Hi, everybody!
No?
Nothing?
I’m only trying to get into the spirit here,
you don’t have to be rude.
Anyway, The Simpsons.
You’re familiar with the show, I’m sure,
as it’s now been running longer than any
human being has been alive.
The show made history as an adult-oriented
weekly cartoon, something that had found next
to no success in the past.
It opened the doors for so many other truly
great animated programs, and also for Family
Guy.
It also introduced the world to so many unforgettable
characters, including Bort, Midge, Captain
Wacky, and the rest.
The show’s true secret to success, though,
was its setting.
Springfield was a living, breathing town full
of some of comedy’s greatest-ever supporting
characters, all of whom helped The Simpsons
to stay interesting far longer than it otherwise
would have.
But as any show that runs for thousands of
years can attest, The Simpsons has had its
ups and downs.
Or, I guess you could say, it had its episodes
before and after 1999.
In a similar fashion, the video games based
on the show range from perfectly cromulent
to… being featured on Worst Games Ever.
Before we get started, let’s lay out some
ground rules.
Firstly, we won’t be ranking any fan games,
online Flash games, LCD games, pinball machines,
or anything along those lines, because we
really wouldn’t have much to say about them.
If that bothers you, just pretend we ranked
them all at the very bottom.
Also, we will be excluding mobile games, because
we always do that and nobody seems to mind.
Let’s rank ‘em
I’m Ben from TripleJump.
You might remember me from such videos as
Each of Crash Bandicoot’s Hairs Ranked From
Worst to Best, and Rules Boss Saves Christmas.
And I’m Peter from TripleJump.
You might remember me from such videos as
10 Things You Didn’t Know About My Spyro
Onesie, and Let’s Drain Adam Pacitti’s
Bank Account!
This is every Simpsons game ranked from worst
to best.
#24: The Simpsons Wrestling
PlayStation
Are we getting this one out of the way early
so that we never have to think about it again?
You decide.
But the answer is yes.
The Simpsons Wrestling is the absolute worst
kind of licensed game.
It plays poorly, has very little content,
and has nothing to do with the actual property.
You pick a Simpsons character, you fumble
with terrible controls to smack around another
Simpsons character, and that’s it.
It’s one of those games so carelessly designed
that mashing buttons results in a win more
often than using any actual strategy does.
The game is also almost impressively ugly,
consisting of both the worst possible 3D models
and the worst possible flat 2D images.
The experience feels more like a clumsy bootleg
than an official release and, sadly, that’s
going to be the rule for a fair few games
to come.
Say it with me: Worst.
Simpsons game.
Ever.
#23: The Simpsons Skateboarding
PlayStation 2
Arriving on a more powerful system you’d
at least expect The Simpsons Skateboarding
to be better than The Simpsons Wrestling.
And it is, in the sense that being forced
to eat half of your dog at gunpoint is better
than being forced to eat the whole thing.The
Simpsons Skateboarding is like Tony Hawk,
except that your skater is drunk and blind
and made of concrete.
Infamously glitchy, light on content, and
far uglier than it has any right to be, The
Simpsons Skateboarding takes the promise of
racing around Springfield and robs it of all
potential for fun.
The game was written by actual Simpsons writers,
but “some characters try to skate real good”
really shouldn’t deserve a writing credit.
The cleverest thing the game ever had going
for it was its original title: The Simpsons
Cheap Skater.
At least that was honest.
#22: The Simpsons: Bart & the Beanstalk
Game Boy
When you buy a game about The Simpsons you
expect it to be…a game about The Simpsons.
Right?
If I’m missing something here, please do
let me know.
Bart & the Beanstalk is Jack and the Beanstalk
with Simpsons sprites pasted onto it, the
sort of fairy-tale equivalent of an asset
flip.
The game follows Bart up the beanstalk and
back down again, with very little in the way
of additional content, unless you count all
the time you’ll get to spend wondering what
this game has to do with The Simpsons.
It does showcase something we’ll be seeing
a lot of on this list though: platforming
that punishes you for playing the game.
You’ll slip through solid objects, you’ll
need to be pixel-perfect to make simple jumps,
and platforms you stand on will move out from
underneath you.
We’re not sure whether this game was designed
to make children hate The Simpsons, fairy
tales, or video games in general.
#21: The Simpsons: Bart’s House of Weirdness
PC
We appreciate the game’s honesty; this is
one truly weird game.
It begins with Bart getting sent to his room
for something, and that’s about all we can
say with certainty.
Interacting with certain objects around the
Simpson house will teleport you to side-scrolling
adventure stages that couldn’t possibly
be more of a chore to play.
