Is The Simpsons Hit & Run Still Good 20 Years Later?

In this video, we're taking a look back at The Simpsons Hit and Run, so see if it's still as good as we remember 20 years later?

[@joeberryman3563]

My dad bought me this game along with my first PS2 for my 13th birthday. He, my sister and I had such a blast with it. If we ever saw a badly parked car in real life, we'd jokingly refer to it as Homer Simpson parking. Miss you, Dad. RIP.

[@jameshaygreen6400]

Magical memories mate. Glad you bonded over such a great game - Rip

[@jacobcurle8964]

It’s crazy the little things that make such powerful lifelong memories for kids. Thank you for sharing that little anecdote :)

[@wkk89]

An awesome dad you had! May the memories of him be remembered forever.

[@seantaylor7264]

Sorry for Ur loss may Ur dad rest in peace

[@RockinNRollinRussian]

Sorry for your loss. Thank you for sharing this beautiful memory.

[@JorgelCrisp]

One of my favourite things about this game is the consistency with which people start a new game and near instantly kick Marge. Like seriously anytime you see anybody play this game it’s one of the first things they do. According to the devs, Even Matt Groening did it when he first played the game.

[@gorkapascual5897]

xDDDDD

[@dynamicender]

And kicking milhouse as lisa i noticed alot of people would do that especially at the end of the mission when hes near the Springfield sign everyone i saw play it would kick him down into the river

[@bigpoppaHH69]

​@@dynamicenderyep and then he'd somehow just flat back up to the top

[@dynamicender]

@@bigpoppaHH69 ahhh the good old days where NPCs would defy the games physics cause they had to stay within certain perimeters

[@user-yo8ab1ys9e]

I was born in 1991 and grew up watching The Simpsons. It’s impossible for me to describe just how much I love this game. Simply thinking about being young and playing it on my Xbox causes a strong nostalgic experience. I would give anything to go back.

[@kayzeaza]

I liked how this game allowed you to skip missions after failing them so many times, except the last mission. It aloud you to actually play all of the game even if you were bad

[@Quintingent]

Hit & Run is definitely a fave from my childhood. In recent years I have come to realise the limitations of the design (not just that the levels aren't connected but that they're all basically a single loop with the only branches being minor and promptly reconnecting) but I still enjoy the base game regardless. The reward for 100% is nifty too, even though the game doesn't tell you what it is. It unlocks a cheat code that, when used, allows you to call ANY vehicle in the game from a phone booth. This includes NPC cars, the secret cars, mission-exclusive cars, and even a few unused cars (including what appears to be a simple test vehicle made of simple colours and shapes). It even explains why Bart's lv6 car is called 'Ferrini - *Red*': there's a car in the game called 'Ferrini - *Black*' whose name you can only see via this.

[@brendomiryr]

All I want is a remaster. :(

[@MisterJohnDoe]

Because of this cheat code I never would have guessed that the unlockable police car and the "hunter" NPC police cars when you hit too many things are actually two different cars. The hunter police cars have like lower quality models and their tail lights are different if I remember correctly. The police hearses in the final level seem pretty normal however.

[@raiylab]

Those final races are harder than anything a Souls game could throw at you.

[@xbon1]

No. Go play sekiro.

[@MrRaccoon879]

​@@xbon1 The fromsoftosapien always believes that souls invented the concept of difficulty. Thus they cannot be reasoned with. Also, super meat boy is harder.

[@omegamanGXE]

@@MrRaccoon879super meat spin 🍆

[@lockout5731]

this game brings my heart and loved it for years

[@NerdyWeaponXGames]

I played this to 100% completion when it first came out, took me months with my friends help (it tested our friendship) and even now this game still hits me hard in the nostalgia. Simply perfect for its time

[@taylorusedtoxic]

I still remember how hard that final mission was...

