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Combining The Simpsons with MarioCart
FortKnox writes: "The game Simpson's Road Rage was just announced for the Nintendo Game Cube (it'll also be available on PS2 & XBox). Looks like it will be extremely similar to Mario Cart, but with a heavy Simpsons theme. I remember the hours we would play mariocart at college (usually while drunk). This is one of the only ways to improve that game ..." Just a blurb right now, but "Sunday Driving mode" is the sort of thing I wished more games offered -- the ability to explore and poke at the virtual world without obsessing over levels and points.
Name one thing that simpsons on merchandise hasnt sold well...
legitately anyhow.
--donabal
Safety First Day?
(n/t)
Ay Caramba.
It's a fundamentally different game from Mario Cart. Instead of participating in races from a predefined point A -> B, you can travel anyplace on a map and grab passengers to shuttle around.
Excellent...
Exactly...
DOH!
Seems nothing like Mario Kart at all... The only similarity I can think of is that it uses characters from a cartoon/game in vehicles. I think the 'Sunday driving' is probably more like Midtown Madness (which BTW is very good). There doesn't seem to be much success in copying the Mario Kart kind of game anyway... the original SNES version was just too good.
This game would be a perfect candidate for Nintendo's "Toon-style". I just have to wonder if they'll end up making it more like the 3D episode, you know, the one where every gets sucked into the black hole.
Of course, and I highly suspect it, I may be talking out of my ass. -oqti
There could not be a greater cartoon on the face of the planet.
:)
There could not be a greater kart-racer on the face of the planet.
Mmmmmm... forbidden donut...
I think I might have to indulge myself when this hits! And speaking of the Simpsons, I just bought a wonderful book called The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer. I read one of the essays at Barnes and Noble, and I was wonderfully surprised. The editors of this book put together some brilliant essays concerning the Simpsons' relation to some serious philosophical issues. Seeing as how we nerds tend to like things like the Simpsons and Philosophy, I figured you guys might not mind a quick review.
Also look out for the Simpsons Season 1 DVD boxed set, 25% off at Amazon.com.
Taco, it's Mario Kart, not "MarioCart".
course your always gonna get someone who says "nintendo, in simpsons kart, doctor marvin monroe runs over poochie, yet dr monroe died before poochie was invented. heh, are we to beleive this is a time traveling game? i hope someone got fired for that one"
There was a game at one point called Virtual Springfield which graphically was pretty "Simpsonesque". Not sure what the objectives were but it was laid out quite well and you could explore Springfield.
Man, I really hope that Mexican bee guy from channel ocho is a character. He's the best.
I think developers are finally waking up to this, starting with GTA. I'm still waiting for Sunday-the-whole-city-including-insides-of-buildin gs-is-mapped-and-you-can-smash-mame-and-kill-anyth ing-and-everything-and-take-hostages-and-map-peopl e-you-hate-onto-the-characters-and-use-a-full-arra y-of-realistic-weapons-and-drive-fly-and-control-a nything-and-blow-shit-up Mode and we also need a mindless killing game where you shoot un-armed people (Half-life style) and blow their limbs off and watch them scream in pain. I think that the reason people commit violence after playing video games is that video games today are to restrictive and low quailty. People need that extra edge that the VR world has yet to provide, and if it can provide, allot of people will be content with killing on-screen only. Par-exampl'e, i tried the WTC/pentagon job on (MS) flight sim, and it was pretty lame, no explosions or realistic damage physics, no screams, smoke, fire, just "Building Crash".
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Not just old news, but positively antique. Here's a link to a C&VG article complete with screenshots of the PS2/XBox versions, which were announced long before the GC one. Also an IGN preview of the PS2 version.
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
Sunday driving mode is cool.. but what about Saturday Morning driving mode?
You start the game in this mode, and all of a sudden all the games sounds get WAY to loud. Then you notice that your view of the road starts going blurry. Then you notice that all the colors seem to be REALLY bright...
The icing on this mode, of course, is the fact that when you "turn" left, your car doesnt start turning until a few secs later...
With this mode, everyone will be able to experience the joy of hangovers and having a bit to much alcohol STILL in their system after a nice night of lan partying...
I'd like to lick Helen Hunt's anal orifice - to infinity and beyond.
Looks cool.
That's right. You're all unfaithful and unworthy if for one moment you called it Mario Cart. There is no such game as "Mario Cart".
