The Simpsons: Road Rage is similar to Sega's 1999 video game Crazy Taxi, in that the main objective is to drive picked up passengers to their destinations as quickly as possible.

These similarities led to Sega suing developer Radical Entertainment and publishers Fox Interactive and Electronic Arts (EA) for patent infringement, though it was settled before going to court.

The game was met with mixed reviews from critics, many of whom pointed out its bare-bones Crazy Taxi mimicry and poor graphics.

In the story of the game, Mr. Burns has bought all transit systems in Springfield and has begun to create radioactive buses that threaten the public health.

[4] The main form of gameplay, titled "Road Rage", is an arcade-style taxi game where the player chooses a character from The Simpsons and earns money by picking up passengers and taking them to their destinations within the shortest possible time.

After each session, if the player meets a certain threshold of earnings, they can choose to purchase one out of twelve new Simpsons character drivers accompanied with their own vehicle, or one out of five new starting locations.

A version for the Game Boy Advance, developed by Altron and published by THQ, was released in North America on July 3, 2003.

Germaine Gioia, vice president of licensing at THQ, said "The Simpsons and Buffy properties have enjoyed tremendous consumer appeal in nearly every product category, including video game successes.

[24] IGN's David Zdyrko said of the same console version that "the gameplay just isn't deep or compelling enough to warrant picking this title up unless you absolutely MUST have every single product with The Simpsons plastered on it."

Zdyrko also criticized the graphics, stating that the "framerate chugs in some of the levels when there are a lot of cars on screen and the textures are generally low resolution and completely bland."