[@YaBoiJoosh]

I also remember it being really difficult, although the more you play the game the more you realise how easy and straightforward it actually is, for a child it would be challenging and the kid would struggle. As an adult like me I do find it fairly easy and only takes me 3 tries at most on each playthrough

[@theshyguitarist4536]

It did seem insanely difficult at the time. I later realised the problem was my "rush at full speed" playstyle back when I was a kid. I lost count the number of times I flew too fast into the schoolyard and proceeded to crash into the metal railing and explode the nuclear waste. Every... single... bloody.. time I play it slower and more cautious and get consistently successful results now. It's almost a science how methodically simple it becomes. Just don't allow the timer to stress you out. There's always plenty of time. The timer resets when certain thresholds are crossed.

[@evanhanley6437]

Still an absolute classic! 20 years old but still going strong!

[@emilands3635]

As teenagers we found out that you can change all of the attributes of the cars in the games' files very very easily. We just olpened up random files and found the stats. So we made cars accelerate extremely quick, jump high, etc. :D

[@boneylockz3967]

Didn't think you could adjust files directly from a PS2, how did you do it?

[@mashyjam7598]

​@@boneylockz3967he probably meant the PC version

[@BKopps]

just finished this for the first time on Gamecube this past week, was way more frustrating than I thought it would be, especially since the majority of the missions were the same "Drive here to here in 30 seconds" and failing over and over again haha.

[@user-so4ov7re3s]

Me and my cousin were struggling to do Lisa's last mission, after so long, we finally found him. My cousin exclaimed "Brother! Here's a kick!" and kicked him with Lisa as the screen immediately went to black to load the next level. We bursted into laughter.

[@DevilboyScooby]

Amusingly, Mike Scully himself (former showrunner) referred to their game as "the crazy taxi ripoff". They were fully aware what they were doing 😂

[@Chaos_Seven]

This was my GTA back in the day. I remember never being able to complete the Apu mission with the garbage trucks, even when I replayed it years later, but the game gives you the option to skip missions if you fail them multiple times which was good for kids like me at the time.

[@machtmann2881]

Cheat codes helped a lot too. I think I recall using some Konami code style inputs to be near invincible. Good times

[@pablocasas5906]

Hit & Run was probably my first open-world game, it was one of the first gamed I played when I went to gaming internet café back in 2004 or 2005. But thing is that, just I few days later I began playing the other games available and GTA Vice City was one of them, I just was around 10 years old, there was practically no adult supervision there 😅 That cyber café was amazing, for just $3 pesos I could play for 3 hours, and while I never got into popular PC games like Counter Strike or Age of Empires II, I got pretty good at Need for Speed Underground and Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. There were also some Harry Potter games that Flandrew reviewed

[@christophercruz1513]

Great video, you did it again buddy. Reliving my childhood. Keep up the good work I always said this channel will make it big

[@alexbell3791]

This is one of my absolute favorite games. I remember being in high school and I got this right before a tropical storm hit. School was closed for a few days, we still had power and I played this SO MUCH. It was amazing.

[@qrowing]

Man, it seems like people *will not* stop talking about this game. A real testament to how much fun it is. Really gives me hope for a remaster/remake in this weird remake/remaster period the industry is in.

[@SturtH9]

So many fond memories playing this. Feels like a lifetime ago 😢

[@musickid43]

Bought the game when it came out, and 100% completed it at the time. When I realized the 3 areas were repeating and that there was a 7th stage, there was so much excitement for what the last level could be knowing it couldn't follow the pattern completely. After finding out about the hidden cars in each level, I ended up spending a lot of time on forums where no one could find them all. Finding that last one in the night time harbor was tricky, but exciting. It was like an extra completion that was not part of the 100% counted by the game.

[@cyberredpandas1903]

Waking up at 6am to my brother booting up his ps2 and binging the game start to finish because he didn't have a memory card will always be one of my favourite days

[@Nirkhuz]

20 years. 20 years!?! I'm old...