You disgrace the name of our Lord and savior Mario Kart by slandering its name in such a haphazard fashion.
Read the links for the images on IGN's site (comment 2302558-- sue me, I'm too lazy to hyperlink). Whoever set up the site has probably never seen Simpsons
Apu isn't driving a "Red Car"; it should be a circa 1978-era Trans Am-like car (they already had to license the Simpsons characters; I wonder if they'll bother to license the car makes)
Homer definitely isn't driving a pink Cadillac. It's just a pink American sedan.
The game should put Marge in her Canyonero (I guess Krusty should have one too). And they should make Homer's "The Car Built for Homer" a bonus car. Or even his 70s-something Dodge Charger (with sideburned-clad Homer to boot). Then they could put a younger Marge in her Gremlin.
What about Mr. Burns? Would he be in his limo? Or would they show him driving his Model T-type car where the tires must be revulcanized?
For completeness sake, Otto should be in his school bus (although his character is annoying in anything more than 10 second doses).
What about celebrity cameos? Ed Begley Jr can show up in his eco-friendly car powered by his "own sense of self-satisfaction".
They've already got Barney in his Plow King snow plow. Are there any other vehicles they should show?
Sometimes I wonder if the game programmers are actually fans of the show (if so, they should be aware of the above vehicles), or if they just tacked a Simpson's theme on a Crazy Taxi ripoff they were already doing.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
This game is very scary. Bart the racer is only 10yo. I had better buy a truck as a family vehicle if I were going to relocate to Springfield.
What with this release, Resident Evil, Zelda, etc... though personally I still think the X-Box will be my choice.
'Life is like a spoonful of Drain-O, it feels good on the way down but leaves you feeling hollow inside'
Some famous music critic once remarked that "only seven songs have ever been written in the history of rock music; most bands just learn one and play it over and over."
This statement especially holds true for video games. Once a game breaks into the mainstream, thousands of imitations will appear, merely tweaking a theme or giving a boost to graphics performance. Primary examples:
1. Super Mario Brothers - side scroller
2. Street Fighter 2 - head-to-head side scroller
3. Doom - First Person shooter
4. Warcraft 2 - Realtime Strategy
5. Dragon Warrior - Overhead RPG
6. Pole Position - First person race
I'm not sure that it would be unfair to say that 75% of video games ever written were based on one of these six themes. Sure, there are plenty of others, like Tetris-style puzzles and Koei-style map-based war games, but in my mind, these are the big five.
I just wonder - will there be enough imitators of Mario Kart to make it the "seventh rock song ever written"?
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
This is possibly the greatest game in history. I will buy a gamecube just for it. I hope you can be Senor DingDong and drive around in his van in the game.
Initially, I thought, "who wants to play a game where you hold a gun to your head while driving a white Bronco on the California highway system with a police escort?" Then I thought, "hmm, maybe we're not talking about the guy who's looking for 'the real killers', but that cartoon thingamabob."
Cool.
...battle mode in the original SNES version of MarioKart. Anyone who knows that game intimately will appreciate the countless hours I've squandered duelling with my brothers. We developed and entire vocabulary around that game. "Drive-by shellings", "peel out", and "rogue shells" all evoke the memory of time spent doing intense combat. Heck, it's making me nostalgic. HEck, my youngest brother still has that SNES, maybe it's time for battle...
In a world without walls, there is no need for Windows.
too bad this is being developed by EA, theyll put millions into developing it & then shitcan it right before its done.
isnt that right ultima fans?
I don't know if it sold well, but boy, was that a stinker of a game! My buddy rented it and brought it over. It got about 20 minutes of play and he was sorry he wasted the few bucks on the rental.
For anyone who's even seen 10 seconds of the game, they know damn well its no Mario Kart rip-off. HOWEVER, it IS most definately a Crazy Taxi rip-off, with Homer (and others) driving around Springfield picking up people, and dropping them off. Wonder what Sega thinks about this...
Futurama would be a better license?
You could pick up and deliver packages all over space, and of course stop off at any planet you want. It certainly would make a lot more sense then picking up and dropping people off in the Springfield (as far as I know there hasn't been any taxi-like situations in the show at all), whereas futurama, the entire show is about making deliveries. I would also think that it would be a lot cheaper, since almost everything in Futurama is made up (spaceships etc.). Oh well, just a thought.
