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-orientedweekly cartoon, something that had found next to no success in the past.
It opened the doors for so many other trulygreat animated programs, and also for Family Guy.
It also introduced the world to so many unforgettablecharacters, 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 fullof some of comedy’s greatest-ever supporting characters, all of whom helped The Simpsonsto stay interesting far longer than it otherwise would have.
But as any show that runs for thousands ofyears can attest, The Simpsons has had its ups and downs.
Or, I guess you could say, it had its episodesbefore and after 1999.
In a similar fashion, the video games basedon the show range from perfectly cromulent to… being featured on Worst Games Ever.
Before we get started, let’s lay out someground rules.
Firstly, we won’t be ranking any fan games, online Flash games, LCD games, pinball machines, or anything along those lines, because wereally wouldn’t have much to say about them.
If that bothers you, just pretend we rankedthem all at the very bottom.
Also, we will be excluding mobile games, becausewe always do that and nobody seems to mind.
Let’s rank ‘em I’m Ben from TripleJump.
You might remember me from such videos asEach 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 as10 Things You Didn’t Know About My Spyro Onesie, and Let’s Drain Adam Pacitti’sBank Account! This is every Simpsons game ranked from worstto best.
#24: The Simpsons WrestlingPlayStation Are we getting this one out of the way earlyso that we never have to think about it again? You decide.
But the answer is yes.
The Simpsons Wrestling is the absolute worstkind 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 fumblewith terrible controls to smack around another Simpsons character, and that’s it.
It’s one of those games so carelessly designedthat 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 bootlegthan an official release and, sadly, that’s going to be the rule for a fair few gamesto come.
Say it with me: Worst.
Simpsons game.
Ever.
#23: The Simpsons SkateboardingPlayStation 2 Arriving on a more powerful system you’dat least expect The Simpsons Skateboarding to be better than The Simpsons Wrestling.
And it is, in the sense that being forcedto eat half of your dog at gunpoint is better than being forced to eat the whole thing.
TheSimpsons Skateboarding is like Tony Hawk, except that your skater is drunk and blindand made of concrete.
Infamously glitchy, light on content, andfar uglier than it has any right to be, The Simpsons Skateboarding takes the promise ofracing 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 goingfor it was its original title: The Simpsons Cheap Skater.
At least that was honest.
#22: The Simpsons: Bart & the BeanstalkGame Boy When you buy a game about The Simpsons youexpect it to be…a game about The Simpsons.
Right? If I’m missing something here, please dolet me know.
Bart & the Beanstalk is Jack and the Beanstalkwith Simpsons sprites pasted onto it, the sort of fairy-tale equivalent of an assetflip.
The game follows Bart up the beanstalk andback down again, with very little in the way of additional content, unless you count allthe time you’ll get to spend wondering what this game has to do with The Simpsons.
It does showcase something we’ll be seeinga lot of on this list though: platforming that punishes you for playing the game.
You’ll slip through solid objects, you’llneed to be pixel-perfect to make simple jumps, and platforms you stand on will move out fromunderneath you.
We’re not sure whether this game was designedto make children hate The Simpsons, fairy tales, or video games in general.
#21: The Simpsons: Bart’s House of WeirdnessPC We appreciate the game’s honesty; this isone truly weird game.
It begins with Bart getting sent to his roomfor something, and that’s about all we can say with certainty.
Interacting with certain objects around theSimpson house will teleport you to side-scrolling adventure stages that couldn’t possiblybe more of a chore to play.
The graphics and sound are fine, but at nopoint is the game actually fun.
It’s either exceedingly difficult to knowwhat you’re meant to do, or exceedingly difficult to do it.
Like nearly all DOS platformers, Bart’sHouse of Weirdness is very stiff and often unresponsive.
It’s also plagued by impossible-to-anticipateenemies and traps, and some of the most punishing knockback this side of the original Castlevaniatrilogy.
You’ll spend most of your time with Bart’sHouse of Weirdness trying to work out how to play it, and the rest of your life wishingyou hadn’t bothered.
#20: The Itchy & Scratchy GameGame Gear, Mega Drive, SNES When a game’s own title lies to you, youknow you’re in for a bad time.
The Itchy & Scratchy Game? There was already a different Itchy & Scratchygame on shelves by the time this came out.
Boy, I really hope somebody got fired forthat blunder.
This Itchy & Scratchy game is a platformer.
Sort of.
It looks like a platformer and feels likea platformer, but each stage actually functions as an arena in which you are constantly attackedby Scratchy.
We’d tell you to think Nemesis in ResidentEvil 3, if we weren’t worried about tarnishing that game’s good name.
The level will endlessly repeat until youtake down Scratchy, at which point you will have to face…Scratchy.
