What Don't You Like About The Simpsons: Hit & Run

As much as I adore SHaR, there are things in it that annoy me, and I'm sure that other people dislike certain things as well. Post them here.

• The fact that the game does not give you enough coins to 100% complete it. If you go for an any%, only purchasing vehicles and clothing when they are required, this isn't an issue. However, if you go for a 100% run, breaking every Buzz Cola Crate and Vending Machine, and every Wasp Camera, as well as occasionally crashing into props, you will run out of coins in Level 5 and will need to resort to coin-grinding via Wager Races, destroying traffic vehicles, etc.
• The missions Dial B for Blood and Princi-Pal. While they do have some witty dialogue, these missions are structured poorly. Both of them involve simply driving to a few places, talking to someone at those places, collecting an item, and then driving back. This is amplified in Princi-Pal, where, if you remove all of the talk to and collect objectives, essentially all you do is drive to somewhere near Burns' Casino, drive back to near where you start the mission, then drive to Burns' Casino, and finally back again to near where you start the mission. If it were just Dial B for Blood then I could accept it, but no; Princi-Pal straight out copies the mission, and makes it more boring if anything (given the route).

i dislike the borderline broken fail system that happens occasionally with a "get back into your car" objective where even if you do get back in within the time limit, you can be randomly failed for it. i'm guessing that's just radical being radical.

It doesn't have battle royale! /sarcasm

Here's the things I don't like about SHAR:

• Coin grinding. As DeepFriedBurger mentioned, I really hated that in last levels you had to grind for coins so you can buy everything. Some of the prices in later levels (level 6 especially) should have been slightly lower (although to be fair, even if clothes in level 6 are more expensive than those in level 7, the cars from Gil in level 7 are more expensive than those in level 6, so the prices remain somewhat consistent throughout the game). In my last playthrough of the game, which I did last summer and 100% completed in just a couple of days, I remember in level 5 I also started to run out of coins when buying the available clothes and cars and in levels 6 and 7 when I was low on coins, I had to smash through objects (mostly the Krusty glass shortcuts) to be able to get enough coins to purchase what was left to buy. I want to mention I have also destroyed every possible crate and vending machine (as well as all destroyable objects in all levels that don't reappear later) and have never lost any coin (I was never busted, never destroyed my vehicle (and in turn never used phone booth to repair it), never electrocuted by wasp and never entered wager race) so I had as many coins as I could and yes I know in cases of vehicle exploded and electrocuted by wasp you can still recover your lost coins but I wanted to have as many as possible and without doing "mistakes" that cost me coins. And I didn't participate in wager races as I wanted to save them AFTER 100%, meaning I didn't need them in order to get extra coins to get whatever I needed at that time. I did destroy occasionally some traffic vehicles to get coins, like the witch broom in level 7 because it is very fragile as requires only 5 ground attacks in order to destroy it on foot but I had to be careful to not destroy when had the hit & run meter high or around the coffin cars as it would cause them to get destroyed as well and fill it enough or cause hit & run. I also want to mention I wanted to complete each level 100% before advancing to next and never using Mission Select to return to earlier levels. I got the last percentage for bonus movie after I finished the game, since it required you to have all cards. I apologize if I dragged the discussion here too much, I will keep it short from now on.
• Some traffic vehicles are too often used. Something that quite bothered me has been the fact that traffic vehicles like Pickup Truck and Compact Car are used in THREE different levels, yet vehicles like Sedan A and Station Wagon are never used at all! I mean for example they could have easily used Sedan A in first level instead of the Pickup Truck. This would have added slightly more variety.
• Some vehicles feel pointless and not very rewarding when you purchase them or win them at races/bonus mission.
• Cell Phone Cars make you invisible when you drive them. In comparison with all the game's vehicles, these are only cars that make you invisible. It wouldn't surprise me if the cell phone cars haven't changed much since early development, as judging by the low-polygon driver model, they haven't been changed much compared to the rest traffic vehicles that have better looking drivers and still show you inside car.
• The bonus game doesn't feel as fun as it should be. I remember reading on the back of DVD case about multiplayer and one day I was excited when I went to try Bonus Game and was a bit disappointed it was quite limited in terms of features. You can only play as the 5 main playable characters and select any of the vehicles you have unlocked so far. You can't access any of the rest vehicles in game, while the NPCs can access them ( although I don't recall the NPCs in Bonus Game ever selecting poor cars like the RC Car or the Red Brick Car).
• Some missions could have been a bit better balanced. This includes the infamous Set to Kill. Although nowadays I don't have a problem with it anymore (and I don't even use the Reset car exploit inside ship to save a lot of time, I just take the shortcut anyway and still make it in time), I think MAYBE the time should have been 0:55 or 1:00 to make it back to Krustylu Studios instead of 0:50. Each second matters in this mission!
• Wager Races should have been made required for 100% completion. Otherwise there isn't much of a point in doing them as people aren't bothering with them, unless they need a lot of coins or want to set a best time.

I don't think I have anything else to add.

That the electaurus is owned by Homer and not by Lisa btw it should of been her first car and later on the mission she upgrades to the Malibu Stacy Car beacuse you can see if you look in the book that she the blueprint of the Malibu Stacy being made

[redacted]:

Just an off-topic theory here, but I don't think Set to Kill was made intentionally difficult. The 50 second time limit present in the second stage, where you have to drive to Krustylu Studios isn't present in the PlayStation 2 prototype, which was compiled very late into the game's development, meaning that the time limit was a last minute change. From what I speculate, at some time near shipment, the timer was added and a developer tested it a few times. On one of these attempts, he failed one second off (as he had hit a wall earlier in the mission), and just assumed that it could be beaten (since there was no changing it now).

@DeepFriedBurger: When I made reply yesterday, I was actually thinking at the fact that in the PS2 prototype the timer wasn't present, so the developers made a last minute change with the timer, which is also what you said. However I'm sure they didn't test this enough times because otherwise they would realize 50 seconds is a little bit too low. Like I said it's no problem for me nowadays but I remember back then it was quite difficult to make it back in that time, more often than not the cause of failure is police during Hit & Run that would bust you at the squidport, on the way to Krustylu studios, so you would not only fail because of time lost but also lose lots of coins. Yeah I admit back then I never thought of the shortcut inside the C-Spanker, so I always took the long way and if I made it in time, I must have made it with last few seconds left on clock. I guess this discussion should be made for a different topic.

I also agree with TheTitaniumFox that Electaurus should have been made Lisa's starting vehicle and have Malibu Stacy Car as maybe the reward from beating Street Races. I imagine if they went with that, it would have also made the street races in level 2 a bit more fair since in final release, Lisa in Malibu Stacy Car is quite a formidable opponent (at least in the checkpoint race). But then it would create a bit more difficulty in level 3 races against Marge. I still don't understand how Marge's Canyonero in those races is a bit faster than Lisa's Malibu Stacy Car. According to the stats at phone booth, they both have same speed but Lisa's car has two times higher acceleration (3.0 stars vs 1.5 stars). I guess this should be discussed in a separate topic too.

It's always the same, very monotonous in my humble opinion, the game is basically:

- Chase someone with the car
- Break his car while you chase him
- Pick things that fall from the car that you are chasing
- Car races
- Escape from a car that is chasing you
- Pick things on the floor with the car

Car, car, car, car, car, car

Of course it's a very charming game and I love it, but it's incredible that the game story is entirely made with such monotonous missions.