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MANILA, Philippines—The way the afternoon sun hits Jerusalem’s rooftops in “Assassin’s Creed.” The lashing spray of ocean waves pouring over a cargo ship’s bow as you sniff out a nuclear threat in the Bering Strait during the prologue of “Call of Duty 4.” These are the photorealistic visuals people have come to associate with next-gen gaming.

If you’re measuring by this narrow criterion, “The Simpsons Game” is about as next-gen as the drab pixels making up Mario’s mustache circa ’85. Even in the Xbox 360 version of “The Simpsons Game” I played, the graphics weren’t exactly eye-popping. Some of the cutscenes make Bart and company look as though a spastic 5-year-old snipped each character out of construction paper and glued them to your TV screen. But, man, is this game funny. Not “oh, that’s cute” funny. I’m talking deadly funny, Stephen Colbert funny, next-gen funny.

It’s easy to measure the growing awesomeness of the gaming medium by the seismic advances it has made in terms of visual representation. But the true measure of a game’s win factor lies in how well it connects viscerally. Games these days are making an emotional impact on players, and humor is an important piece of that puzzle. Exhibit A: Developer Valve’s masterpiece of a game called “Portal”—which topped many Best-of-’07 lists—should be studied in clown colleges for its pitch-black humor. It’s a first-person shooter that also leaves you in metaphorical stitches.

D’oh-ing it right

Previous attempts at Simpsons games felt alien to the TV show. You merely had Bart and Homer dropped into games that could’ve just easily starred Daffy Duck. For this installment, however, Electronic Arts opened its gold-plated checkbook and spared no expense to get it right. They hired the Emmy-winning writing staff of the FOX tube show, as well as its legendary voice actors.

The project’s sense of humor targets lifetime gamers via inside jokes and parody levels based on everything from retro arcade titles like “Missile Command” and “Joust” to modern franchises like “Medal of Honor” and “Final Fantasy.”

The Neverquest level draws the game’s biggest LOLs by poking fun at the fantasy genre: A sign just off the path instructs travelers, “Do not level up on the grass.” While fighting hordes of enemies that resemble Moe the bartender, Homer taunts, “That’s what you get for fighting with somebody who watched five minutes of ‘Lord of the Rings’ before falling asleep.” Marge even has her moments: “You know what this dungeon needs? A Glade PlugIn!”

Simpson-ized

The game also chimes in on the violent-video-game debate with its parody of controversial violent shooter “Grand Theft Auto.” Before entering a level called Grand Theft Scratchy, Marge says to Lisa, “This game is the only reason kids are bad. Let’s clean it up!” She even sends Maggie crawling through a ventilation shaft into a recording studio to change the irreverent rap it’s broadcasting to bland easy listening. (I wonder how much it cost EA to license Dionne Warwick’s “That’s What Friends Are For.”)

Even though the gameplay itself is tedious—run here, jump there, solve the occasional puzzle—you’ll roll up your sleeves and grind through each level just for the snatches of hilarious dialogue and the cutscenes bookending them.

Video games aren’t pop to move gamers to tears. But with “The Simpsons Game,” expect your first interactive tears to be shed because you’ll be laughing so hard.

THE SIMPSONS GAME
(Electronic Arts)
Platforms: Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, PS2, PS3,
Sony PSP

We say YEA or NAY
PS3 downloadable games for the price of Chocnut

YEA: You’ll get full value for your money.
NAY: No legs, no fun, no value.

LocoRoco Cocoreccho
(Sony Computer Entertainment)

While it plays quite differently than the PSP favorite, this download retains a fresh feel and a sense of absolute innocent bliss. It can be played through quite quickly, but there are enough hidden areas and LocoRocos in the unified game world to keep you trying for 100 percent completion for weeks.

Everyday Shooter
(Queasy Games)

Some might call “Everyday Shooter” yet another “Robotron” knockoff, but we call it absolutely brilliant. Eight beautiful levels are set to a great soundtrack, and with a fistful of artistic unlockables, this game has us completely
enamored.

Go! Sports Ski
(Yuke’s)

It’s hard to imagine why this absolutely dreadful game—consisting of only two runs—ever made its way to the PlayStation Network. The forced tilt controls are not engaging in the least, it looks like a sub-par PS2 title, and there’s really no fun to be found. PS3 games—even downloadables—don’t get any worse.