Pros: Excellent sound bytes, superb multiplayer game
Cons: Load times from hell!
The bottom line: If you're sick of Crazy Taxi, than Road Rage may just be the answer.
Ah yes, Crazy Taxi. All the fun I had with that classic Dreamcast game. But, this isn't Crazy Taxi, this is better! It's a cracked Simpsonic take on said game. It's Road Rage and it cannot be missed.

Besides being a flagrant ripoff of the all time taxi game, we are also treated to a plot, albeit a dull one:

Monty Burns has just purchased the Springfield Bus Line and has converted all of the buses to nuclear power. In an attempt to stop the evil Mr. Burns, the citizens of Springfield rise up against the buses by turning their cars (or SUVs, tractors, plows, buses, hover cars, and clown cars) into makeshift taxis. They will pool their earnings from the taxi service to buy the bus line back from Burns.

On your way to your one million dollar goal, you will have to unlock parts of the city and other drivers. You only start with the Simpson family, but that's still enough to work with. Among the other drivers are Willy (on his tractor), Barney (Plow King), Rev. Lovejoy (in his book burning mobile), and another Homer (oh, Mr. Plow, that's my name...).

Now, the maps are rather small, but you can manuever well in them, there isn't an annoying amount of traffic to get past, but the roads do get congested at times. If you could put these areas together, you would get an area about one and a half times the size of the original Crazy Taxi map. Also, spread out along your trips through town, you will notice a lot of Simpsons references (everything from the Springfield Film Festival, to TRUCK-A-SAURUS) that will tickle any Simpsons fan with delight.

The graphics are as smooth as you can get. Picture the "Treehouse of Horror" short when Homer is launched into the third dimention, now make those 3-D effects look decent and Simpson-like. Now you're getting the picture. There is really nothing to say here but wow.

The sound is very cool, if not just a little repetitive. I love hearing Ralph's little lines every time I pick him up (my title is the best of them all), but they do get old after a while (I personally sick of his annoying yell of "yay, boxes" when I take him to the box factory). But, repitition aside, we have all of the actors from the show reprising their TV roles here, so we don't have annoying, not-even-close replacement actors (I'm looking at you, "Wacky Races").

The control is simple, so anyone can just pick up and play. You have your gas, brake, reverse, horn, and your two steering options (wither the d-pad or your left analog stick). If anyone can get lost with this, then maybe they should start with something a little easier (like "Flintstones Bedrock Bowling" for example), but that shouldn't be.

This game has some fairly easy missions, but they are pretty good to come back to every so often. Most of them are just a run around and smash things type of mission, but getting through all ten missions gives you a new car for Homer (does anyone remember the green monstrosity that Homer designed for his brother, Herb?), so your hard work isn't all for nought.

The handling of the vehicles varies from driver to driver. While some have perfect handling (Prof. Frink, Apu, Snake, Lisa, Krusty, etc.), others have truely rotten handling (Barney, Mr. Plow Homer, Rev. Lovejoy, etc.) and should only be attempted by people with a little bit of Road Rage time under their belt. They are that tricky to manuever with.

There is also something on this game that was never seen on Crazy Taxi (and I'm not talking about the lack of slowdown, better collision detection, and overall better gameplay). Road Rage has a two player mode. Here, you each select a driver and drive around looking for the one fare in the city. Once one of you pick him up, it's a battle to see who can get him/her there. And, if you don't have the passenger, you can steal him from the other driver by ramming him/her (or, just hitting him/her)with your car. This is really something to try with friends. It is really a blast.

Now, for the only real problems with this game. For one, the ending of the game is rather lackluster. Burns gives up the buses back to the city and everyone lives happily ever after. yawn. No action or drama, just Burns returning the bus line back to the city. Boring.

The biggest problem has to be the load times. Imagine the load times on the earliest PS One games. Now, you see how long it takes to for this game to load up your round of Road Rage.

Overall, loyal reader, if you are a fan of the Simpsons, and are looking for something a little different (albeit a ripoff of another game), than Simpsons Road Rage is right up your alley.

Trust me on this one. You'll thank me later.