The Simpsons Arcade Game

The Simpsons Arcade Game or just The Simpsons is an arcade beat 'em up developed by Konami released in 1991, and the second video game based on The Simpsons franchise, following Bart vs. the Space Mutants. The game allows up to four players to control members of the Simpson family, as they fight various enemies in order to rescue the kidnapped Maggie. The game was ported to the Commodore 64 and MS-DOS soon after its launch in the arcades. The game was released on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network in February 2012, however it has since been removed from both services.

The Simpsons is a side-scrolling beat 'em up for up to four players, with each one playing as a member of the Simpsons family: Marge, who swings her vacuum cleaner; Homer, who punches and kicks; Bart, who wields his skateboard; and Lisa, who attacks with a jump rope. Along with the standard array of jumping and attacking, two players can team up to form a joint attack, which differs depending on which characters are used. For example, Homer can lift Bart up to use him as a melee weapon, whilst teaming him up with Marge puts them into a powerful cartwheel attack. Players can also pick up food items to restore health, as well as objects they can throw at enemies and items that temporarily power up their attacks. Players are given a small number of lives, which are lost if the player's life bar runs out. If the player runs out of life with no lives remaining (represented by a Bart-like devil appearing before them), the player has 20 seconds to add credits or the game ends. At certain points in the game, players compete against each other in button-bashing minigames to earn additional points (computer controlled characters replace characters not being played by real people).

The Japanese version of the game included small scale nuclear bombs that, when thrown, clear all on-screen enemies, as well as a life bar that, unlike in the U.S. version, can accumulate three levels of life by eating food when your character's health was full, and in addition, only in this version, the player's life is turned in bonus points after he completes a level and it's totally restored as the next level begins. In this version there are hidden items (food and weapons) which appear when the player hits specific points of the screen. Also, in the Japanese version the score points system is different from the American one: each enemy character defeated gives the player a certain number of points, while at the American version the player only earns a single point by defeating them, similar to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles's arcade game score system.

Legacy[edit]
Soon after its release in the arcades, the game received ports to Commodore 64 and MS-DOS computers developed by Novotrade. A listing on the Australian Classification Board website, posted on November 9, 2011, hinted at a port of the game being developed by Backbone Entertainment for multiple platforms.[1] In January 2012, a high-definition port of The Simpsons Arcade Game was announced for PlayStation Network for release in February, with a release on Xbox Live Arcade also revealed.[2] The port features online multiplayer, the ability to unlock the rare Japanese 4-player version of the game, and promotional content from the game's arcade launch.[2] The game was initially made available exclusively to PlayStation Plus users at no charge.[3] In December 2013, the game was removed from the PlayStation Network store, although at the time it was still available through the Xbox Live Marketplace; no reason for the removal was given by either Sony or Konami.[4]

A completely different title inspired by the arcade game, The Simpsons Arcade, was released by Electronic Arts for iOS on December 19, 2009. Unlike the arcade game, the title is a single player game where players control Homer, assisted by the other family members via power-ups.[5]