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By Elias Dounis on January 25th, 2002
Introduction Mr.Burns has decided to get into the transit buisness. His new "efficient" way of transportation is a line of radioactive buses. Homer Simpson and other residents of Springfield have had enough of Mr.Burns’evil plans . They decide to help their fellow four fingered companions by becoming cabbies , using their own personal vehicles to satisfy their companions traveling needs.Presentation The game starts off with a cutscene that presents you with Burns’ scheme, when that’s finished you are presented with easy to navigate menus. The menus aren’t too impressive but they are easy enough for to just power on your GameCube and just play. The character selection menu is pretty cool though, when you highlight a character they pull up in their vehicle and yell out one of their catch frases.On to the visual and sound effects...... Graphics & Sound The visuals in Road Rage barely take advantage of the all powerfull GameCube but they seem to fit the animated style of the TV show we all know and love. The areas , characters, and vehichles are all presented through a mixture of the Cel Shading technique and you regular everyday polygons to present an overall animated look and feeling to the game. The game is haunted by framerate drops though which can get on your nerves at times . Also when your are given a certain task a text appears on the screen which can sometimes affect visibilty (I found this to be a nuiscance often). Overall the game isn’t to spectacular visually.The soundtrack during gameplay is dull and doesn’t add to the experience , it takes away from it. But the horrible musical score is somewhat redeemed with some hilarious comments from the passengers and cabbies in the game, but hearing the same comments over and over again gets annoying.
"I’m afraid if we travel any faster my car might just travel backwards in time" Gameplay Lets just forget that a game called Crazy Taxi ever existed.............................
This is were it all really matters, gameplay. Road Rage seems to fare better in this area than the others.Gameplay in Road Rage is simple and simple gameplay is always good . There are 3 modes of gameplay in Road Rage but only one seems to offer the goods and that is Road Rage and that is were I focus my review on. Stop , pick up your customer and let the madness begin!
You are given a destination to bring your customer to, in order to make you trip less of a hastle you are aided by a hand which acts as an arrow which tells you were to make your turns and you are also aided by a map which tells you were exactly your destination is. Eventually after playing enough you will create you own shortcuts to get to your destination. All six areas in Road Rage are fully interactble , you can run over people in the street, run over mailboxes , bus booths, light post and basically everything else that will get in your way. But those aren’t the only things that get in your way. "While seeing citizens avoid his means of transportation , Mr.Burns gets angered and with the assistance of Smithers , Burns goes on a rampage trying to prevent the taxi drivers from picking up customers and bringing them to their destination." Mr.Burns is easily avoidable and shows up every so often and when he is near you are usually warned because you hear Mr.Burns command Smithers to stop you. The Burns’ transit buses are annoying and do tend to get in the way often because they drive worse than the cabbies themselves running into everything in their way , which includes you.
Cabbies must race against the clock in order to get rewarded for their good deeds and whenever they drop off a customer they get a reward of $25,$50 ,$100,$250 or even $1000 depending on the conditions and speediness of the trip. That amount of money might sound miniscule, it is but while driving your customer you earn money so in essence you can still make money without even taking your customer to their destination! But I suggest you do because extra time gets added to the clock for some more cruising. The six towns in the game are all different and unique. Some you might hate some you might like but you are given six different varieties and variety is always good. Right?!?!?!?!?!?!..... But the towns aren’t as large or as well rounded and some other taxi driving game. Wait, what am I talking about... What other taxi game?
The control needs some time getting used to. Each cabbie has different vehicles which have a uniqueness to them which require getting used to as well. To sum up everything in a short sentence..... The gameplay is fun and it’s easy. Lasting Appeal The gameplay has lots of unlockable goodies such as secret characters and locales. To unlonck many of these treats you need to increase you overall earnings in the game. Each time the next unlockable treat requires more and more money. So if you want to prove to yourself you are a skilled gamer, you might want to spend some time unlocking everything. Conclusion If you are not a Simpsons fan then well I don’t know what to tell you because I am a massive Simpsons fan and I really liked this game. I suggest to at least give this game a rent. It was great while it lasted............ | 
