The Simpsons Game demo

I played the demo of The Simpsons Game on the PS3. And I'd say the game is a disappointment.

The demo consists of Homer and Bart trying to defeat Doughnut Lad. First annoyance is the running commentary by Kent Brockman. The stage is set up as a news broadcast by Kent, but he's quiet about half the time, and only chimes in for the very obvious, or to let you know that the character you are not controlling has been knocked out.

The demo doesn't tell you at the start, but you're getting graded. You're also being timed. The goal is four minutes. I finished the boss in almost twenty-five minutes. You're also graded on how many of a specific object you smashed, and how many cliches you uncovered.

The cliches are, in my opinion, what is either going to make or break this game. Making fun of video game cliches is fun and all, but I think I'll reference A Bard's Tale (PC, PS2, and XBox). A Bard's Tale is a top-down RPG/Dungeon Crawler like Diablo or Baldur's Gate. The main character complains, mocks, and otherwise makes fun of various cliches of both Dungeon Crawlers and RPGs in general. The problem is that the game itself contains those cliches. The main character sees these cliches in use, and then proceeds to mock them.

In another game, the title of which I forget, has the main character tasked with various fetch quests. Said main character then complains about fetch quests (actually calling them "fetch quests") and talks about how stupid and redundant they are. Yet the game still makes you do them.

It may seem funny, but when the game is telling you "This is stupid," and then proceeds to make you do it anyway, is that really fun? When the game tells you about the inherent flaws in the design of its own being, it makes me wonder why it's there to begin with.

Back to the Simpsons Game. The first cliche I ran into was the "Obvious weak point." Which is the very obvious weak point on Doughnut Lad's backside. The second cliche is "You can't swim." Which makes reference to the fact that you have to "wait for the sequel" to be able to perform that action. I didn't find that last one, but I'd expect it to be stupid.

It's been stated that the Simpsons Game will "make fun of" various video game genres. But the cliche thing makes me think the humor will be too forced. When you take a cliche concept that's either overdone, annoying, or makes gamers pull their hair out, don't put it in your game and then tell us how stupid it is. If you think it's dumb that characters can't swim, then don't make it so your characters can't swim! If you think it's silly to have bosses with obvious weak points, then don't give him obvious weak points.

Don't give us something dumb, just so you can tell us that it's dumb. At least that's my opinion on the topic.