[@theonlybilge]

Classic Jerma stream, so classic that when he was on a hiatus from breaking his entire back after doing a little breakdance spin for a greenscreen stream, he re-ran the stream, occasionally popping in to say something, and he dropped his ipad in the bath.

[@MysteryRemembers]

New flandrew vid YEAH!

[@scottcampbell3735]

Played this game a lot as a kid. Still one of my favourite games even as the flaws are more noticeable now.

[@vokkera6995]

I loved how the game had the craziest cheat codes. Like the one that would jump your car into the stratosphere by honking the horn. And the game didn't care- you'd take full damage upon hitting the ground and blow up, assuming you didn't jump straight out of the map

[@Matt-cz6ti]

It’s a crime that we’ve never had a remaster or remake

[@joebrennan7530]

Your videos are honestly one of the highlights of my week. (I’m sure I speak for everyone!) Thank you providing us all with such a rush of nostalgia ❤ Keep at it mate!

[@jordankomakech5137]

I absolutely still love this game ❤

[@wwCs49]

Loved this on the GameCube back in the day

[@droknron]

I replayed this a few months ago (on PC). It still held up for me, I enjoyed it a lot. One thing that struck me about the game was how short it is compared to modern games. That's not a criticism, just interesting how gaming has evolved and how much more content games of this type now require to feel full.

[@gdp7776]

Flandrew: Hit & Run turns 20 this year. Me: MAN.

[@JprimeWorld]

Just re played it last year again. Love it all the same

[@GetToWhereYouAre]

I went back to play this game last year or the year before. I actually ended up 100 percenting it for the first time. But I will admit, it hasn't aged as well as my memory would've liked it to. I feel like a lot of the main missions are the kind of like the side missions you'd find in modern games, often including a strict countdown timer (I was gonna complain about the difficult spike later in the game, particularly how easy the vehicles breaks down, but then I realised, this was probably the case with the GTA trilogy as well.) However I did find the game immensely charming, there were some humour I could better appreciate today than back in the day. And I also loved the variety between the levels. It's definitely worth going back checking out and goof around. Playing all the way through it was a different case though.

[@redheadnerd9695]

Love to see your take on the Simpsons game. That was another childhood game i loved playing

[@Qasemiro]

Very interesting Video ❤️ Can you make toy story 3 and aragorn quest comparison video?

[@thegreatstoneddragon9432]

I remember when i was a teen and game rental was still a thing, I loved checking this game out. Even though I never had watched the show, I enjoyed both the humor and gameplay from this and Road Rage.

[@Johnmarstonliveson]

Been replaying this recently, (Aswell as rewatching the classic Simpsons) I’m up to level 5 mission 4 I’m playing as apu trying to farm some coins to buy a piece of clothing in order to start the mission!! Going for 100% on PS2 WHAT A CLASSIC MASTERPIECE I love how all the characters are the same voice actors used in the series. And how there’s a “ Gag “ from most episodes between seasons 1-10. I really suggest everyone replaying this game

[@HenriqueHCA14]

The 180 turn that the game does at the final mission is unbelivable. The hole game isn't something impossible, but the last mission becomes Souslike before even Demon's Souls existed

[@ragnorberntsen316]

I play this on a PS2 emulator every now and then, and the sheer amount of references is what makes the game memorable to me. Also makes me sad at what the show has become. Last time I played it, I kicked Marge all the way to the kwikemart :D

[@KHFMcAwesome]

The Simpsons Hit and Run turned 20 this year?! NO IT DIDN'T! That’s a lie and you KNOW it! That means I’m OLD! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@charlottestreet3301]

I always enjoy kicking millhouse. 😂😂 but how in the hell was he albe to climb up the gorge

[@brandonkirkendall1466]

I never played Hit and Run, but I do have fond memories of playing Road Rage on the PS2. Since I never played Crazy Taxi, a driving game where you pick up people and take them to their destinations was a pretty unique twist for me. Also, don't get angry at me for saying this, but I wish Disney would take the rights to the Simpsons franchise away from EA already so we can actually get a brand new Simpsons console game (or at least a remake of Hit and Run). I mean, all EA has done with the license in the past DECADE was that Tapped Out mobile game.

