Customer Reviews

The Simpsons Skateboarding

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I've never played any of the Tony Hawk games because I could care less about SkateBoarding or that genre of games. The only reason I picked it up was because it was a Simpson's title, and I'm not disappointed. Once you get used to the controls, which for all I know are standard in such games, the game's pretty fun.

You start out the game with the basic four characters (Homer, Marge, Bart, and Lisa), and one environment. There are a few other characters to unlock, and around five more environments to unlock by completing levels and such.

What can I say? The game is solid. Most of the bad reviews I've heard are basing it on previews that they've READ (thus having never played the game), or basing it on Simpson's Wrestling (again, never having played the game). Simpson's Wrestling sucked, yes. Get over it. It was a different team working on the game - it implies nothing about the quality of this game.

Overall - if you like the Simpsons and video games in general, it's a good buy. I don't know how it stacks up against other skateboarding games, but by itself this game is worth buying.

Don't be fooled into believing reviews of people who've never played the game, or judging this game based on Simpon's Wrestling. At leaset rent it and see for yourself.

Ive played this new release by Electronic Arts on my PAL version which came out a few weeks ago, and ive gotta say that its pretty neat.

Im an avid fan of The Simpsons and I was really surprised when I heard that "The Simpsons Skateboarding", was released for the PS2.

Well, you sure get to play all the Simpson charachters, ranging from Bart Simpson, Lisa, Marge, Krusty, Homer and a whole lot more. Each charachter or skater has his/her own unique style, speed, and tricks.

Now about the tracks. Similar to the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series, you have to unlock certain tracks aswell as as skateboards etc. However, there are a variety of tracks available to you even if you just want to have some fun!
These include the Simpsons back yard, the sreets of Springfield, The chemical plant and many more.

The sound effects are great aswell. Cars honking in the background, Bart shouting "Oh Curumba", when he falls off his skateboard and lots more!

The controls are great aswell. Skate Boarders are easy to control and menuever. Well you just have to practice a bit and then volla!

About the graphics now. I frankly thought that the Graphics somertimes tend to get a bit blocky. It sometimes feels that youre playing this game on a Playstation, rather than a Playstation2. Well, this really doesnt take the charm of the game away though.

Overall, besides the small graphical errors and glitches, this game is perfect and really really fun to play!!

We were very disappointed with this game. We loved Simpsons Road Rage, because it wasn't too easy yet it wasn't so frustrating at each point that it made you want to bang your head against a wall... (those are the games that collect dust). In Road Rage, even the missions can be skipped if you just can't seem to conquer that part of the game.

I've always hated games in which, if you don't push the controller buttons at exactly the right second, then you end up trying and trying until you want to throw the controller across the room. This is one of those games. You have to push buttons in order to skateboard; and when you actually compete in the game by skateboarding, if your timing is off even a small amount while pushing buttons then you fall, or you miss picking up the donut, etc.

The game has four parts basically; you can learn the tricks in "Skillz School"; you can play a game in which there are multiple objectives; you can do tricks within a short time limit; and you can compete with a second player in skateboarding (you get points according to how well you complete tricks and how difficult they were).

I went to Skillz School, but the problem is, it's incomplete. I even went back three times in case I'd missed something in the wording. I ended up doing the harder tricks fairly well, but for instance, "kick flip" I think it was; you push the square button. Nothing happened, over & over & over again. The instructions in the game say only that a flip is with the square button plus a direction arrow. Well, that isn't one; that is a 'late kick flip'. I never did do a kick flip except by accident, and it's necessary later in the game.

Then, one of the main parts of the game is a multiple-objective mission in which part of it is to pick up donuts that are up on a spiral on high railings, etc. You then have to skateboard on the edge of the skateboard, along the railing in a spiral, to get the donut. Another game is 'shop a holic' and you have to open five stores in a small amount of time. That was a bit easier. Another part of the mission is to pick up the five truant children hiding in town. We never saw any !

Most of it is very difficult (and I chose easy level; but the controls are just too finicky) and there's no way to figure out how to do it better, because the controls are SO hair trigger that it's hard to know just what you did that messed it up and made the Simpson fall off the skateboard. And, I tried over & over to get better at it. The slightest wrong tap on the joystick or so forth can mess it up. I spent most of the game time trying to jump onto a railing to get a big donut, only to miss the railing by a mile (there is no way to race up to it; they make it really hard) and go into the pit over & over again. In other words, if your idea of fun is to try the same thing over and over without any progress, and no way to achieve any, this game is for you.

Even hubby, a huge Simpsons fan, found the game pointless and annoying. He laughed a bit at some of the things they said, but even those weren't as humorous as in Road Rage for PS2. Also, without any progress made, you can't unlock more characters. It's also missing a good aspect of Road Rage; a part of the game where you can just zoom around for fun, and practise without pressure. I tried practising in Skillz School, but that gets very dull. All around the game is just not as user friendly in its controls or instructions as Road Rage was.

The only people I can see liking this game are either the most rabid of Simpsons fans (who want to buy anything associated with the show) or people who play video games so much that they are experts with the controller. Because really that is what you will need to be. Also, it made hubby dizzy; the scenery always seems to be spinning. The skateboard goes so fast that any time you turn slightly the view spins around. Not for the car sick- prone person either ! Wish I had liked the game; I plan to give it away to a ten year old, who will probably have the time to become an expert at it...

