Place Of Abandonment: Late 2020/Early 2021, around the end of Bender's section, which is about halfway through the game

I never watched the Simpsons growing up. I dunno how, but despite having played Hit & Run and The Simpsons Game, plus enjoying its movie, I never got the chance to watch it on Fox on the TV, or even stream it through legal or 'legal' manners. Just sort of whizzed by me, really. I have been making slow progress in watching the series, but it's gonna take a while before I finish up its Golden Era (I plan on getting up to S11).

Futurama, meanwhile, is the complete inverse. This was formulaic to most of my senses, teaching me that not only can the bases of science can be cool, but also my humor. From the long payoff to the quick wordplay, from the esoteric weirdness to the gallows, I dare say it's one of the funniest things in existence. Sure, not everything about it hits the mark - Bend Her is one of the most painfully unfunny and uncomfortably bad episodes I've ever seen - but for a show that was conceived in 1999, lived up to 2003, revived once again in 2008 and finishing up in 2013, it's a pretty strong track record compared to everything I've heard about the Simpsons. I'm not a super fan that can quote every line or detail an exact scene from a specific episode, but I'll gladly share my favorite moments, be it fan favorites or personal.

Anyway this game sucks lol

You play as Fry, Bender, and Leela for this endeavor, with Zoidberg being used for one instance, and I'll give credit that it's nice they were able to get not only the voice cast for them, Farnsworth, and even Mom & Sons, but also one of the writers of the show, J. Stewart Burns. As a result, the writing's easily the best part of the package, not only in terms of line delivery and setup but also from utilizing a few throwbacks here and there, such as the loading screens being based on the type of adverts you'd see from the show, Nibbler being one of the main collectibles, or being able to activate the Suicide Booth and losing a life in the process. Not near the top of the series' best efforts, and the presentation is very rough in obtaining a 3DCG approach, but there's enough gags and game-specific humor to at least get a good chuckle here and there, especially with how the story is structured as this sort of time loop fiasco. It's the everything else that drags it down, unfortunately.

The controls are bizarre, definitely a "need to play it to feel it" instance. The jump is springy yet also stiff to position, the three trio turn kinda awkwardly, there's little sense of feedback when you get hit meaning you can get cut down without warning on occasion, and the camera is.. actually somewhat competent surprisingly, but it still has a habit of getting stuck on things or not visually letting you see what's ahead. While the core package is a 3D platformer, each of the characters have a distinct playstyle to set their levels apart: Fry has the action-adventure approach, utilizing guns to deal damage which doesn't mean much since a majority of them deal big enough hits to whittle down all of his foes; Bender is mainly centered on the platforming, even having a boulder chase sequence, but there's never a sense of progression, you sort of do things just because; I never got to Leela or Zoidberg's sections, but I've at least dug up what they do, and the former's combat focused while the latter's a vehicle minigame of getting to the end on time.

Honestly, even if you iron out the jank and controls, it wouldn't help much cause this game is ungodly boring. Despite the immense potential a game within the Futurama setting would have, it strangely doesn't capitalize on them, just strictly adhering to the base loop and some tinges of the show's style for the whole way through. It also doesn't help most of the minigames I played were either woefully long and boring, or haphazardly short and unpolished. I've heard this game is rather hard, and while most of it is again cause of how unpolished and rough the collision and strict jumps are, the core battles against enemies and jumping sequences - from what I've played, anyway - never really drove me up a wall, instead I just felt like I was wasting time on something that I clearly didn't like doing, and should've used it on something else instead. It's a supremely basic and barebones approach, and the amount of times I felt something was escalating can be counted on one hand.

Nowadays, I try to finish whatever I set out to do, even if I'm not at all liking it, since I want to see if there's anything to at least say and give out a finalized, earnest thought when it comes to discussions. However, this game is one of very few times I'm comfortable in leaving abandoned, for two reasons. Firstly, I've seen what the later levels are like, and little to none of them have any sort of appeal and opted to double down on the weakest aspects of the package, so I don't see any point in bothering. Secondly, remember when I said the writing was the best part? Well, so did the crew, because the cutscenes were edited and repackaged as a "special cinematic" for the home release of Beast With A Billion Backs, as Futurama: The Lost Adventure. Technically speaking, this makes it one of the few times the "just watch the cutscenes instead" mantra is actually a truth, you can just watch that, or preferably an ACTUAL cutscene compilation of the game to retain some of the more platform-specific jokes, and have a guilt-free experience!