The graphics and sound are fine, but at no
point is the game actually fun.
It’s either exceedingly difficult to know
what you’re meant to do, or exceedingly
difficult to do it.
Like nearly all DOS platformers, Bart’s
House of Weirdness is very stiff and often
unresponsive.
It’s also plagued by impossible-to-anticipate
enemies and traps, and some of the most punishing
knockback this side of the original Castlevania
trilogy.
You’ll spend most of your time with Bart’s
House of Weirdness trying to work out how
to play it, and the rest of your life wishing
you hadn’t bothered.
#20: The Itchy & Scratchy Game
Game Gear, Mega Drive, SNES
When a game’s own title lies to you, you
know you’re in for a bad time.
The Itchy & Scratchy Game?
There was already a different Itchy & Scratchy
game on shelves by the time this came out.
Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for
that blunder.
This Itchy & Scratchy game is a platformer.
Sort of.
It looks like a platformer and feels like
a platformer, but each stage actually functions
as an arena in which you are constantly attacked
by Scratchy.
We’d tell you to think Nemesis in Resident
Evil 3, if we weren’t worried about tarnishing
that game’s good name.
The level will endlessly repeat until you
take down Scratchy, at which point you will
have to face…Scratchy.
Only now he’s a boss.
And then you start the entire process again
in the next level.
It’s punishing and tedious to a frankly
absurd degree.
#19: Bart Simpson’s Escape from Camp Deadly
Game Boy
The title of this game likely brings to mind
season four’s “Kamp Krusty,” which first
aired in September of 1992.
Escape from Camp Deadly, though, was released
in November of 1991, eleven months earlier.
Could this be a rare example of the show taking
its inspiration from the video games, rather
than the other way around?
No, because the episode is good.
Escape from Camp Deadly seems to have gotten
little to no playtesting.
The game is so sluggish, the weapons so useless,
and the platforms so unforgiving, we cannot
imagine any human being played this and thought,
“Yeah, it’s fine.”
The game features Bart and Lisa trapped in
a hellish campground run by bullies.
Camp Deadly is run by Ironfist Burns, nephew
of money enthusiast Monty Burns.
He more or less orders all of the other campers
to murder Bart Simpson, and after playing
his game you’ll come around to his perspective.
#18: The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants
Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64,
Game Gear, Genesis, Master System, NES, ZX
Spectrum
Bart vs. the Space Mutants is the Simpsons
game that everybody had and nobody liked.
It did at least try to be more than a simple
platformer with Simpsons sprites, but that
may actually be the game’s biggest problem.
The game is obtuse and frustrating.
In order to foil the Space Mutants’ plans,
Bart must prevent them from getting their
hands on certain items.
In some cases, this represents a series of
small puzzles, such as when they need purple
things.
You can spraypaint them, scare them off, hit
them with bottle rockets, and it’s almost
never clear what, exactly, you’re meant
to do.
In other cases, the objective is clearer,
but made difficult throughbrutal platforming
and terrible controls.
On the bright side, the game does feature
recognizable antagonists from the show, such
as Nelson Muntz, Sideshow Bob, and this shoe
with a human head.
#17: The Simpsons: Bart vs. the World
Amiga, Atari ST, Game Gear, NES, Master System
Bart vs. The Space Mutants had a lot of ambition,
but was held back by control issues and poor
design.
A sequel that addressed those problems could
have been quite good.
Unfortunately, Bart vs. the World decided
only to address the ambition.
This game is a straightforward platformer.
Avoid enemies, find the end of the level,
and fight a boss.
It doesn’t get much more conventional than
that.
The levels are still full of tiny platforms
and frustrating jumping sequences, but at
least there aren’t any oblique goals you
need to accomplish along the way.
Throughout the adventure you’ll do battle
with the extended family of Mr. Burns, including
Fu Man Chu Burns and The Abominable Snow Burns.
That’sone interesting bloodline.
Also, if you finish the game without finding
all of the Krusty merchandise, you don’t
get to see the ending.
Have fun, kids!
#16: The Simpsons: Bart vs. The Juggernauts
Game Boy
Hands up everyone who wanted a crossover between
The Simpsons and American Gladiators.
Now use those hands to give yourself a thumbs
down for that terrible idea.
Thumbs down, of course, being a reference
to actual gladiators.
This entry is off to an incredible start.
Bart vs. The Juggernauts sees perennial grade
schooler Bart Simpson square off against the
American Gladiators’ non-union Mexican equivalents
in a series of minigames.
We’re not the biggest fans of minigame collections,
but as a portable title it may have been designed
with a pick-up-and-play mentality in mind,
so we’ll give it a pass.
