I am enjoying this year's Halloween event, but I must confess that I also feel a little underwhelmed. On one level, I guess there was no way for it to compete with the expectations I built up in my mind. However, on the other hand, it does kind of feel like a retread.
The first two Treehouse of Horror events were complete free-for-alls. Alien invasions, gods and demons, technology gone amok, and fairy tale creatures all mashed together in a glorious rigmarole of activity. Halloween 2012 -- which I didn't participate in, but read extensively about -- featured zombies, Mayan Gods, aliens, Devil Flanders, witches, and haunted houses, while 2013 featured ghosts, vampires, more aliens, insane technology, more witches, and a freak show. What does this year bring? An alien invasion, which is essentially a retread of Kang's (2012) and Kodos' (2013) story arcs from the previous events. The story arc with Hugo is a nice change of pace, but the reliance on what happened before is kinda...old.
Speaking of old, there is kind of a reliance in re-releasing old content from the past two years. Now, don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with rereleasing the old buildings, skins, and characters. Hell, I must have spent $100 to get the old and new content last year. But the new prizes and purchasables feel kind of sparse compared to the volume of past content.
Also, they could have added some more playable characters and skins. The first Halloween event brought us one new character (Kang) and three skins (Mayan Homer, Devil Flanders, and Witch Marge), and the second Halloween brought us a staggering four new characters (Kodos, Suzanne the Witch, Booberella, and Ghost Maude) and two skins (Strongman Homer and Count Burns), but so far all we've got are two new characters -- Hugo and the Space Mutant -- and one skin (Alien Burns). I mean, come on, you introduce the teleporters as a purchasable content, but no Fly-Headed Bart skin?
And even if you wanted to stay exclusively with aliens, you could have included some other playable alien characters, such as some of adult Bart's girlfriends from the recent Days of Future Future, or even Jenda's boyfriend Jerry.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm still enjoying the event, and I'm sure there's some more content that's around the corner (they always have a tie-in to the season's Halloween episode, so we'll see). I just wish it was a little fresher.
