Electronic Arts announced last night in San Francisco that there will be a new Simpsons game across all platforms coming this fall. In a collaborative effort with 20th Century Fox and Gracie Films, EA is developing an original Simpsons title in the Bay Area. In a recent episode of the Simpsons, the 400th episode, it revealed some gameplay from the Simpsons game.
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The Simpsons game has 8,000 lines of dialogue to create an original story that makes fun of everything. The game is a parody, where the Simpsons family finds out that they have been placed in a video game, and start the game by finding out what their super powers are. Taking all the best elements from prior episodes, comics and games, the developers are working to keep the unique feel of the Simpsons. At some point in the game, you will come across a store called “SequelStop”.
There is roughly 60 minutes of linear footage where it’s like a cut scene from the show. The graphics stay true to the cartoon, keeping it in 2D cartoon format but the ability to move in all directions. By rotating the camera angle around the character, the characters retain the same 2D look, without the “porcupine hair” as they put it.
The level that they demonstrated was Lisa’s tree hugger episode, one of the first levels of the game. Bart and Lisa are fighting off enemies in a logging camp. The game has two-player co-op mode, where the second player can drop in and out at will. Otherwise the AI will follow you around, and you can switch at will between the two characters in the level. You have the opportunity to control many different characters from the Simpsons, but there is some puzzle solving involved by leveraging the unique abilities from each character. Bart can transform into Bartman, which allows him to jump much higher than Lisa could. Lisa can go to a Buddha statue which is the “Hand of Buddha” port. This is an ability designed specifically for Lisa. She is able to control this giant hand that comes down from the sky and use it to move objects in the environment. An example shown was picking up a giant rock and dropping them on the port-a-potty which spawned evil loggers.
There are 16 episodes across four chapters. With the exception of the characters, the game is not related to the Simpsons movie that is scheduled to come out this summer.
It should be interesting to see how this game pokes fun at pop culture and the industry itself. The demo was done on the Xbox 360 and donuts were available to all, yum!