What won’t get a pass are the minigames
themselves, which are largely awful and require
no thought or skill whatsoever.
The exception – which not coincidentally
happens to be the best one – sees Bart moving
across a floor to a goal, avoiding electrified
tiles as he goes.
What you’re looking at is the game’s highlight,
so make of that what you will.
#15: Bartman Meets Radioactive Man
Game Gear, NES
The best of the NES Simpsons games, Bartman
Meets Radioactive Man is…still quite terrible,
honestly.
It’s also a strange concept for a game.
Unlike Itchy & Scratchy, Radioactive Man is
a piece of in-universe media we never got
to see much of.
One episode centered around the comic book,
another centered around the movie… and that
was about it.
Was anyone hoping for a video game?
Regardless, the concept lends itself to more
varied environments than we saw in the previous
NES games, and there are even some decent
flying sections.
Still not good, but at least they require
no platforming.
Bartman Meets Radioactive Man also has a sadistic
reliance on blind jumps, ensuring that anyone
who manages to get to grips with the controls
will still find their fun stifled by the level
design.
It does feature a cameo from Dr. Zoidberg,
though, and no other games on this list can
say that.
Well, almost no other games…
#14: The Simpsons Road Rage
Game Boy Advance
Let’s put the praise right up front: It’s
impressive that the developers squeezed an
almost fully functional version of The Simpsons
Road Rage onto a tiny little Game Boy Advance
cartridge.
The console version of Road Rage, which we’ll
come to, was a barely disguised clone of Crazy
Taxi.
This, therefore, is about as good as any version
of Crazy Taxi on the GBA could possibly be.
Wait…there was an actual version of Crazy
Taxi on the GBA?
And it looked and played better than this
one?
Boy, this game is RUBBISH.
Road Rage on the GBA looks like the developer
once had Mario Kart vaguely described to them.
The background sprites don’t even scale
properly, making it far too difficult to tell
when you’re going to hit something.
On the bright side, this version of the game
allows your car to jump.
Hooray?
#13: Krusty’s Fun House / Krusty’s Super
Fun House
Amiga, Game Boy, Game Gear, Master System,
Mega Drive, NES, SNES, PC
Quite why this got crammed onto as many systems
as it did, we can’t explain.
Nor can we explain why it was released as
both Krusty’s Fun House and Krusty’s Super
Fun House with no notable changes between
them.
Then again, this is a puzzle game about Krusty
smashing rats, so we probably shouldn’t
be looking at this logically.
The game is often compared to Lemmings.
One major difference, though, is that this
game isn’t good.
Very little care went into this one, and while
it is impressive that the experience is very
similar across so many platforms, there’s
still the pesky fact that it’s not worth
experiencing to begin with.
And what does any of this have to do with
Krusty?
Nothing at all.
Unless…wait, actually, wasn’t Krusty’s
willingness to slap his name on inferior products
a running joke on The Simpsons?
Well played, Krusty’s Fun House.
#12: The Simpsons: Night of the Living Treehouse
of Horror
Game Boy Color
A concept we’re shocked wasn’t explored
in more Simpsons games, Night of the Living
Treehouse of Horror is based on actual vignettes
from the show’s annual Halloween specials.
This includes “Bad Dream House,” “Nightmare
Cafeteria,” “Dial Z for Zombies,” and…we’re
not sure actually.
It’s probably based on the episode in which
Mr. Burns puts Homer’s brain into a robot,
but it just looks like he got into the Fly
teleporter with Bender.
The stages are mainly platformers, but Night
of the Living Treehouse of Horror does dabble
in other areas, such as a top-down shooter
and light stealth.
It doesn’t control particularly well but
it is playable and has some genuine novelty,
making it far and away the best Simpsons title
on the Game Boy series of handhelds.
Also, you get to play as characters other
than Bart.
What a time to be alive.
#11: Virtual Bart
Mega Drive, SNES
Bart Simpson stumbles across a virtual-reality
machine that allows him to live out his fantasies,
and we learn along with him, I suppose, that
he really wants to star in many more terrible
platformers.
Virtual Bart has a lot in common with Bart’s
Nightmare, both in terms of its visuals and
the fact that it’s broken up into a series
of smaller games.
Unlike Bart’s Nightmare, though, it’s
irredeemable trash.
The games are, at least, not minigames.
But we definitely wish they were, if only
so they’d be over sooner.
Bart swings from branches as a baby, runs
around a factory as a pig, and…uh…exists
as a dinosaur.
Points for variety?
The Mega Drive and SNES versions are overall
identical in terms of content, but the motorcycle
game is more of a straight – and terrible
– Road Rash clone in the former and a Mode-7
mess in the latter.
