Welcome to another edition of Playing With Power. The review article that looks at all things Nintendo Entertainment System. Six months ago, I reviewed the first Simpsons game for the NES, the infamous Bart Vs. The Space Mutants. And, I gave it a thumbs down, due to its shoddy controls and lack of a fun factor. So, it’s no surprise that going into this week’s game, I have the same worries, since it’s another Simpsons game. Has Acclaim learned from their mistakes? And did Nintendo have at least one decent Simpsons game? Or is this another world traveller with nothing to be proud of? Let’s travel with The Simpsons: Bart Vs. The World.
YEAR OF RELEASE: 1991
PUBLISHER: Acclaim
GENRE: Action Platformer
The Simpsons popularity in 1991 was reaching a feverish high by late 1991, and it was far from reaching its peak. The show was well into its third season, and still placed on Thursday nights in a vain attempt to compete with then king of sitcoms Bill Cosby. Merchandise for the show was also at an all time high. It was so massive that there were multiple issues involving people selling counterfeit Simpsons merch.
In the world of video games, the Simpsons was also successful, though more in terms of the money made than the quality of the games. Bart Vs. The Space Mutants was a massive hit for Acclaim, and the game sold millions of copies. Naturally, a sequel was an inevitablility. And naturally, knowing Acclaim, it was going to be rushed out to a naive public whether the game was good or not (And most Acclaim games fall in the “Or Not” category).
And thus, the sequel to Bart Vs. The Space Mutants, named Bart Vs. The World was released in late 1991 on the NES, and followed with sequels on the Amiga, Game Gear, and Master System in 1993. The game still sold, but certainly nowhere close to the amount that the original did. But the biggest question in all of this is did Acclaim learn from their actions, or just slap the same game with the same problems yet again?
COVER STORY
I prefer this cover over Bart Vs. The Space Mutants. Mainly because it fixed the one issue I had wit the previous cover. It’s not as busy, though it still has a lot going in it. It’s not the greatest cover on the NES, but of the Simpsons games released at the time, this honestly may be the best in my opinion.
STORY
The Krusty The Klown show holds an art contest, where kids can send in their works, and the best picture wins a world tour. Despite obviously having the worst entry, the winner of the contest is Bart Simpson. It turns out that this whole contest was rigged by Mr. Burns in an attempt to destroy the Simpsons once and for all. To do so, he’s called up members of the Burns family to contend with Bart. Can the underachiever (and proud of it) survive the onslaught of the Burns family?
GAMEPLAY
Bart Vs. The World is a one player action platformer. You control Bart Simpson as he travels to four parts of the world, to defeat the different family members of Mr. Burns, as well as find the rare Krusty Kollectibles throughout the game. You move Bart with the D-Pad, can shoot cherry bombs with the B button, and jump/run with the A button. When you press both buttons together, you can execute a longer jump.
So, immediately into this review, I have gone over the same issues that plagued the last game. Due to the limitations on the NES controller, as well as Acclaim’s foolishness to map the run to the jump button, it is once again hard to do running jumps. Not to mention, the same issue with shooting some of your weapon off when you jump is still there.Ah, the classic Acclaim mantra: If it’s broke, don’t fix it. Just act like you did.
The game is broken into four different world areas. Each with a series of levels, mini-games, and finally boss battles. You start off in China, where you’ll battle on a Chinese junk boat and skateboard across the great wall until you face off with Fu Man Chu Burns. Next is the North Pole, where after ice caves, and ice floes will lead you to a frigid fight with the Abominable Snow Burns. Egypt is up next with pyramids, and deserts to face the powerful Ramses Burns. And finally it’s the bright lights of Hollywood to do battle with Eric Von Burns.
Each level has 2-3 levels of gameplay, and in between are mini-games that can earn you extra Krusty heads. These games can be slightly easy, like shell games and trivia questions, and others can be taxing as hell. For example, the Hollywood level has a game where you have to get open coffins in the right order. This can get taxing quick, since the pattern always changes. Another annoying one is the match card game that only gives you about 5 turns to try and get right, and again the pattern changes with each game.
Items in action levels include small diamonds which add to your score, big diamonds that give you extra lives, Krusty heads which can rack up extra lives if you collect many throughout each world, Squishee cups which restore health, bags of cherry bombs which are your weapons for the game. There’s also Jebediah Springfield heads which give you brief invincibility similar to the last game. And finally, there’s the Bartman icon, which turns Bart into his superhero alter ego, and gives him the power to fly.
Another side mission of the game is to find the hidden Krusty Kollectibles. These relics are hidden in each world, like a golden Krusty boat, or a head in an igloo. Once you find all of them, you get the final hidden level of the game before the battle with Eric Von Burns. It also gets you the good ending of the game, which allows you to wail on Mr. Burns and Smithers with infinite pies. Not the most satisfying ending, but it does the trick.
The game once again has horrendous hit detection, some I feel is even worse than the previous game. You can easily miss platforms even though you should have landed on them, you can get hit without being able to react, and thanks to the maligned jumping of this game, you can easily over and undershoot your trajectory. Ay carumba!
The game is pretty tough, mainly due to the annoying platforming, and many issues of the game, you get no continues, or passwords, just like the last game, meaning you’re going to have to endure the hell of this title over and over from the beginning until you get it perfect. And honestly, that’s not worth the hassle.
GRAPHICS
Other than the cleaner cutscenes that feature decently drawn caricatures of the Simpsons cast, the game still has the same graphical look of the previous game. Some stages, like the pyramid, do look a little cleaner, but all the same, it’s still pretty much the same graphical experience of the former title.
MUSIC
The game recycles the same version of the 8-Bit Simpsons theme from the original, and similar to the last game, they use the theme in many of level themes. Another song I noticed in the game was that the boss theme sort of sounds like “Look at all those Idiots” from “The Simpsons Sing The Blues’. But maybe that’s just me who gets that vibe. All the same sound effects are in, with the exception of any of Bart’s quotes. In the end, just like the graphics, it’s the same audio experience.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
While definitely better in some areas, Bart Vs. The World is pretty much the same game as Bart Vs. The Space Mutants, only dumbed down to a simple platformer with no major goals to do. The controls remain broken, the gameplay remains unfun, and the whole thing just feels like another terrible game from a franchise that could do better (and if you played the arcade game, you know that they can).
This was deja vu that I didn’t enjoy reliving again, and proof of why Acclaim was one of the worst video game companies of the 8-Bit era. I’d say even if you are a massive Simpsons nerd like myself, this one is definitely not worth your time. There’s a world of better options than this globe trotting garbage. Just like the previous game, this one can have a cow man.
RATING: Thumbs Down