[@StefanElAzzouzi.]

Can’t believe it’s been 20 years since this game came out, I’ve been playing this game game since i was like 7-8 years old, im now 21 and time flies pretty much❤

[@Caeleb1234563]

I always watch videos on this game and wait to see how long it takes them to say "GTA Clone." The game is based on Driver. It is much more similar to Driver than to GTA, especially considering it features Driver's sort of progression and mission types including travelling to different maps for different chapters.

[@bigkmoviesandgames]

I love this game and it's my favorite Simpsons game, with the arcade game coming in close second.

[@akshaytrayner1960]

Great vid

[@Gridlock3]

Damn, I remember playing this as a kid, but I totally didn't that it was so reliant on driving missions. Wonder how it would feel playing it today. Really wish there was a sequel.

[@DJFowFow420]

Got a ps2 few weeks ago, it holds up pretty well tbh

[@machtmann2881]

Had some fond childhood memories with this game. I think I still have the discs for it but I think I read that it's hard to get it to work on modern PCs. I remember one kid at school who I lent the game to claimed that it was the worst game he ever played. Needless to say, stopped being friends with him once I knew he had shit taste in video games

[@Junkgunk345]

I just started playing it again last night, i still and will always love playing it on my original Xbox

[@joebykaeby]

Flandrew really knows his classic Simpsons!

[@Sivrn-Val]

The answer is yes. Yes it is.

[@lilsunny7399]

The Red Ferrini was a car bart rented with a credit card he got from a fake ID in the episode Bart on the Road

[@clinto32]

Simpsons hit and run from Flandrew?!!? Another banger

[@DaBIONICLEFan]

Jimbo in this game when you run over him: "I'm broken!...inside"

[@charliefen]

I loved this game! I hope it gets ported someday, although that seems less and less likely. I say port as I think a remake or even remaster would result in a lot of things being cut, mainly the Apu sections 😢

[@Terzination]

How about a Tony Hawk's retrospective? Love your videos!

[@edulric]

ive returned to this time plenty of times and i remember struggling to try and emulate it on various laptops through out the years. Now that i have a big bad gaming PC i finally randomly realized yesterday that there are so many mods to play. It feels like my childhood has been revived in a way some of the mods are so well made they might as well be DLCs of the original game before DLCs lol

[@zoiuduu]

i would watch this video tonight, but i rather watch it tomorrow after going to the market and buying a chocolat croisant, this video deserves a good breakfast

[@signalzero77]

"... And some of the children look Extra kickable!"😂

[@RBold2]

At the Home Screen, homer would be dressed up on different holidays such as Santa for Christmas

[@FloofPuppy]

I still remember dad getting me this game for the pc. Good times...

[@matthewscott2070]

I have relatively recent memories of this game… back in my streaming days this is one of the first games I streamed. I remembered it as a fun romp through Springfield and hoped just to have some fun playing it but FUCKING HELL THE DIFFICULTY! This game ain’t as easy as young me remembered. It broke me on stream 😂

[@Cyberbrickmaster1986]

This was perhaps our best Christmas present from 2003. I especially sunk a fair bit of time into this game and was the only one to actually make it to the end, let alone complete it to unlock the secret Itchy and Scratchy cartoon. As much as I'd like to see a remaster of this game, I don't have enough faith in that happening, especially with the current state of the show. But if they did, I really hope they don't add any new dialogue for Marge, because of what she sounds like these days.

