While the video game The Simpsons: Hit and Run came out 15 years ago, it has aged incredibly well. Here’s a look at why it serves the show well.

The Simpsons: Hit and Run video game takes the idea of the famous Grand Theft Auto video games that became popular starting in the early 2000’s and combines it with the fictional world of Bart, Lisa, Homer, Marge, and all your other favorite characters.

But what makes The Simpsons: Hit and Run a great addition to The Simpsons overall universe is that it gives the player a look at how the entire world of Springfield might fit together as an overall town. Sure, we know and love the various places in Springfield like the Kwik-E-Mart, Springfield Elementary, the Android Dungeon & Baseball Card Shop, and of course the Simpsons’ house on Evergreen Terrace. But the time constraint of episodes means that the viewer usually sees only a small portion of these places at a time.

What makes this video game so unique is that it gives fans of the show a look at how the entire town of Springfield looks put together. It takes the incredibly famous landmarks around town and turns it into a fully formed and playable map. Every famous location in Springfield is laid out, along with some clever new additions based on the series.

This is important because it’s a big part of how the game gives fans an entirely new way of immersing themselves into the world of The Simpsons. Especially because the game does it in a manner that cannot be gotten in the show. While immersing gamers into a fictional World is precisely the point of a video game, rarely does a game do it with such a well-known fictional setting.

Which is why The Simpsons: Hit and Run is not only a fun video game, but a solid addition to the world of Springfield.