Only now he’s a boss.
And then you start the entire process againin the next level.
It’s punishing and tedious to a franklyabsurd degree.
#19: Bart Simpson’s Escape from Camp DeadlyGame Boy The title of this game likely brings to mindseason four’s “Kamp Krusty, ” which first aired in September of 1992.
Escape from Camp Deadly, though, was releasedin November of 1991, eleven months earlier.
Could this be a rare example of the show takingits inspiration from the video games, rather than the other way around? No, because the episode is good.
Escape from Camp Deadly seems to have gottenlittle 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 ina hellish campground run by bullies.
Camp Deadly is run by Ironfist Burns, nephewof money enthusiast Monty Burns.
He more or less orders all of the other campersto murder Bart Simpson, and after playing his game you’ll come around to his perspective.
#18: The Simpsons: Bart vs.
the Space MutantsAmiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Game Gear, Genesis, Master System, NES, ZXSpectrum Bart vs.
the Space Mutants is the Simpsonsgame that everybody had and nobody liked.
It did at least try to be more than a simpleplatformer 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 ofsmall puzzles, such as when they need purple things.
You can spraypaint them, scare them off, hitthem with bottle rockets, and it’s almost never clear what, exactly, you’re meantto do.
In other cases, the objective is clearer, but made difficult throughbrutal platforming and terrible controls.
On the bright side, the game does featurerecognizable antagonists from the show, such as Nelson Muntz, Sideshow Bob, and this shoewith a human head.
#17: The Simpsons: Bart vs.
the WorldAmiga, 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 couldhave been quite good.
Unfortunately, Bart vs.
the World decidedonly 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 thanthat.
The levels are still full of tiny platformsand frustrating jumping sequences, but at least there aren’t any oblique goals youneed to accomplish along the way.
Throughout the adventure you’ll do battlewith 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 findingall of the Krusty merchandise, you don’t get to see the ending.
Have fun, kids! #16: The Simpsons: Bart vs.
The JuggernautsGame Boy Hands up everyone who wanted a crossover betweenThe Simpsons and American Gladiators.
Now use those hands to give yourself a thumbsdown for that terrible idea.
Thumbs down, of course, being a referenceto actual gladiators.
This entry is off to an incredible start.
Bart vs.
The Juggernauts sees perennial gradeschooler Bart Simpson square off against the American Gladiators’ non-union Mexican equivalentsin 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 minigamesthemselves, which are largely awful and require no thought or skill whatsoever.
The exception – which not coincidentallyhappens to be the best one – sees Bart moving across a floor to a goal, avoiding electrifiedtiles as he goes.
What you’re looking at is the game’s highlight, so make of that what you will.
#15: Bartman Meets Radioactive ManGame Gear, NES The best of the NES Simpsons games, BartmanMeets Radioactive Man is…still quite terrible, honestly.
It’s also a strange concept for a game.
Unlike Itchy & Scratchy, Radioactive Man isa 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 morevaried environments than we saw in the previous NES games, and there are even some decentflying sections.
Still not good, but at least they requireno platforming.
Bartman Meets Radioactive Man also has a sadisticreliance on blind jumps, ensuring that anyone who manages to get to grips with the controlswill 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 RageGame Boy Advance Let’s put the praise right up front: It’simpressive that the developers squeezed an almost fully functional version of The SimpsonsRoad Rage onto a tiny little Game Boy Advance cartridge.
The console version of Road Rage, which we’llcome to, was a barely disguised clone of Crazy Taxi.
This, therefore, is about as good as any versionof Crazy Taxi on the GBA could possibly be.
Wait…there was an actual version of CrazyTaxi on the GBA? And it looked and played better than thisone? Boy, this game is RUBBISH.
Road Rage on the GBA looks like the developeronce had Mario Kart vaguely described to them.
The background sprites don’t even scaleproperly, making it far too difficult to tell when you’re going to hit something.
On the bright side, this version of the gameallows your car to jump.
Hooray? #13: Krusty’s Fun House / Krusty’s SuperFun House Amiga, Game Boy, Game Gear, Master System, Mega Drive, NES, SNES, PC Quite why this got crammed onto as many systemsas it did, we can’t explain.
Nor can we explain why it was released asboth Krusty’s Fun House and Krusty’s Super Fun House with no notable changes betweenthem.
Then again, this is a puzzle game about Krustysmashing rats, so we probably shouldn’t be looking at this logically.
The game is often compared to Lemmings.
One major difference, though, is that thisgame isn’t good.
Very little care went into this one, and whileit is impressive that the experience is very similar across so many platforms, there’sstill the pesky fact that it’s not worth experiencing to begin with.