Seek it out to be disappointed in a way that
is true to your console of choice.
#10: The Simpsons Bowling
Arcade
Konami’s four-player Simpsons arcade game
is legendary, but Konami’s other four-player
Simpsons arcade game is actual legend.
Not nearly as ubiquitous as that other, much
better game, The Simpsons Bowling is a actually
quite a rare find.
That’s okay, because it’s not especially
good.
The voice cast recorded exclusive lines for
each character, and you’ll hear different
ones depending on the context.
Which is nice, especially since a bowling
game with no story could have easily recycled
voice clips from the show and called it a
day.
Ultimately, though, it is just a bowling game,
and an appallingly money-hungry one at that.
After frame 9 – that’s 9 of 10, to be
clear – The Simpsons Bowling asks you to
pay a second time for the privilege of finishing
your game.
No matter how well you’re playing, you have
to pay again just to bowl the final frame
and see your score.
That’s inexcusably greedy.
#9: Itchy & Scratchy in Miniature Golf Madness
Game Boy
They fight and bite and fight and bite and…golf,
apparently.
Minigolf has played a role in several Simpsons
episodes – most notably season two’s excellent
“Dead Putting Society” – but I don’t
think anyone associates the activity with
Itchy & Scratchy.
They are a hyperviolent duo who want to do
little more than flay each other alive…so
why on Earth are they going golfing?
Here’s the thing, though: The game actually
has a really cool concept.
It’s a sidescrolling golf platformer.
Sometimes you won’t have to take much into
account other than the power and distance
of your shot, but other times you’ll be
knocking the ball from platform to platform,
advancing putt by putt toward the goal.
All the while, Itchy attempts to murder you
in lovingly animated pixel-art grotesqueries.
It’s not a good game – the design of the
levels results in more frustration than challenge
– but it’s not a half-bad idea.
#8: The Simpsons Game
DS
While the PSP version of The Simpsons Game
deviated from its console counterparts – most
notably in terms of what was missing – we
didn’t feel it was different enough to warrant
a separate entry.
The same cannot be said of the Nintendo DS
version, which was completely redesigned for
the hardware.
That’s certainly a welcome impulse.
The DS was perfect for 2D cartoony platformers,
and that’s exactly what The Simpsons Game
became on that system.
The levels aren’t memorable or noteworthy
from a design standpoint, though, with the
entire game feeling like somebody took the
console version and asked, “How can we simplify
this to the point that it’s no longer worth
playing?”
What earns it a placement this high is its
writing and sense of humor, but when the console
game offers these as well as so much more,
there’s little reason to seek out a copy
of the DS version.
#7: The Simpsons Road Rage
Playstation 2, Gamecube, Xbox
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Who was it who said that?
I can’t remember, but it certainly wasn’t
Sega’s lawyers, who sued both the developer
and publisher of Road Rage for being a bit
too sincere in its imitation of Crazy Taxi.
We’d love to poke fun at this legal battle
as frivolous but…well, this really is Crazy
Taxi with special guest stars The Simpsons.
It was also nowhere near as good, with Road
Rage featuring abysmal loading times, invisible
walls, and an overall lack of inventiveness.
On the bright side, there are a lot of Simpsons
characters to play as and encounter during
gameplay, and some of the jokes are actually
rather good.
But that’s about it.
Road Rage becomes far more repetitive far
quicker than its inspiration does.
On the bright side, it did lay a lot of the
groundwork for a much better game still to
come.
#6: The Simpsons: Bart’s Nightmare
Mega Drive, SNES
Bart’s Nightmare is, for the most part,
unfairly maligned.
For starters, it’s still one of the best-looking
Simpsons games.
The colors are vibrant and the characters
look fantastic.
Additionally, it’s decently varied, with
levels spanning several genres.
It is also, however, hugely obtuse, and if
you don’t have the manual with you, you
can count on getting stuck frequently.
The object of the game – which is not communicated
in the game – is to guide Bart through his
titular nightmare, opening color-coded doors
that lead to a variety of levels.
How well you do in these levels determines
the grade Bart will get when he wakes up.
Obviously.
There are some fun moments throughout however,
with the Bartman flying shooter being a clear
highlight.
The Itchy and Scratchy stages are also impressively
frantic.
We admit that some of the content is fairly
low quality, but it’s worth a spin, and
it’s far better than it gets credit for
being.
#5: The Simpsons: Virtual Springfield
Mac, PC
Virtual Springfield is a game only in the
loosest possible sense of the word, but we’re
glad it makes the cut.
There isn’t much of a goal outside of picking
up cards that feature Simpsons characters.
There are also a few basic minigames, but
that’s it.
