After the utter failure that was The Last Remnant, it's almost a relief to dive into my next GameFly title: The Simpsons Game. Having played both the Crazy Taxi clone and the GTA clone for the PS2, I was kind of wary of this title, but after finishing the first four episodes, I pronounce it full of win. Not only is it a graphical treat, stealing most of its look and feel right from the show, but the story itself is extremely entertaining, even if the premise is a little oddball (which is not all that unusual for the Simpsons.)

Basically, Bart tries to buy a Grand Theft Scratchy game, only to have it taken from him by Marge who is still continuing her ban bad games motif from the previous game. Annoyed, Bart wanders off to cause mischief, only to get hit in the head by a manual for The Simpsons Game. The manual reveals that the family has super powers. Hilarity ensues.

The one problem I've noticed thus far is that the camera angle is a touch absurd. When it's under your control, it's almost too herky-jerky to be of any use, sometimes "sticking" at bizarre angles. When the camera angle locks, it usually doesn't reveal much of use at all. Early on in the game, the bizarre camera actually made one of the obstacles a pain in the neck to accomplish. This was in the third level, where Bart has to scale up the ivy-covered side of a bridge. When he reaches the top, he has to vault over the top of the bridge support and glide down to another platform. The camera would actually knock Bart off the support, forcing me to start over again. When I finally got to the top, trying to swivel the camera around repeated the knockdown procedure, so it was pretty frustrating until I finally got the angle just right to get past the support. Weird.

Although the game offers co-op play, it's a little weak. You can only have a second player active during an actual episode, NOT during the free roam portion between episodes. Granted, having a second player with you is helpful during the episodes, because while the AI allows the other character to wander off and fight on his own rather than trail you like an insipid puppy ... the AI allows the other character to wander off. That means that when you need your partner to trigger a switch or use a power in an area, more than likely they've wandered off to amuse themself elsewhere.

Still, it's pretty entertaining, so I'm going to devote a bit more time to it this weekend.

In other news, we are babysitting a dog with the intent to keep. A local family is moving to Okinawa for two years, so we're giving their dog - a massive 103 pound New Foundland - a trial run. If things work out, we'll be keeping him while they're gone!