And what does any of this have to do withKrusty? Nothing at all.
Unless…wait, actually, wasn’t Krusty’swillingness 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 Treehouseof Horror Game Boy ColorA concept we’re shocked wasn’t explored in more Simpsons games, Night of the LivingTreehouse of Horror is based on actual vignettes from the show’s annual Halloween specials.
This includes “Bad Dream House, ” “NightmareCafeteria, ” “Dial Z for Zombies, ” and…we’re not sure actually.
It’s probably based on the episode in whichMr.
Burns puts Homer’s brain into a robot, but it just looks like he got into the Flyteleporter with Bender.
The stages are mainly platformers, but Nightof the Living Treehouse of Horror does dabble in other areas, such as a top-down shooterand light stealth.
It doesn’t control particularly well butit is playable and has some genuine novelty, making it far and away the best Simpsons titleon the Game Boy series of handhelds.
Also, you get to play as characters otherthan Bart.
What a time to be alive.
#11: Virtual BartMega Drive, SNES Bart Simpson stumbles across a virtual-realitymachine that allows him to live out his fantasies, and we learn along with him, I suppose, thathe really wants to star in many more terrible platformers.
Virtual Bart has a lot in common with Bart’sNightmare, both in terms of its visuals and the fact that it’s broken up into a seriesof smaller games.
Unlike Bart’s Nightmare, though, it’sirredeemable trash.
The games are, at least, not minigames.
But we definitely wish they were, if onlyso they’d be over sooner.
Bart swings from branches as a baby, runsaround a factory as a pig, and…uh…exists as a dinosaur.
Points for variety? The Mega Drive and SNES versions are overallidentical 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 thatis true to your console of choice.
#10: The Simpsons BowlingArcade Konami’s four-player Simpsons arcade gameis legendary, but Konami’s other four-player Simpsons arcade game is actual legend.
Not nearly as ubiquitous as that other, muchbetter game, The Simpsons Bowling is a actually quite a rare find.
That’s okay, because it’s not especiallygood.
The voice cast recorded exclusive lines foreach character, and you’ll hear different ones depending on the context.
Which is nice, especially since a bowlinggame with no story could have easily recycled voice clips from the show and called it aday.
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 beclear – The Simpsons Bowling asks you to pay a second time for the privilege of finishingyour game.
No matter how well you’re playing, you haveto pay again just to bowl the final frame and see your score.
That’s inexcusably greedy.
#9: Itchy & Scratchy in Miniature Golf MadnessGame Boy They fight and bite and fight and bite and…golf, apparently.
Minigolf has played a role in several Simpsonsepisodes – most notably season two’s excellent “Dead Putting Society” – but I don’tthink anyone associates the activity with Itchy & Scratchy.
They are a hyperviolent duo who want to dolittle more than flay each other alive…so why on Earth are they going golfing? Here’s the thing, though: The game actuallyhas a really cool concept.
It’s a sidescrolling golf platformer.
Sometimes you won’t have to take much intoaccount other than the power and distance of your shot, but other times you’ll beknocking the ball from platform to platform, advancing putt by putt toward the goal.
All the while, Itchy attempts to murder youin lovingly animated pixel-art grotesqueries.
It’s not a good game – the design of thelevels results in more frustration than challenge – but it’s not a half-bad idea.
#8: The Simpsons GameDS While the PSP version of The Simpsons Gamedeviated from its console counterparts – most notably in terms of what was missing – wedidn’t feel it was different enough to warrant a separate entry.
The same cannot be said of the Nintendo DSversion, 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 noteworthyfrom a design standpoint, though, with the entire game feeling like somebody took theconsole version and asked, “How can we simplify this to the point that it’s no longer worthplaying?” What earns it a placement this high is itswriting 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 RagePlaystation 2, Gamecube, Xbox Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Who was it who said that? I can’t remember, but it certainly wasn’tSega’s lawyers, who sued both the developer and publisher of Road Rage for being a bittoo sincere in its imitation of Crazy Taxi.
We’d love to poke fun at this legal battleas frivolous but…well, this really is Crazy Taxi with special guest stars The Simpsons.
It was also nowhere near as good, with RoadRage featuring abysmal loading times, invisible walls, and an overall lack of inventiveness.
On the bright side, there are a lot of Simpsonscharacters to play as and encounter during gameplay, and some of the jokes are actuallyrather good.
But that’s about it.
Road Rage becomes far more repetitive farquicker than its inspiration does.
On the bright side, it did lay a lot of thegroundwork for a much better game still to come.
#6: The Simpsons: Bart’s NightmareMega Drive, SNES Bart’s Nightmare is, for the most part, unfairly maligned.
