The Simpsons

The Good
It's The Simpsons family! What COULDN'T a kid in the 90s like about it. Luckily, a street brawler game makes total sense allowing for a large cast of characters and fun props/weapons double functioning as throwback references to the show.

The game included what felt like a ton of content from the show, and really made me feel like I was in Springfield enmeshed in the town-wide fight. I also remember the arcade boxes having really awesome sound bites from the characters which really sold the appeal to kids like myself at the time.

The Bad
Well, it sometimes was hogged by a bunch of kids who didn't like sharing but I can't quite blame that on the game as much as the arcade's management, haha.

The game felt shallow, and I don't recall ever getting particularly far or ever played quite as long as some other classics from the time.

I do wish there were a larger variety of weapons to find and pick up, but who doesn't want more, more, more! out of their games and entertainment.

I don't recall the story or plot being meaningful whatsoever. Again though, wasn't that super commonplace for the time? In any case, it could have benefited from something more fulfilling.

The Bottom Line
The Simpsons was an arcade game released back in the early '90s to pretty huge acclaim by general audiences/gamers. I still get filled with excitement when I see these today in 2020. Many great times as a kid running between boxes with neighborhood kids and various Simpsons arcade titles were always popular. While this isn't my all-time favorite, it does rank quite high.

A 4-player co-op brawl takes place on the streets of Springfield in this Simpson's themed beat-em-up brawler arcade classic. Playing as Marge swinging around that vacuum and beating up local thugs is probably my most memorable moment in the game. Just all out Simpson's streetlight with all your favorite stars from the show.

I haven't been to an arcade in years, but this is definitely still a game I'd seek out to play.

The Good
The storyline was pretty innovative. And the characters you could pick. Thats about it.

The Bad
Oh boy, where to start.....The graphics, they were terrible, The sound was just a MIDI file in the background and no actual sound effects, The sprites, sometimes you could see through them. Overall this game, well, sucked.

The Bottom Line
Don't buy it. It's so much better in the arcades.

The Good
Remember those days when the 2D sidescrolling beat em-ups were king of the arcades? Every videogame maker worth a damn had at least one title that fitted the description, and the same went for every marketable series, comic or motion picture out to make a quick buck. If you didn't have a Final Fight clone that beared your name then you were nothing. So you had the TMNT, The Punisher, X-Men, Batman, Cadillacs & Dinosaurs, Robo Army, King of the Dragons, etc. etc. and of course: "The Simpsons: The Arcade Game" made by one of the two leading companies in the market: Konami (the other one being obviously Capcom).

Well, what can you say in favor of this particular licensed cash-in? Well for starters it features mostly recognizable Simpsons characters and landmarks for you to play in, and the gameplay and graphics are cartoony and cute enough to make you forget about the fact that a a bald, greasy old man can grab a little girl like Lisa from behind and hold her while a guy in a suit punchs her in the stomach.

Gameplay is brain-dead simple, and consists mainly of you hitting color-variating versions of the same two or three guys around as you try to hunt down Mr. Smithers and rescue Maggie. Through 9 or so stages at the end of which you have to face an obligatory boss fight against a unique enemy. Everything by the rules and entertaining as usual.

The game is challenging and offers a nice diversion if you have nothing better around to play with... Well, I guess that's as far as we go here.

The Bad
Well, it's an early 90's PC conversion of an arcade game... so if you were betting on it to suck ass then you just hit the jackpot! Completely redrawn (and badly redrawn) sprites, god-awful sound that replaces all the digitized samples and clear sfx that the original had, missing stages (or parts from stages), missing enemies, missing backgrounds, unbalanced gameplay (Marge was powerful but slow on the original, now she's both super strong AND super fast), missing moves (the original had a series of team-up moves with each pair of characters as well as other gimmicks... gone here too). The list just goes on and on...

Quite simply it's a lackluster port made to cash in quickly on the PC-using Simpsons fanbase.

The Bottom Line
Yet another botched port of what was originally an averagely entertaining arcade romp. This is why PCs got that fame that they were uncapable of handling action or arcade games. Want some good advice? Get yourself the original ROM, fire it up with MAME and enjoy the Simpsons in their original glory. The DOS version is merely an oddity that would appeal to collectors and isn't worth a dime.