Sunday, March 19, 2023

Free-to-Play Social City-Building Video Game Review: The Simpsons - Tapped Out

The Simpsons: Tapped Out is a free-to-play social city-building video game for mobile devices that defied the odds by having constant updates by EA Mobile for over ten years.

It is really no surprise that it is a popular game as it is based on the popular adult animated comedy television series, The Simpsons. That show has five generations of fans, from baby boomers to zoomers, as it has been on the air for nearly thirty-five years.

The game lets gamers create their own Springfield with characters and buildings that are unlocked as the player collects experience by buying and collecting rent from various buildings from the show such as Kwik-E-Marts and Krusty Burgers.

It's a fun concept that works well because there are hundreds of different pieces of content that can be added since the television series has been on the air for over thirty years.

One thing makes it a bit of a hard sell, however. At this point, it's easy to earn premium currency through collecting experience and leveling up, as well as collecting from donut-producing buildings. However, this is only true for players that have been with the game since near the beginning. New players will have a hard time collecting donuts past the first few levels.

Update March 20, 2023, adding more information: A free-to-play video game should have lots of content and updates, and The Simpsons: Tapped Out has that in spades as it has been consistently updated for over ten years. It's fun to build your own Springfield, and there are a lot of characters available for no charge through the level-up feature. However, there are only voice clips for some of the characters, and some of them aren't even interactable as they just wander around your Springfield. Another bummer is that some of the characters don't have outside jobs, so if you send your Springfielders away to earn money and experience so that you can buy new things as well as level up, some characters will remain hidden. There are unlimited levels, however, the level stories are not unlimited. 

After a while, all you get is premium currency and experience, which isn't a bad thing, but it's not enough to buy most of the premium items in the game, especially in the game's events, as they are usually vastly overpriced. If you have played the game for years, it's likely you have ways to get donuts more easily through quick level-ups due to lots of buildings, and possibly even through donut-producing buildings. If you haven't played for years, however, you'll probably find it harder to farm for donuts. Thus, it's a fun game that's ridiculously unbalanced. Because of this, it's hard to recommend the game to anyone but the most die-hard fans of The Simpsons.

Final verdict:
3 out of 5

No comments: