Introduction

I recently came across a YouTube video from a game developer, reubs, who is trying to recreate The Simpsons Hit and Run using Unreal Engine:

It flooded me with nostalgia for the game and introduced me to emulators which let me re-live Hit and Run again on my PC. It also got me thinking about the best Simpsons video games, I played in my childhood. Revisiting them with my nostalgia tinted glasses on, I was initially shocked to see that some of these games were considered not just the worst Simpsons games but also some of the worst (blurst?) games of all-time. Outraged and ever the champion of correcting the perceived wrongs in society, I’ve pulled together my own thoughts and feelings about each game and given them an official ‘Blurst Score.’ However, in the interest of impartiality I’ve also kept the ‘official’ score these games gained from aggregators just in case my opinion is meaningless to you.

The Simpsons: Night of the Living Treehouse of Horror (Game Boy Colour, 2001)

• GameRankings Score: 74%
• Blurst Score: 45

I remember receiving The Simpsons: Night of the Living Treehouse of Horror for my turquoise Game Boy Colour on my birthday and spending most of the day being annoyed that I had to put off playing it until my friends had left my birthday party. Being a huge Simpsons fan, my parents knew that anything with a Simpsons logo on it would make me happy so it was an easy win for them.

The game itself was a side-scrolling platformer based on the Treehouse of Horror episodes. The challenge of the game was collecting items and completing certain spooky tasks within time limits, along with a seemingly endless supply of creepy enemies. In that way, it was similar to other tie-in games my sister and I played at the time including Sabrina: The Animated Series – Zapped! and Tarzan: Lord of the Jungle which my parents accidently bought rather than the official Disney’s Tarzan game. Despite it having a short game time, I don’t think that it ever held my attention long enough to successfully complete it so it gets a lower score for this, though part of that will also be due to my Game Boy being used for exclusively for Pokémon 98% of the time.

The Simpsons Wrestling (PlayStation, 2001)

• MetaCritic Score: 32
• Blurst Score: 55

I never actually owned a PlayStation or The Simpsons Wrestling, instead I used to play it at my After-School Club. While your traditional WWF SmackDown game, from which it’s based, wasn’t allowed at the club, this game’s cartoon style somehow made it acceptable to the adults in charge.

Playing it at the After-School Club meant you could only play a single round at a time, then sit quietly for 20-30 minutes while everyone else could have a shot. It also meant I had to continually test my skills against the older kids who would show no remorse in taking you down. This meant initially spamming attack buttons, then over the course of 100s of games learning how to successfully spam attack buttons at a faster pace. I took this approach recently on my first playthrough of Injustice 2 and was saddened to find that my hard-won skills don’t hold up in a modern fighting game.

While the blocky graphics and unbalanced gameplay, puts it firmly on the list of worst games of all time by critics, it helped weed out those kids with no anger management skills at my After-School Club, meaning they would be banned from playing and gave us more level-headed kids plenty of time to enjoy the game. So, for that reason alone, it remains in my top 5.

The Simpsons Skateboarding (PlayStation 2, 2002)

• MetaCritic Score: 38
• Blurst Score: 60

Following the theme of taking a hugely successful game and copying it into the Simpsons universe, we have The Simpsons Skateboarding. Based on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, you played in a world where every character was miraculously as good as Bart at skateboarding and they’ve been forced to perform tricks for cents. The game itself let you explore an open-world version of Springfield where everything was a skate park, as well as several arenas for competitions, all while rocking out to a ‘rock-reggae’ cover of The Simpsons main theme.

I never owned any Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games so this was my first foray into the world of skateboarding games and I was at the age where I also was trying to skateboard in real life so it was always going to be a firm favourite. Most of the game was based on super challenging time-based tasks, which would mean spending hours repeating the same tasks in the same arena over and over again. Now that I’m older, I realise that this was the hallmark of an extremely poorly designed game, however, younger me enjoyed the challenge and I spent hours grinding (literally) out wins by figuring out cheap hacks and shortcuts. Nowadays, that kind of difficulty would be marketed as making it a Souls-like experience. The game itself also holds a special place in my list for it’s two-player mode. This split-screen mode allowed my sister and I to recreate ‘Lisa on Ice‘ as we became bitter rivals competing to be the best at the game.

The Simpsons Road Rage (PlayStation 2, 2001)

• MetaCritic Score: 64
• Blurst Score: 75

Following the theme of only playing Simpsons themed recreations of popular games, we have The Simpsons: Road Rage which was based on Crazy Taxi. In fact, it was so similar that it led to a court case of Sega of America, Inc. v. Fox Interactive, et al. Oblivious to the legal issues surrounding the game, this game was bundled alongside Simpsons Skateboarding as one of the first games my sister and I owned on PlayStation 2 so the nostalgia overpowers any ‘obvious faults’ other critics have with the games.

Similar to Simpsons Skateboarding the game hinged on giving you only a limited amount of time to complete tasks to make it challenging. Driving like a maniac across the different areas of Springfield was just as fun the first time as the last time, as it required you to dedicate time learning the map off by heart, especially the shortcuts, in order to shave seconds off your time. It also featured a two-player split screen which again had my sister competing to drop off passengers and jostling for position closer to our tiny CTR TV. We both had our favourite characters, (Snake for me) and our speciality maps. However, it was the genuine interactions between the characters and the original voice acting which made it feel just like another episode of the show, and helps it take the number two spot on the list.

The Simpsons Hit and Run (PlayStation 2, 2003)

• MetaCritic Score: 72
• Blurst Score: 85

We’ve arrived at the number one spot on my prestigious list and it couldn’t have been anything else. Having been too young to play Grand Theft Auto: III or San Andreas, Grand Theft Auto: Simpsons otherwise known as Simpsons: Hit and Run again acted as my kid-friendly introduction to a video game genre. Having presumably learnt their lessons from Road Rage, the game was more of a satire of GTA rather than a full-on clone, which allowed it to take on it’s own character and brand of humour.

Similar to Road Rage, it uses the original voice actors, cut scenes and in-character interactions to tell it’s wacky story. As an open-world game, you can traverse Springfield both in vehicle and on foot, and rewards you with 100s of Easter eggs and references sprinkled throughout, making it a top-tier experience for any fan of the show.

While we may never see an officially licensed remake or sequel to any of these games, it’s heart warming to find even 20 years after their release that Simpsons fans have such dedication to Hit and Run that they’re inspired to build mods and remaster the game (see both reubs or El Gato Del Tejado). Having played Hit and Run again recently, admittedly with a fair few graphical mods, it lives up to my fond memories, even after removing my nostalgia glasses. It deservedly sits at the top of this list and remains one of my favourite games of all-time.