Check out the preview of the upcoming Simpsons game over at Eurogamer and read about what could make this Simpsons game one of the best. The Simpsons games have been somewhat hit or miss beginning with the early days of the arcades when the 4 player beat ‘em up was a blast to play, yet the NES versions that we got to play at home were relatively lacking in the fun dept. Always wacky and zany and chock full of Simpsons lore, this iteration coming for the Wii should prove to be more hit than miss.

Here’s a nice quote from the preview going over some of the game elements:

On to the game, then. There are sixteen levels with Springfield acting as the hub world, with two pre-determined playable characters in every level. If you’re playing on you own, the buddy AI promises to help out and you’ll need to switch between the two characters to take care of certain impassable situations. The quality of the AI isn’t something we can comment on yet, but in these situations perhaps it’s just best to hope it doesn’t get in the way, rather than expect it to be making intelligent decisions. The game has been designed with two-players in mind, with co-op throughout the entire game and instant drop-in and drop-out play. Unfortunately - and this could be a real bummer - there’s no co-op play online. “We felt that as it’s a family game we wanted people to experience it next to each other. It’s couch co-op,” Almassizadeh tells us, but we can’t help thinking that’s a pretty lame excuse. Why not have both and give people the choice?

Levels are built on a mixture of classic Simpsons episodes and well-known videogames. “In The Simpsons universe nothing is safe - including EA and any other game-maker out there. We do a lot of tributes to different games that we love,” says Almassizadeh. And so we get a level entitled Medal of Homer. Haha, that works. Shadow of the Colossal Donut. Very good. Neverquest. Nearly funny. Grand Theft Scratchy. Hrm.

s you’d expect, all five Simpson are playable and each has their own special powers. Homer bloats up to become a giant, fat, rolling ball. Lisa can use the Hand of Buddha to manipulate the environment .(By ‘manipulate’ we mean ‘move around some boards to create a bridge’, because your character dies if he/she goes in the water. There’s another cliché! Hoho!)