The biggest news at last night's Electronic Arts gathering was about their new Simpson's game, unfortunately, the company's press release had, for the most part, already stolen their thunder.

But their were some interesting tidbits, and we also got a chance to check out some gameplay, overall I was impressed, very impressed.

The first thing you need to know is that this particular Simpsons games, or at least the plot for it, was driven by the writers behind the popular prime-time cartoon. The EA folks showing off some early levels say the team had been thinking about this particular idea for years.

And their interest shows. The game will feature an original story with 8,000 lines of dialog written by the show's writers. All told, the game has about an hour's worth of full motion video. That story will be told over 16 episodes that are divided into four chapters.

The game's general concept is that the Simpson's discover they have been turned into a video game and play with their characters. This video game within a video game theme allowed EA to have some fun satirizing the industry, the company said last night.

I had a chance to see some short Bart, Homer, Lisa and Marge play and what I saw impressed me.

In the Marge level, the matriarch of the Simpson family is upset about the violence in video games and go about trying to destroy all of the video game advertising in town as well as subduing the kids turned violent by playing games too much.

In the level Marge used a megaphone to make people do her bidding, attacking signs for Grand Theft Scratchy: Blood Island or the local video game store.

In another level, Homer ran around a food court binging on delectables until he turned into a giant ball of fat. Once transformed he rolled around the screen, his head lolling side-to-side on his neck, his arms weakly flailing and his feet barely visible, as he crushed opponents and the scenery. To remain in ball form, Homer has to keep his calorie meter up by eating food. At one point he gobbles up an insanity pepper and turns molten red, destroying everything he touches.

The third level the developers showed off was Tree Hugger, Lisa's training level. In it Lisa uses her newly realized video-game super powers to take down a logging company hired by Mr. Burns to convert Springfield's majestic forests into a whole bunch of luxury toothpicks.

Lisa's power is the ability to summon the Hand of Buddha by meditating at special locations in the level. While in the meditative state, the game shifts point of view to one floating above the level and the gamer controls a disembodied, etheral arm and hand, using it to pick things up and move then around in real-time. For instance, at one point, Lisa uses her ability to pick up some giant boulders and drop them on the heads of unsuspecting enemies The hand was also used to help with puzzles blocking the way to the next level.

The developers pointed out that all of the levels are built to use two of the characters at a time, and that the game supports drop-in, drop-out cooperative play. If a second player isn't around, the AI controls the second character. Many of the levels are designed to force a player to leap frog back and fourth between characters.

While the game is still in development, all of the original cast of the TV show have already signed on to do the voice work.

The game is set for release on six platforms (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PS2, DS and PSP) and EA folks said that all of the games will be designed to utilize the unique functions of the different consoles. In particular, the DS version will support some unique stylus gameplay and the Wii will support motion controls. None of the games will support online play, though side-by-side, of course, is available.

Even though the game is relatively early on in the development stage, I was impressed at how much like the cartoon the game looked. The devs managed to figure out a way to make the characters look 3D without loosing any of the show's look o feel. It's almost as if they look both 3D and flat.

I think this is a game that could certainly live up to the standards set by Hit and Run, which I personally loved. Brian Crecente