[@Wiggimus]

15:03 Okay, so I still watch The Simpsons. Yes, still. I freaking love that show to this day. I can even tell you exactly why the season 23 finale is the lowest rated episode (because, yeah, it's really not good...). For me, it's just a different flavor now. This game is an amazing representation of that era. I think that a modern version of this game would still work, even if not many people would get the jokes. Like you could have the summer camp for billionaires, or Homer's robotic coworkers, or Moe's ancient sentient rag. I don't know. I feel like the newer seasons are a bit too harshly criticized. Granted, it is simply my opinion, but I really have genuinely laughed out loud about more recent moments, like when Burns handed someone a pamphlet that had "cigarettes cure NFL concussions" written on it 😆

[@phineas81707]

I feel like an element of the "Simpsons is trying too hard to be relevant" criticism is a product simply of aging demographic: The Simpsons was always ripping plots and jokes from the headlines, but a combination of lead time and a lot more people making jokes about the same things makes people hate it in Modern Simpsons where they praise it in Classic- particular the instances where the original headline incident is an obscure event now.

[@greengreninja5701]

I yell "I'm scared and disoriented!" to this day when I'm confused

[@Yuti640]

I actually had never even watched the simpsons when i was young, so Hit and Run was my first experience with the show, and i still loved it despite not having any notalgia for the show when i watched it.

[@ClarenceFlanagan]

Must revisit this game one of these days. I got more than a bit annoyed at the ice cream van chase level with Marge and haven't touched it since. I think modern day me is a little more patient. 😂

[@unikittyfan2014]

My favorite is Lisa`s stage for the same reason: similarity to my lil ol Vice City. And i love that kinds of areas in general

[@jedigamer9935]

I think the Simpsons Movie Game was around the end of the Golden age of the Simpsons. Hopefully you do that next if you haven't done it yet. I remember the DS version had the Pet Homer like Nintendogs

[@Blackpapalink]

The movie came well past the Golden Age. The Movie Game was fun depending on which version you played, but the Simpsons was long rotten by then.

[@BlayBlaytheNutcase]

I remember a great glitch me and my brother would do. You stand on top of an npc and then kick, they'd go flying into the air then roll around on the ground. It had us cracking up!

[@Ch0senJuan]

I had no idea I missed this era 😢

[@howilearned2stopworrying508]

Homer and his iconic propane grill: Taste the meat, not the heat

[@HiiB3RNI4N]

this was the first game I ever completed took me so many attempts at the final mission I still remember 20 years later

[@_Tzer]

I remember it being said somewhere that matt groening also kicked the crap out of marge.

[@rodrigofernandesfrighetto77]

Well, quoting Hailee Steinfeld in an interview of Spiderman : Across the Spider-verse : "It´s that even a question ?" On which, I answer, YES!!!! Ad Infinitum. It´s still good. Too bad we won´t see a remake

[@whitechocolategangster]

for 2003, this game was great. I do personally find that the only thinking that really wasn't great about the game was the mission variety. It really is the same 6 missions over, and over, and over. The kick mechanic and the wasps were completely under utilized. The wasps make such a small impact in the game that they might as well not even really be there, same goes for the kicking. It's like those 2 mechanics were added solely for one another. Have an additional few enemies, or maybe a mission where you have to protect a point from waves of wasps, or at least several at once would have been really cool. Maybe on lvl 7 some of those aliens could have come to earth and try to attack you. This game is so close to perfect for it's time, without a doubt my absolute favourite game ever

[@djmixin1]

I tripped out when I seen the public phone booth haha

[@PotatoMan420]

The fact you said the canyonero is one of the better vehicles has triggered me greatly. That thing spent more time on its side than its wheels!

[@monkey_gamer_001]

Licensed games, when done well, can be a transcendent experience. This game, and also Lego Star Wars! And to be honest most Star Wars games. Matrix Path of Neo and the Spiderman games were amazing too. I realise most my my favourite games growing up were licences games.

[@cearlach32]

can I nominate the transformer movie ds games for the first movie since there are surprisingly good for a movie tie in game, its open zone were you can play freely with missions, and side missions you can also scan almost every vehicle in the game giving different stats/robot modes and you can change there colors

[@andrea-yf2hg]

i want to personally thank my dad for having this game on his ps2. amazing childhood memories!

