The Simpsons: Hit and Run

I finished The Simpsons: Hit and Run today...by which I mean I am finished with The Simpsons: Hit and Run. I did all but the last story mission, and pretty much just gave up. The two preceding missions were the exact same thing, except in the last one they made you drive as Grampa and took 30 seconds off the clock. It was an exercise in frustration, as were many other missions in the game, especially the ones as Apu.
I really wanted to like Hit and Run better than Grand Theft Auto, but really they both aren't very good. I don't not like driving around and exploring and doing stuff like that, but the missions are just so stupid. In Hit and Run, it's either a collecting mission, racing mission, or destroy another car mission. Only a couple of the missions in the whole game do you actually get out of your car. It's all pretty much the same. The only way it gets more challenging is to just make you do it in less time, which doesn't really make it any more challenging, just more frustrating.
I'm sure if you're a fan of The Simpsons and Grand Theft Auto, then you'll love Hit and Run. You run into dozens of the characters from the shows, and there are lots of jokes you would only get if you had seen every Simpsons episode multiple times like I have. However, the monotonous gameplay and frustrating missions just can't redeem it.
At least now I have time to play some of the other games that have been sitting on my hard drive for a long time, like Thief: Deadly Shadows, Rome: Total War, and Grim Fandango (can't believe I never beat this game back in the day). Maybe over break I'll finally be able to dust off that Dreamcast I bought for $15 and play some Sonic ADD and Resident Evil: Code Veronica.