Platform: iOS

Developer: EA Mobile, Fox Digital Entertainment, and Gracie Films

Publisher: EA Mobile

Release Date: March 1st, 2012

Genre: City Builder

Nerd Rating: 4.5 out of 10!

Homer Simpson, the main character of The Simpsons, is popular for many reasons but intelligence is not one of them. The story of The Simpsons: Tapped Out starts out with our unintelligent protagonist accidentally destroying his hometown of Springfield by causing a meltdown in the nuclear power plant at which he works. Much like a strategy game, the player is in control of each character simultaneously in an isometric bird’s-eye view perspective. The player’s task is to rebuild Springfield by building houses and businesses taken right from the TV show, and in order to do this, they must make the characters perform different tasks to gain money.

The Simpsons: Tapped Out plays much like a Facebook game in the sense that making characters do tasks and building houses takes anywhere from 1 second to over 24 hours to complete. As you level up, you will most likely begin to assign your characters to do 24 hour tasks right before you go to sleep or as soon as you wake up. As imaginable, this makes the game become very repetitive and even start to feel more like a part-time job rather then a game.

The strongest point of The Simpsons: Tapped Out is the fact that most of the game’s dialogue is written by the actual writers behind the hit TV show The Simpsons. However, this will most likely only entertain you for your first few times playing, as soon you will probably just skip the dialogue to get on with tasks and earn money. Aside from the events that the developers add to the game every few months, the game’s quests are rather repetitive and just have you building specific buildings or have certain people doing certain tasks.

There is a huge variety of well-animated and designed characters, buildings, and decorations for your Springfield, which gives you a lot of creative freedom. That being said however, some of the things are restricted to being bought by donuts, which are the premium currency that must be bought with real money. You will receive a pitiful amount of donuts without paying money each time you level up, but you will never have enough to buy the things you probably would like to have in your Springfield.

The Simpons: Tapped Out is also multiplayer with your origin and Facebook friends, but not in the sense usually associated with the term “multiplayer.” You can visit your friends’ towns and do three actions for them each 24 hours, but that is the most interaction you have with your friends other then just being able to see each other’s towns. (Because that was totally worth requiring an Origin account.)

By far the worst thing about The Simpsons: Tapped Out is it’s technological issues with Origin and the iOS operating system. You must be logged into Origin to play The Simpsons: Tapped Out, so as you can guess you need an internet or service connection at all times to play. The beginning load times are rather ridiculous and if you even wanted to play when you opened the app, you surely don’t by the time the game loads. As previously mentioned, the game is well designed and looks very nice, however, the required updates can take an extremely long time.

Overall, The Simpsons: Tapped Out is only fun for a short while before becoming a chore to play. I can not in any way recommend this game, even to die-hard fans of The Simpsons. I have looked forward to writing my review of this game for quite a while, as now I can finally remove it from my device and try to forget about its existence. I apologize if you do not agree, but I’m not the only one who feels this way. If you agree, and even if you don’t, feel free to add your own thoughts and opinions to the comment section! Now, I’m going to go get some real donuts. In the words of Homer Simpson: “mmm.. donuts.”