The Simpsons: Hit & Run is an action-adventure video game based on The Simpsons television series. The video game was released for GameCube, Xbox, PlayStation 2 and Windows on September 16, 2003 in the United States, December 25, 2003 for Japan and September 16, 2004 in Europe and Australia. The story and dialogues were written by the series’ scriptwriters, including the original voices of the cast (the Spanish voices of the series are also in the translated version of the game).
The game follows the story of the Simpson Family and the citizens of Springfield, who witness many strange incidents occurring in the city. When several residents decide to take matters into their own hands, they discover that aliens Kang and Kodos are filming a reality series about the town.
The game received generally favorable reviews from video game critics. Praise focused mainly on the interpretation of The Simpsons TV series as a video game and its assumed parody of Grand Theft Auto III, while criticism was mainly on some aspects of the gameplay. The game received the Favorite Video Game award at the Nickelodeon Australian Kids’ Choice Awards in 2004. By June 2007, more than 3 million copies were sold.
The words “Hit and Run”, although literally translated as “Hit and Run”, respectively, is actually an English idiom used when a person commits a crime, usually driving, and flees the scene of the crime to avoid being brought to justice.