The Best Simpsons Game Is Being Remade
Most video game adaptations of The Simpsons are justly forgotten, but the absolute best of them is in the process of being remade.
The early 1990s through early 2000s were littered with The Simpsons games, most of which were simple arcades with unremarkable titles that no one but Wikipedia remembers. Several The Simpsons games, however, like 1991’s The Simpsons arcade game, will forever remain remembered by the fandom, as will the iconic hit The Simpsons: Hit & Run from 2003. In fact, the latter is so popular that it’s currently being remade.
To be entirely fair, there’s a new report about The Simpsons: Hit & Run being remade every year; the game is so loved and iconic that fans aren’t ready to give up on the title. Just last year, we reported on a developer remaking the game using the development version of Unreal Engine 5. This year, the news published by IGN revolved around a dedicated fan creating a remaster mod for the iconic The Simpsons: Hit & Run game while also hand-drawing every cutscene from the game in the classic The Simpsons style.
The Simpsons: Hit & Run mod was first announced approximately two months ago by its developer, El Gato Del Tejado, who has since uploaded several videos documenting the work that has gone into remaking the game. The latest video uploaded by the modder showcases various complications that occur when a one-person team is remastering a near-two-decade-old gaming title. One of these issues occurred when the modder began working on The Simpsons: Hit & Run cutscenes, which are depicted in 3D in the original 2003 release version of the game.
However, this highly-welcomed remake attempt differs from the previous ones since the modder doesn’t really have any 3D animation experience. Instead, El Gato Del Tejado tried using rotoscoping, a technique in which animators trace over footage frame by frame, but according to the modder, this only worked well for the backgrounds and not the actual characters. So, he turned to the best possible alternative — drawing The Simpsons: Hit & Run cutscenes by hand.
This means that the mod, once released, will have a cutscene style that is more akin to The Simpsons sitcom rather than the 3D re-rendering of the original cutscenes from the game. Cutscenes aside, El Gato is also updating the 3D look of the game by recreating dozens of in-game textures and updating the model of Homer Simpson to offer a more modernized version of the in-game character. It’s grueling work, especially when you’re redoing the entire game by yourself.
The modder also discussed other issues which he ran into while recreating The Simpsons: Hit & Run, like Bart’s disappearing nose and issues with Lisa’s hair — which was never actually 3D modeled. Still, the current work is astonishing and deserving of praise. El Gato hasn’t offered any release time window for the mod or how long the work might take but has a Patreon account opened for The Simpsons: Hit & Run fans who would like to support the project financially.
The Simpsons: Hit & Run was originally released in 2003 and went on to become one of the best The Simpsons games ever made, despite being an obvious Grand Theft Auto clone. The fans have been calling for gaming companies to remake the game for modern consoles, but their outcries have fallen on deaf ears of gaming giants.