[@cooperbourke7717]

I recently replayed the Game for its 20th Anniversary and I still love it because of my deep Nostalgia for it, but there were a tonne of Technical Glitches which made it very difficult at times. Its still an excellent Licenced Game!!!

[@cantpleasonist]

5:45 that is not Jasper's house it belongs to Chester J Lampwick the creator of Itchy.

[@CreativeWM_Personal]

I remember there was a rumour going around that you could unlock Maggie's level in the game, I'm not sure if that was true or not but I think it warrants a bit of investigating

[@deanrehbock9918]

I remember watching my big brother play this game and I never got to play it myself. Really sad to have missed out on this

[@_Braised]

Does anyone know what episode the show was up to when the game released? That'd be interesting to compare to all the 'show going south' conjecture you mentioned

[@peterspering3709]

It was released between S14 and S15. S14 was a middling season with some strong episodes like 'Moe Baby Blues', and naff ones like the 'Strong Arms of Ma'.

[@MorbyGanaWho]

The Best Simpsons Game Hands Down! I loved playing this on my Xbox! 100%ing it on xbox and also on ps2! and we can't forget all the amazing mods!

[@bradzandmaxplays]

Ive started a project on this game by upscaling all textures to 2k its looking pretty sick so far

[@SomeGaymerNerd]

2:23 matt groening's this type of player lmao

[@pokepress]

It’s interesting that more derivative Simpsons games seem to work out better than ones that try to be creative in terms of gameplay. This game, the arcade game, etc. tended to work out better than a game where you hide/paint purple things. Likewise, a platformer/Lemmings hybrid turns out better than a game where you explore Bart’s dreams.

[@realtommyvercetti7815]

This game aged so well

[@cathallynch8269]

I ignored this when it released as I was too busy with GTA. It would be awesome to have a modern version with all the easter eggs although then we have the issue of golden age Simpsons etc.

[@RyanHaney55]

I wish my Gamecube could tell me how many hours I played this game. After solving it, I probably played it twice as much. I would play it to keep my hands busy while listening to baseball on the radio. When I played it with the sound up, I appreciated how all the engines sounded different. Of the hidden cars, I like the pink Cadillac the best. My favorites are the Open-Wheeled Racer, the lime green GTO, Ferrari, Homer's Powell, Canyonero, Apu's TransAm, Snake's Lil' Bandit, Grandpa's Jeep, Lisa's Malibu Stacy Corvette.

[@michelveenstra9906]

We need a remake of this

[@MrDover99]

I was wondering when the car built for homer was going to show up :p

[@ARCtrooperblueleader]

My brother and I, being diehard Simpsons fans, adored this game.

[@pablocasas5906]

I'm a big Simpsons fan and I remember playing Hit & Run a lot on an Internet Café back in '04 and while I never finished it since I couldn't save my progress, so every time I played I tried to get the furthest I could before I had to leave the café Also, it was probably one of the first games I played in my own language, because console games never got translated or dubbed into Spanish, the problem is that the game was in European Spanish, not Latin American Spanish, and The Simpsons Latin American dub made in Mexico is legendary. There are mods that add some of the most iconic phrases from the Latin American dub. Though I have to admit that the European Spanish dub is pretty funny, and weirdly enough had stronger swear words

[@NeekoChadis]

The Menu also changes due to holiday dates too

[@klkl8525]

the menu had an additional gimmick on some platforms: based on the real world season the theming changed conpletly

[@andrewness2153]

I got this game around when it came out on GameCube, I was probably 8 or 9 years old. 2 weeks ago, I was remembering it and downloaded a copy of it to play on my computer. This game 100% is still good!!! I do some missions that I faintly remember from 20ish years ago, but it's been a blast!! After I got my pc version running correctly and the controller working, I binged it for 10 hours straight....