For starters, it’s still one of the best-lookingSimpsons games.
The colors are vibrant and the characterslook fantastic.
Additionally, it’s decently varied, withlevels spanning several genres.
It is also, however, hugely obtuse, and ifyou don’t have the manual with you, you can count on getting stuck frequently.
The object of the game – which is not communicatedin the game – is to guide Bart through his titular nightmare, opening color-coded doorsthat lead to a variety of levels.
How well you do in these levels determinesthe 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 impressivelyfrantic.
We admit that some of the content is fairlylow quality, but it’s worth a spin, and it’s far better than it gets credit forbeing.
#5: The Simpsons: Virtual SpringfieldMac, PC Virtual Springfield is a game only in theloosest possible sense of the word, but we’re glad it makes the cut.
There isn’t much of a goal outside of pickingup cards that feature Simpsons characters.
There are also a few basic minigames, butthat’s it.
So what’s good about it? The fact that it was the earliest game tocapture the Simpsons style of humor helps a lot.
It also marks the only time the late PhilHartman lent his voice to a Simpsons game.
We could call it a walking simulator, but youdon’t actually do much walking; you pick a direction and the game whisks you alongto the next destination.
More freedom of movement and actual gameplaywould have helped a lot, but for a celebration of the show in video game form, there wasn’tmuch more anyone could ask for at the time.
#4: The Simpsons GamePlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PSP, Xbox 360, WiiOne complaint we’ve had about most of the games on this list is their tendency to tossSimpsons characters into games without any regard for quality or faithfulness to theshow.
For all of its flaws, that’s a charge wecannot level at The Simpsons Game.
The Simpsons Game is intermittently hamperedby a poor camera that won’t let you see where you’re jumping and a large amountof progress-halting glitches, but there’s no doubt it was a game written and designedwith The Simpsons in mind.
It’s a 3D platformer that gets by on itscharm and the strength of its writing.
You’ll control different members of theSimpson family in different stages, each of whom have their own abilities.
Bart gets superpowers, Lisa summons the handof Buddha, and Homer fulfills your inflation fantasies.
It’s far from perfect, but The SimpsonsGame is the closest we’re ever likely to get to playing through an episode.
#3: FuturamaPlayStation 2, Xbox Good news, everyone! It’s a surprise entry! We know full well that Futurama is not TheSimpsons, but it is the only other game based on a Matt Groening property and it wouldn’thave a home in any other worst-to-best list, so we’re covering it here.
Also, it’s quite good, and it helped washaway the taste of so many terrible Simpsons games.
Futurama’s gameplay is repetitive and it’soverseen by a camera operated by either an extremely drunk person or an extremely soberrobot.
But push through the clunkiness and you geta 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 becompleted before you’re rewarded with a cutscene.
Still, it’s the only non-mobile Futuramagame we’ve ever gotten, and as most of this list demonstrates, we could have done farworse.
#2: The SimpsonsArcade, Commodore 64, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PCMade by Konami, the side-scrolling beat-em-up arcade king, The Simpsons truly got star treatmentin 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’llget an excellent, goofy adventure across Springfield.
The game still looks great, characters fromthe show dot the background, and while the combat is very simple, the game is over beforeit feels repetitive.
The game didn’t get a true home port until2012 when it was briefly available for download on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
Nearer its release, though, there was a decentport for MS-DOS and another one for Commodore 64, which, visually, may also qualify as thefirst Lego game.
The Simpsons Arcade Game comes up frequentlyin discussions of the best licensed games ever, and rightly so.
There is, however, one game that we thinkjust slightly edges it out.
#1: The Simpsons: Hit & RunGameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox, PC Hit & Run, at long last, gave us the onlything we’ve ever really wanted from a Simpsons game: the ability to drive around Springfieldrunning over as many people as we liked.
Reimagining Springfield as a massive collectionof stunt-friendly streets and obstacles actually works quite well, and the huge amount of vehiclesto unlock, locations to explore, and characters to interact with is still impressive to thisday.
It’s not perfect, we know.
The platforming is nowhere near as good oras satisfying as the driving and the game’s difficulty spikes are spikier than they haveany right to be, but as a larger package, it’s genuinely difficult to complain.
You can always ignore missions and spend yourtime 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 fromworst to best.
Do you agree with our rankings? If so, great! If not, we’ll rest assured that you willbe in the comments section within minutes, registering your disgust throughout the world.
Also, if you have suggestions for other “EveryX Ranked From Worst to Best” videos, let us know.
If we like your idea, we will add it to avery long list of other ideas we also like.
I have to go now; my planet needs me.
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I’m Ben and I’m Peter from TripleJump, and thanks for watching.
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