[arcade sounds]
[typing]
[pew-pew sounds]
[music]
[warbling] The Simpsons... arcade game
developed and released to arcades by Konami in 1991.
It came in two-player and four-player variants
and is actually the very first officially- licensed Simpsons video game.
It's got about what you'd expect for a side-scrolling beat 'em up cabinet:
an 8-way joystick and buttons for jumping and attacking
and, really, what more do you need?
You've got four players with four fighting styles and weapons to choose from.
Marge with her vacuum cleaner,
Homer with his fists and feet,
Bart with his skateboard
and Lisa with her whip-like jump rope.
The game begins with a short cutscene
showing Smithers and two goons robbing Springfield Jewelers for some unknown reason.
While making his getaway, Smithers bumps into Homer,
tossing a large diamond up in the air,
which is then caught by Maggie's vacuum cleaner-like mouth.
Apparently it's easier to just steal the kid instead of steal back the diamond,
because video games,
so he runs off with her and it's your job to track him down.
But not before beating the crap out of 1,001 random enemies and characters from the TV show.
Yeah, much like Konami's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game from a couple of years before,
it's an arcade brawler that is pretty fun when playing by yourself,
but turns into something seriously fantastic when you have three friends by your side.
Not only do you have the standard moves and attacks you'd expect from each individual character,
but you also have double-team moves that you can perform
when each character gets near another and an enemy is nearby,
really put the cooperational in the word cooperational.
And of course, you've got items that can be destroyed, picked up and used as additional weapons
throughout each of the eight stages,
as well as a ton of characters, locations and voices directly from the show.
It's just a really solid arcade beat 'em up that stays fun even today
and is an absolute must-play if you have a friend or few to play with.
But, oddly enough,
even though the game was highly acclaimed worldwide and rather successful,
it never saw a home console release back in the day.
In fact, it never saw a direct port at all
until 2012 release on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network.
However, there were two home conversions of the game for computers back in 1991,
which we'll be looking at here.
One for the Commodore 64
and one for MS-DOS PCs.
First up is the Commodore 64 release,
published by Konami, but developed by the Hungarian team at Novatrade International.
Now, this is a bit odd, seeing as it came out in 1991
and the Commodore 64 was released almost a decade earlier in 1982.
I honestly am not sure why this was one of the two systems chosen for the game to be released on.
From what I gather, it still had a bit of a following in Hungary at the time
to have justified a release, so I guess that had something to do with it.
Maybe everything to do with it, I don't know.
Maybe they just had experience with it.
But whatever, here it is, and you know what?
It's actually not half-bad at all for the humble C64.
I have frequently been impressed by what this little 64K computer can accomplish
when taken advantage of by talented programmers,
but this actually blew my mind a tiny little bit.
For one thing, the graphics and sound are more than recognizable
and the amount of details in the levels is downright amazing for this 8-bit computer.
Most of the characters and background details,
objects and animations are all there and fully interactive.
And the levels themselves are about as long as the arcade game, too,
complete with the same boss battles at the end,
and even the same bonus mini-game between levels.
About the only thing that is disappointing here is the fact that
this computer uses a one-button joystick,
so pressing the button attacks,
but if you hold it for a bit longer, it jumps.
As you might imagine, this leads to some finicky situations at times
where you're trying to attack and you jump,
or you're trying to jump and you attack.
But you do get pretty much used to it, and before long, you forget about it.
Seriously, I was prepared to just call this version crap,
but after playing it for a while, no.
Of course, it's not as feature-rich or playable as the arcade original,
but it's darned impressive for a C64 beat 'em up.
And lastly, we've got the MS-DOS version for IBM-compatible PCs,
also developed by the skillful souls at Novatrade.
And once again, this is pretty good for an arcade conversion of the time,
but then it is on much more powerful hardware, so that makes sense.
It can play in 256-color VGA mode,
which really makes the game feel exceptionally close to the arcade game in aesthetics,
just with not quite as many details.
And thankfully, it can be played with a keyboard or multi-button joystick,
so you don't have to worry about the arcade control issues here.
And once again, the game plays very much like the arcade game,
featuring all the stuff from the C64 versions,
as well as a few extra details here and there, but
oddly enough, it's not a huge upgrade from the C64 version in terms of content.
And it's still missing some enemies and little extras from the arcade game.
In fact, I'd say the sound and music are actually a downgrade from the Commodore 64 version.
Here, you're provided with AdLib-compatible OPL2 audio
and while I am normally a big fan of that,
here it's really quite bland and uninteresting.
And somehow I find myself more drawn to the C64's SID chip sound.
[SID chip music]
And, really, I just expect a PC game from 1991 to be capable of graphics and sound like this.
Whereas, with the C64, I was really impressed it could do it at all.
So, from a purely geeky technical standpoint,
I actually prefer the C64 version, but
yeah, I'm kinda weird.
And as far as getting the game that's as close to the arcade as possible,
you'd be kind of sill not to choose the MS-DOS version.
At least as far as classic old-school home conversions go.
Like I said earlier, there's an excellent port on XBLA and PSN nowadays,
so that's obviously the best way to play it, unless you just find an arcade machine.
But really, whatever version you come across, it's very much worth checking out,
because, daggone it, it's just good stuff,
and remains one of my favorite four-player beat 'em ups.
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