So what’s good about it?
The fact that it was the earliest game to
capture the Simpsons style of humor helps
a lot.
It also marks the only time the late Phil
Hartman lent his voice to a Simpsons game.
We
could call it a walking simulator, but you
don’t actually do much walking; you pick
a direction and the game whisks you along
to the next destination.
More freedom of movement and actual gameplay
would have helped a lot, but for a celebration
of the show in video game form, there wasn’t
much more anyone could ask for at the time.
#4: The Simpsons Game
PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PSP, Xbox 360,
Wii
One complaint we’ve had about most of the
games on this list is their tendency to toss
Simpsons characters into games without any
regard for quality or faithfulness to the
show.
For all of its flaws, that’s a charge we
cannot level at The Simpsons Game.
The Simpsons Game is intermittently hampered
by a poor camera that won’t let you see
where you’re jumping and a large amount
of progress-halting glitches, but there’s
no doubt it was a game written and designed
with The Simpsons in mind.
It’s a 3D platformer that gets by on its
charm and the strength of its writing.
You’ll control different members of the
Simpson family in different stages, each of
whom have their own abilities.
Bart gets superpowers, Lisa summons the hand
of Buddha, and Homer fulfills your inflation
fantasies.
It’s far from perfect, but The Simpsons
Game is the closest we’re ever likely to
get to playing through an episode.
#3: Futurama
PlayStation 2, Xbox
Good news, everyone!
It’s a surprise entry!
We know full well that Futurama is not The
Simpsons, but it is the only other game based
on a Matt Groening property and it wouldn’t
have a home in any other worst-to-best list,
so we’re covering it here.
Also, it’s quite good, and it helped wash
away the taste of so many terrible Simpsons
games.
Futurama’s gameplay is repetitive and it’s
overseen by a camera operated by either an
extremely drunk person or an extremely sober
robot.
But push through the clunkiness and you get
a very fun experience, true to the spirit
of the show.
Throughout the game you’ll play as Fry,
Leela, Bender, and Dr. Zoidberg, but the stages
can sometimes feel like chores that must be
completed before you’re rewarded with a
cutscene.
Still, it’s the only non-mobile Futurama
game we’ve ever gotten, and as most of this
list demonstrates, we could have done far
worse.
#2: The Simpsons
Arcade, Commodore 64, PlayStation 3, Xbox
360, PC
Made by Konami, the side-scrolling beat-em-up
arcade king, The Simpsons truly got star treatment
in their first video-game outing.
Ignore the fact that Smithers is a jewel thief,
or that Mr. Burns has more than enough money
to buy any diamond he wants, and you’ll
get an excellent, goofy adventure across Springfield.
The game still looks great, characters from
the show dot the background, and while the
combat is very simple, the game is over before
it feels repetitive.
The game didn’t get a true home port until
2012 when it was briefly available for download
on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
Nearer its release, though, there was a decent
port for MS-DOS and another one for Commodore
64, which, visually, may also qualify as the
first Lego game.
The Simpsons Arcade Game comes up frequently
in discussions of the best licensed games
ever, and rightly so.
There is, however, one game that we think
just slightly edges it out.
#1: The Simpsons: Hit & Run
GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox, PC
Hit & Run, at long last, gave us the only
thing we’ve ever really wanted from a Simpsons
game: the ability to drive around Springfield
running over as many people as we liked.
Reimagining Springfield as a massive collection
of stunt-friendly streets and obstacles actually
works quite well, and the huge amount of vehicles
to unlock, locations to explore, and characters
to interact with is still impressive to this
day.
It’s not perfect, we know.
The platforming is nowhere near as good or
as satisfying as the driving and the game’s
difficulty spikes are spikier than they have
any right to be, but as a larger package,
it’s genuinely difficult to complain.
You can always ignore missions and spend your
time smashing around Springfield instead.
There’s always something to do in Hit & Run,
and it’s our confident pick for the best
Simpsons game of all time.
And that was every Simpsons game ranked from
worst to best.
Do you agree with our rankings?
If so, great!
If not, we’ll rest assured that you will
be in the comments section within minutes,
registering your disgust throughout the world.
Also, if you have suggestions for other “Every
X Ranked From Worst to Best” videos, let
us know.
If we like your idea, we will add it to a
very long list of other ideas we also like.
I have to go now; my planet needs me.
But first, you can follow TripleJump on Twitter
here, and while you’re at it, why not support
the things you enjoy by having a look at our
patreon.
Finally, don’t for get to like the video,
share it with your friends, and subscribe
to the channel.
I’m Ben and I’m Peter from TripleJump,
and thanks for watching.
