span of one day, and the mission says to harvest ketchup before WINTER, and yet the level itself is only three days from Halloween!
Having an unforgiving time limit is one thing, but the driving physics are another key element as to why this game fails miserably. They feel extremely floaty and unnatural. More often than not, running into anything is only going to halt ALL of your momentum and not most of it lime other competent driving games. Hitting a car would normally have both of you go off track, but here, it just stops you completely and lets the NPC drive like nothing happened. Your vehicle is also absurdly sensitive to damage and because of how many pedestrians and drivers there are to get in the way of the mission, you’ll find yourself failing because of some idiot on the road or you hit too many pedestrians to alert the cops, have them fine you, and waste so much of your time!
In fact, the wanted system is just poorly implemented, it’s way too sensitive and the fine is enough to hinder your progress because you’re required to purchase specific costumes and vehicles at certain times, so if you get fined before you earned enough to buy that cool looking car, then tough luck loser, go and grind some more!
Look, I’m not trying to bash this game for the sale of trying to be different or cool, I just have to point out some glaring issues that other people seem to ignore. Hit & Run could’ve been a good game, but like Simpsons Skateboarding and Road Rage, it tries to copy elements from another popular game at the time, but completely fails to understand what made that game so good. Hit & Run is not an open world game like GTA as people seem to lie about. It’s just a terrible driving game with repetitive missions bogged down by horrible physics and a time limit so unforgiving that it would make Superman 64 blush.
If you want a GOOD Simpsons game to play, then just go and play the amazing Simpsons Arcade game or the 2007 game. This game is not worth your time whatsoever.