Summary

• Hit & Run is just The Simpsons plus GTA, so why not swap out other games in place of GTA?
• That's basically it, this is not a sophisticated article.
• My cat's breath smells like cat food.

A remake of The Simpsons Hit & Run is one of the mos🐻t requested games in the world. As a major Simpsons fan, I'm torn on the idea. It's not as good (nor as long) as you remember, and is one of those nostalgic games I suspect is best left in the past. But I desperately want something to shake The Simpsons out of its Tapped Out-addled freemium funk so that we can have a new Simpsons game again. But maybe the answer is to give other games the Hit & Run treatment instead.

Hit & Run was pitched as 'GTA for kids', and it executed this vision perfectly. But beyond the idea to just remake Hit & Run (or, as people seem far less interested in despite it being a better idea, making a sequel), there are other games that suit this formula. The classic writing of The Simpsons is a major factor in why The Simpsons Hit & Run is such a success, as is the great work on the gameplay by Radical Entertainment (best known for Prototype). But it's also the fact that 'GTA for kids' is a gem of an idea, and it doesn't need to stop at GTA.

Some developers already know the power of this train of thought. Fortnite is really just PUBG for kids. Splatoon, similarly, carved out a niche for itself by removing the inherent violence of the shooter genre but keeping the fun mechanics. While debate rages over whether Smash is really a fighting game, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Mortal Kombat aside, fighting games don't feature the sort of adult content of GTA, it's clear that Smash is a more cartoonish and kid-friendly way to kick your friends' ass. But what other games could The Simpsons copy with the same 'for kids' remit as Hit & Run/GTA?

Resident Evil

There are a few kid-friendly games that approach horror (168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Luigi's Mansion being the most successful), but it's understandably an area that most developers stay away from unless they're prepared to commit. But it doesn't need to be all bloody chainsaws and giant foetus chases.

The Simpsons Treehouse episodes have gone up and down over the years, and the times when they've leaned too hard into movie parody is when they've missed the mark the most. But when you look at the success of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Stranger Things, Goosebumps, and The Addams Family, there's clearly an appetite for the spooky without the scary. Luigi's Mansion is mainly an adventure puzzle game that features ghosts you suck up with a magical hoover, but something closer to the true horror of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Resident Evil in Springfield without🐠 being grotesquely horrifying co🌠uld work.

The Last of Us

If GTA was the shorthand for adult video games when Hit & Run came out, has 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last of Us replaced that now? A linear adventure game with light cover shooting and stealth mechanics at heart, what truly makes TLOU great is its story, and it's much harder to dilute that than it is to take the most violent and depraved acts out of GTA, and it would be hard to ever do this without it feeling like a parody...

...but the storytelling in The Simpsons, while perhaps not as heart-wrenching as The Last of Us, is as smart and touching as it is funny. None of the games have ever explored this side of the show. It would be interesting to see a Simpsons game that took itself a little more seriously, though without getting some of the legendary Golden Age writers together, I'd be wary. Still, we've seen Moe straighten up to protect Maggie before, could he do it with the apocalypse knocking?

God of War

168澳洲幸运5开奖网:God of War is praised almost as much as The Last of Us for its narrative, but for this list I consider them polar opposites. This would be more like the older God of Wars, with a more brainless brand of hacking and slashing as Homer uppercuts his way through Springfield. If we do get a new Simpsons game, I imagine this sort of directionless carnage is what we'll get. But with some good gags, it would just about work.

Fun fact, there's a parody of God of War in the show that Bart plays, and finds it too easy. The fictional dev in the show didn't see his family for months while he crunched on the game, and it's implied he got laid off because it couldn't retain key player demographics like Bart. Relevant and relatable!

Doom

So, like everything I wrote above, but Homer has a gun. There's actually a Doom mod of this idea already.

Tomb Raider

Hear me out on this one. I understand that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Tomb Raider is nowhere near the level of GTA or Resident Evil when it comes to being 'not for kids'. Though it has some occasionally graphic deaths in the 2013 version, and the ever-present threat of violence from animals, traps, or enemies, I don't consider Tomb Raider to be an especially violent or controversial video game.

I know there are plenty of action-adventure games that are great for kids too, but if I was in charge of making a new Simpsons game, this is the sort of thing I'd be looking at. We've done the whole 'explore Springfield' too many times, and finding a way to take the characters somewhere new - a broken down version of Krustyland, like in The Simpsons Ride? - would feel much fresher. Plus, I just really need a new Tomb Raider game. Please.