Sunday-driving mode...
One of my favorite "simple amusements" in SimCopter used to be setting up a city in SCURK that's just a circular road and a few buldings and loading it as a user level in SimCopter. Then I'd get into a helicopter (occasionally an f-16 if i was feeling particularly stressed) and activate the "Out for a sunday drive" code that puts your persepective behind one of the cars in the city (while leaving control). Then I could watch myself flying around, terroriziing the city, holding up traffic by landing in the road, etc.
Easily amused....
Of course, I haven't played SimCopter at all this week... it feels... odd.
Karma: T-rexcellent.
http://xbox.ign.com/previews/16612.html
its Mario KART you f-king moron. Everyone knows this. My faith in /. has dwindled 2d6 on this day.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I thought we were boycotting Amazon because of their monumentally lame one click shopping patent.
The SNES version had a much better replay value because the game didn't have a "cheap factor." What I mean is that in the SNES version, the speed of the characters and their abilities remained consistent.
That is, if you won the first race of a GP. If you didn't win, the players who beat you in the first round would get extra mushrooms. All SMK CPU players also got unlimited mushrooms to attempt to reclaim the place they finished the first race unlimited feathers to jump over anything you drop or throw, and unlimited of items you can't even get such as poison mushrooms.
Read more about the problems with the Mario Kart series (note: some are valid balance bugs, while others are personal preference).
Will I retire or break 10K?
I don't care what anyone says, but it's NOT Mario Kart. It might be a racing game with cartoon characters, but I know I won't be buying it. I personally (and all my friends) don't like the Simpsons so we would have no enjoyment playing this game. We would prefer just a sequel to Mario Kart 64 complete with battle mode, etc.
Does anyone know if there are any plans to produce a REAL Mario Kart for the Game Cube?
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
...
Resident Evil with Sesame Street
It's one thing to use a game's engine and expand upon it and make something reasonably different... but this might as well be a skin set.
So when are we going to see a Kart racer featuring the Slashdot crew? CmdrTaco vs. JonKatz in battle mode would be hilarious. :-D
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Doom, blah, have you EVER heard of wolfenstein?
Wolfenstein 3D was a clone of Midi-Maze aka Faceball 2000.
Mario Kart (racing games with weapons) is a clone of Pole Position (racing games). (Did you know that NBA Jam used Pole Position's floor-rendering algorithm?)
Will I retire or break 10K?
Does anyone know if DDR's (dance dance revolution) be coming to the Game Cube? More importantly - will they come to the USA market?
-Brian
We were playing Dune 2 long before Warcraft2 was a dot on the map
It is actually like Sega's Crazy Taxi, not Mario Kart.
Sounds to me that you are just using this situation to try and make yourself look like your better than other people.
The QNX Troll?
Bastard.
Complete with wooden sideboards, broken tailgate, and bed full of haybales and pigs.
Not Mario Kart, but Crazy Taxi.
Crazy Taxi = best game for Dreamcast
Simpsons = best TV show
What a great combination. Interestingly, Crazy Taxi is coming out on the GameCube at the same time as Simpsons Road Rage (Nov 18). And, for the fans out there, Crazy Taxi 2 came out for the Dreamcast recently.
--- witty signature
"Otto, there's a Gremlin on the side of the bus!"
dont feed the trolls folks.
little timmy didnt really donate $500, he just wishes he could.
guess he didnt notice that slashdot was the best source for up to date news on the disaster while the major media folks tried to fix their burning servers.
it's mario kart (not cart).. and it looks nothing like mario kart, it look's more like crazy taxi (which is a good game :p)
Few more:
7. Colossal Cave (aka Adventure aka Classic Adventure) - Text based adventure, lead to MUDs.
8. Might & Magic - Secret of the Inner Sanctum (1st person dungeon RPG with only 90 degree turns)
9. Space Invaders (deserves a special mention cause of the number of "Shoot at the sky from your rocket ship" games it spawned - either with or without top-scrolling)
"Anybody remotely interesting is mad, in some way or another" - Doctor Who
I don't think the simpsons is a very good basis
for any video game. i just like to laugh at the TV.
-- Spankmeister General
My history teacher brought an article from the New York Times into class on the philosophy of the Simpsons. She encouraged my friend to do his term paper on said subject.
D'oh! Lousey post...
Blessed are the geeks for they shall Internet the Earth.
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