20 years on, The Simpsons Hit and Run designer reflects on the enduring legacy of the beloved "GTA for kids"

gamesradar.com:

The release of The Simpsons: Hit & Run two decades ago may have followed what's considered by many as the most popular era of The Simpsons, but few would have predicted the levels of fondness and esteem 2003's Hit & Run still enjoys today. Developed by Canadian studio Radical Entertainment and released for PS2, Nintendo GameCube and Xbox (and later on PC), The Simpsons: Hit & Run is hailed as a classic by avid and casual gamers alike, as a game that transcends generations with its appeal.

"Hit & Run is still the highest rated Simpsons game ever made, according to Metacritic," The Simpsons: Hit & Run lead game designer Joe McGinn tells GamesRadar+. "And if I sound proud of that, yeah I am a bit. I am very surprised and pleased that people still love the game. I gave a talk to some high school kids about my computer science career the other day, and I was amazed that some of them had played Hit & Run. They weren't even born when it came out!"

But the road to release for Hit & Run was far from smooth for McGinn and the team at Radical Entertainment. Despite having developed dozens of games before the turn of the century – including adaptations of other popular franchises such as Rocky & Bullwinkle, Beavis & Butthead, and The Terminator – Radical's luck changed ahead of its introduction to the town of Springfield.

The best PS2 games of all time

McGinn continues: "Three months into my first gaming job, our publisher cancelled all four of the studio's games on the same day. Welcome to the game industry. But Radical was a great company, they didn't lay off a single employee [and] we started making demos and game pitches."

"We heard Fox Interactive was looking to make a Simpsons driving game. Many other studios also pitched