iOS REVIEW: THE SIMPSONS “TAPPED OUT”

As of this writing, you can NOT purchase this free downloadable game from EA because evidently there were a lot of bugs and high demand caused the monolith of a game company to take The Simpsons “Tapped Out off of the Apple iStore. Thankfully, I was able to borrow my friend’s iPod Touch long enough(I am an Android user) to do this write up as he was one of the few lucky ones to download it when it released. After the jump…see what I thought of Tapped Out.

Spoiler alert! I don’t really do a whole lot of ‘casual gaming’ unless if its on my PS3.  I don’t really play Farmville or CityVille, or the like and really haven’t since like the old school Sim City days(preference for the SNES take on the games) and really all I did in those games is summon monsters and acts of God to destroy the already built maps included with the game. Unfortunately, Homer already destroyed Springfield so he we can’t even do any of those fun things. All we can do…is rebuild.

Its here where the game actually starts to shine. You can put in all the boring stuff, like roads, trees, and bodies of water. You can also work to buy up land and famous Springfield landmarks but it takes a REALLY long time to do so as you have to save up cash and experience points at a snail’s pace. Gaining experience points allows you to level up and whenever you level up you get two free donuts. Not surprisingly donuts are worth more than actual cash in Springfield and it allows you to buy up buildings faster. You have two options here, if you are a patient person you can wait and play and eventually get enough donuts to get some new buildings. If you are an impatient guy like me, you can purchase donuts for a nominal fee. You can get 12 donuts for $1.99, a truckload of donuts for ten bucks, and if you are really desperate you can pay a cool Benjamin Franklin($99)to get 3,400 donuts.

This is precisely when I stopped playing the game. I think actually having to dig deep in your pockets for a game that is already eating into your phone contracts where if you are a customer of ANY wireless plan not named Sprint you have to watch your data limit or you get charged. So couple that with having to actually purchase enough donuts to the point where the game actually gets fun, is overall a lame deal no matter WHAT the cost of the game is. If you REALLY need Simpsons on the go, you can stream episodes of the Simpsons for about $8 a month on Hulu because this piece of shit is both a time and money waster, so even if EA actually DOES start selling the game again, don’t even bother.

(5.0 out of 10)