Instead the game follows an original adventure for the dysfunctional nuclear family as they come to realise that they’ve been licensed out to another video game. Armed with this knowledge and the actual strategy guide for the game, they set out to bend the rules of their daily existence and ultimately use this to stop the destruction of the town by outer space invaders Kang and Kodos.

With the game following its own narrative, a greater deal of flexibility has been afforded to its level design. Simpsons fans will delight in the inclusion of memorable cartoon locations such as Homer’s daydream of the Land of Chocolate, complete with colony of chocolate rabbits, gum drop button paving stones and oozing chocolate waterfalls. Along with all the well-known Springfield residents and their voice actors, memorable creations such as the Lard Lad statue, Kang and Kodos’ alien horde (complete with weapons made of planks of wood with a nail through them) and recurring bit parts like Duff Man and Poochie the Dog are included. Springfield and its key locations like Moe’s Tavern, The Android's Dungeon, the Bowlarama and town square, including the statue of Jebediah Springfield, are all recreated albeit with heavy artistic license in their arrangement so that the more anally retentive Simpsons fan can baulk at how non-canon it is to have the Springfield Retirement Home just a few doors down from the Simpsons' house. But there is certainly plenty to keep hardened fans happy, including lots of references to lots of the TV show’s classic storylines and back history, even including things such as Lenny and Carl’s increasingly ambiguous relationship.

As the game progresses the sideways swipes at previous TV episodes slows down and is replaced with tackling the content of video games. This leads to it lampooning EA’s franchise-laden past (including a swipe at their long-since replaced logo) taking a swipe at some of its upcoming titles, classic video game characters, gaming genres and even some industry figures with the inclusion of a maniacal Will Wright (with Sims-related green diamond). In its own inimitable style, the game parodies the styles of Medal of Honour, Grand Theft Auto, Katamari Damacy, Space Invaders and even Dance Dance Revolution.

This is where The Simpsons Game is an absolute success, managing to capture the spirit of the TV program and to actually make you laugh, perhaps more so than the extreme hit-and-miss affair that is now the TV show. Start- and end-of-level cut scenes are extremely well animated to a level that isn’t too removed from the cartoon and the in-game graphics have a nice styling to them. However, this quickly falls apart when they are used for in-game cut scenes, where close-up viewing results in a jagged uneven mess, like something drawn by a ten-year-old with a broken arm. It leaves the distinct impression that the animation budget had ran out and the developers had been forced to resort to using a graphics engine that wasn’t designed for such close scrutiny. Aside from the visual humour, all the characters, playable or otherwise, have a host of witty quips and remarks which if they don’t make you smile at least once means you’ve become so world-weary that you must have lost your soul along the way.

The game is split into the large free-roaming section of Springfield town and specific story levels. The player eventually gets to control all of the Simpsons family (including small stints as baby Maggie), but on the whole only a combo of two family members can be used at any one time. Switching them requires the player to find one of the bus stops scattered around the town should they wish to utilise the skills of another character but this only really applies to the free-roaming section of Springfield as the chapters focus on just two of the characters.

The Simpsons family has a limited range of punching attacks but due to their gaming-reality-bending, each family member can use unique super abilities. Homer has by and large the most abilities and amongst others is able to let rip with a toxic burp to stun enemies, turn into Homer Ball, a podgy mass that is able to blast around at speed or Gummi Homer, a gelatinous mass that just seems to waddle a lot and fire out lumps of jelly to damage enemies. Marge has the ability to nag people into following her around and carrying out her orders (limited to attacking and destroying / rebuilding things). Bart is able to turn into Bartman and use grapple points and glide from heights, while Lisa is able to use the Hand of Buddha to switch to a top down view and manipulate objects to solve puzzles or power flick enemies.

Unfortunately, there isn’t really that much of a challenge to the game , nor is it particularly lengthy. Despite having sixteen story levels it’s all over quite quickly. The large outdoor area of Springfield does nothing to resolve this as it’s very sparsely populated with little to do except search for collectable bottle caps and coupons. As each character is only able to pick up a certain type, a tedious longevity is added by the need to use the bus stops to switch. No doubt EA would try to argue that this collection element is a pastiche of Crackdown's orb hunting, but that would be a flimsy excuse for what is clearly a lack of forethought and effort on their part. To be fair, many games have tried to emulate that immense sense of fun. While Crackdown's orb hunting was fun and fair by cleverly using the orb placement and sound, here it is painfully slow and clumsy (not helped by the inability to switch characters on the fly meaning even more backtracking) with the overall result that it’s downright tedious, as with every other game that’s tried to copy it and failed. Add to that the fact that each level also has a set number of collectables and the overall result would require someone with the talent of being able to reduce their body state to near-hibernation in order not to die from the boredom of it all.

All that really remains is sixteen levels of punching and platforming with some basic mini-games mixed in. Even the game's local co-op system does little to create any additional element of fun and while the lack of including co-op over Xbox Live is lamentable it’s perfectly understandable since the developer forgot to add any actual point to it being included at all. It is perhaps testament to the gags and humour that the game manages to hold your interest from start to finish, but you certainly wouldn’t want to waste the extraordinary amount of time and experience the blinding frustration from all the collection filler that has been packed in as a mechanism to prolong its life.