KMGR of "Simpsons 2: Adventures in Itchy-Scratchy Land"

Image via WikipediaYou know Bart and Lisa always wants to go to Itchy & Scratchy Land, the amusement park in theme of the cartoon show with plenty of gratuitous violence and mayhem. And as can be expected, when Homer ignores the warning NOT to use flash camera in front of the robots, he triggers a killing rage in the robots... and now the family is scattered and in hiding. Can Homer survive the dangerous place, retrieve his family, and perhaps save a few citizens of Springfield, defeating the horde of killer robots, with just his port belly and his skills in bowling?

Compared to the first one, this game has a bit more of the bawdy humor that's more in tune with the Simpsons theme. This time, your "tutorial" and occasional hints are narrated by the narrator, who "breaks the fourth wall" by telling you that you're probably a loser playing this loser game. (No, I'm not kidding.)

However, once you're into the game, it's actually a very plain 2D platform game. You control Homer on this 2D isometric playing field. There are all these nasty things about... Retracting spikes, back-and-forth sawblades... Avoid them all. Every once in a while you switch to a minigame, and there are a few variations:

Bartman / Slingshot -- Homer finds Bart who is using his slingshot to shoot stinkbombs at the approaching killer bots.

Lisa / Bombots -- Homer finds Lisa, who is building bombots to defend against the killer bots

Marge / Vacuum -- Homer finds Marge, who is using her vacuum to pull in random junk to "shoot" incoming killer bots

Homer / Bowling -- Home must use his bowling skills to send a ball downrange, take out as many robots on the way as possible, and smash a gate at the end.

Homer / Jumping Minefield -- The minefields have arrows, redirecting Homer into different directions. You need to make it to the other side of the field without losing all of Homer's lifebar (each jump zaps a little)

(Sorry, Baby doesn't get her own game)

You are "graded" by your speed and the number of "deaths" to "finish" the sub-level. The speed you do it, the more "combos" (multi-kills) you do, and so on will enhance the score. Survival is easy. Good score is hard.

The amusement park itself has multiple "lands", like "unnecesary surgery land", or "searing gas pain land", and so on. As you guessed, none of it "pleasant".

The problem is, while the humor is more abundant here, it still doesn't feel much like a Simpsons "game". It doesn't quite seem to have the proper... 'feel', even though this one is far more tolerant of mistakes than the original.

All in all, this game is an also-ran. You can probably find much more enjoyable 2D games, though this one at least uses the Simpson characters properly, the subgames don't feel quite right.

Overall rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: simple controls, obvious objectives
Cons: the minigames don't feel very Simpson'esque