It's The Simpsons in a... skateboarding game? I thought it was pretty strange myself, but I guess it was brought onto the market because of how big The Simpsons are and how big skateboarding it. Sounds like a great match, of course, for me being a Simpsons fan and a skateboarding kid. Well it wasn't. The graphics were not good even for the cartoony look they had, the control was absolutely terrible, every trick wasn't fun to look at, the level design wasn't good, the lines characters say is repetetive, and there is just not a lot of characters to play as. I am a gigantic Simpsons fan, but that does not mean I like the video games. ( except Hit and Run and Road Rage. ) I definitely think you should pass this one up, everything about it is bad, which means NOTHING about it is GOOD.

I didn't expect much from this game, giving the bad reviews. Honestly, I don't really know why I bought it. I guess I was just in that Simpsons mood, where I had to have everything Simpsons. But, I bought it, I'm stuck with it, and frankly, I don't mind being stuck with it. It's not a horrible game, however, it's not a very good game either.

The overall idea for a Simpsons skateboard game is perfect. I mean, in the early 90's, I looked to Bart as a skateboarder. One of the Simpsons best gags is Homer skateboarding and tumbling down a cliff side. Why not a Simpsons skateboarding game? Well, it's the way this game was executed that doesn't deliver. The maps are really big and are filled with Springfield townspeople and locations, but they feel really thrown together.

The graphics aren't extremely bad, but they're pretty bad in some ways. They did make the characters look pretty decent and the buildings look like they should, but everything else is pretty bad. One of the worst things is the scaling of characters to buildings to objects. Bart Simpson is about the size of a car's tire, and doors on buildings are obviously for giants. The buildings seem a little wide as well. It just seems like they ran out of time to polish these things in the game. The physics in the game are pretty bad, even for a dated game. It manages to make turning around on your board a chore and hitting a move correctly even more of a chore.

The sound effects are pretty bad too. While the voice actors are here, the game basically has to repeat everything they say over and over. It's a little disappointing but I expected that as well. Other than that, there seems to be very little sounds and hardly any good music to go with the game. I figured they'd at least put some decent songs in there, but it's all original stuff that doesn't fit skateboarding that well.

Regardless of these things, gameplay is always the most important thing we deal with and this game bails bad in this. There's a lot of invisible walls you'll run into, or my favorite, running into a sidewalk and having to pick speed back up. The overall mechanics seem to be chopped up into a complete mess. The overall skateboarding experience just feels too generic. I mean, it does feel like you're skateboarding, as in you're riding a board, but it's just too hard to really pull off amazing moves. You have to max out stats to get anywhere in the game, and to max out your states, you need to get places in the game. Lastly, the characters you pick from is really limited. There's 8 or 9. I'd have loved to skate with Grandpa. How hilarious.

It would have been a bit better to make this just a Tony Hawk clone completely instead of partially.

When I bought this game I thought that you can play as Ralph. But you can't. That made me mad!!!!! They should take out Nelson and put in Ralph or make ralph a secert character. They has never been a simpsons game that you can play as Ralph. Any way this is a great game. It is easy to win the compotishons. Just do grinds the entire time. Every time you jump and land back on the rail your blance will be in the middle again the same with manuals. The best character to play at the begging of the gme is Bart or Lisa.

I love this game because everything is so realistic. The people look good the voices are acurate I could not find a better game if I searched for a million years.

I have a question to ask. Why can't anyone make a good Simpsons game? Every year a new Simpsons game comes out that is either mediocore or plain awful to play. Its an injustice to the tv show really. Simpsons Skateboarding tries to mimic the success of the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series, but like so many other skateboard games, if comes up short. The music is horrible and the sound clips from the characters become repetitive and annoying pretty quickly. The graphics are so-so; some environments are okay while others are bland-looking. The character models just look...weird. Polygons don't seem to suit Homer and company. It would've seem more logical to use cel-shaded graphics because the Simpsons are a cartoon in the first place. The biggest thing I have against the game though is the controls and game physics, they just don't feel right. Your skater could be moving at full speed and can hardly get any air going off a ramp. Sometimes the animation feels choppy and the controls don't respond quick enough, which makes you mess up on your tricks very often. There has been worse skateboarding games made and there are some fun bits in Simpsons Skateboarding. But with the exsistence of the Tony Hawk games, which revolutionized the skateboaring genre, why settle for anything less?

I am a huge simpsons fan. But to be honest this game is really terrible. I hate the animation and the graphics are horrible. They should of used cell shading so the graphics resembled the cartoon. I played this game for about 5 minutes and i had heard the same phrase coming from Homer's mouth over and over. After five minutes of playing this game I had to quit because i couldn't handle it. They should of directly copied the control scheme from tony hawk pro skater. Fox and EA need to realize the just putting the Simpsons characters in a game doesn't mean that it is a good game, they need to make gameplay a whole lot better.

my 9 year old grandson wanted this game forever. we could not find it anywhere in the store, but amazon had it used only, but the seller was very honest. no scratches, excellent condition, he loves it. thanks