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There are several cornerstones of gaming that you can always seem to rely on. Things like the fact that Army Moves games are always rubbish. That a new FIFA game will come along at least once a year. And that games based on The Simpsons are always, without fail, rubbish.

However, we've had to re-evaluate the very foundation of our gaming beliefs. For Simpsons: Hit & Run, whilst hardly likely to qualify for any end of year awards, certainly has its moments. It's mildly amusing, for instance. It takes place in a graphically spot-on virtual Springfield. And, whilst never matching it, its Crazy Taxi aspirations, does occasionally make it through to the gameplay.

A simple structure underpins it all. As Homer, you're continually presented with tasks to do that ultimately involve moving an object from point A to point B. That invariably involves a little bit of driving, and then some vehicular-based transport.

You may be racing to get the job finished ahead of someone else at times, but otherwise you're left casually driving round, with the ability to knock down virtually everything without a pulse. In fact, you're positively encouraged to do so, in order to unlock the funding to buy yourself upgrades to your motor.

It's shallow fun, and little more than that, yet Hit & Run has an innocent appeal to it. It's easy to get into, and the learning curve is suitably gentle, although that's pretty much down to there being nothing to learn. On the downside, its questionable whether you'll still be playing it in a week, yet alone a month or two, and whilst ankle-biters will perhaps get more out of it, there's not much to interest the dedicated gamer.

But, it's an improvement. PC owners have been subjected to rubbish like Simpsons Wrestling, and some odious skateboarding game that came around last year. And whilst Hit & Run may struggle to justify the asking price at times, you can't help feeling we've got off lightly.

Price: £34.99 Manufacturer: Vivendi Website: www.vugames.co.uk Required Spec: 700MHz processor, 192Mb RAM, 1.2Gb hard disk space, Windows 98 or greater