Published , by Greg Burke
Published , by Greg Burke
On this episode, we are counting down the top 10 best Simpsons video games. The Simpsons TV show might be a bit long in the tooth after thirty seasons, but some of these games are still great. We reached out to our staff and community on Twitter and our Chatty forum for votes. Please take a look at the video to find out what Simpsons game took our top spot.
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Want to read the list instead? Hit next page to see our text version of the top 10 Simpson video games. The price of reading instead of watching will be additional pageviews. Pray we don't alter the deal any further.
This spot came down to a close call between Bart Vs. the World and The Simpsons: Tapped Out. The classic NES game won out in the end because of its diversity of gameplay and the fact that the game didn't have the same controversy that surrounded the mobile title. The platforming game was pretty fun and featured mini games like card match, slide puzzles, and even some trivia from The Simpsons TV show. The soundtrack was pretty good too and featured a remix of the show's opening theme.
This was the very first game that brought The Simpsons into the wild world of interactive entertainment. Released in 1991, Bart vs. The Space Mutants wasn't an easy game at all. Hell, you might have some terrible memories if you played it at too young of an age. This game was definitely a favorite among our Chatty community and it is one of the more important Simpsons games in history. It was also super cool to spray paint stuff, as long as you could navigate past the very difficult level design.
My family didn't get a computer in our house until 1996, and The Simpsons: Cartoon Studio was one of the first PC games that I ever played. I picked this up at my local Circuit City back in the day. This game was about creating your own adventures and letting them play out like an episode. Players were given a large library of pre-animated characters, backgrounds, and sound effects to work with. The limitation of CPU and memory back in the 90s really hurt the game as it cut back on the number of things you could play in any given environment. It was a fun and creative game that was ahead of its time a lot of ways.
This is one of the most ambitious and innovative games to make our top 10 list. Virtual Springfield takes you around Springfield in a first-person perspective. The game plays like an old school point-and-click adventure game. Players travel around town collecting cards, keys and objects that open up new places to visit. There was a staggering amount of detail in this game as they recreated the town. The arcade was a particularly fun location in the game. There's also a ton of character interaction in the game featuring the voice actors from the television series. If you missed out on this game, it is still worth checking out and definitely deserves a place on our top 10 list.
The Simpsons: Bart's nightmare is one of my favorite games in our top 10 list. It is a collection of mini-games that challenged players to collect all eight pages of Bart's homework. The game offers a solid variety of gameplay and featured some fun parodies of Indiana Jones and Godzilla. There is even an Itchy and Scratchy level. The game has some major replay value as the challenge of getting all eight pages of homework would be reset if you died in an open traversal level. I have a lot of great memories from playing this game back in the day.
Virtual Bart was developed by the same team behind Bart's Nightmare. It's no surprise that this game was pretty similar, but the story was pretty neat. Bart enters a science fair and gets trapped in VR. Players have to beat a series of mini-games in order to escape. Only half of the six min-games would ever even remotely appear to be a VR game, with the rest of them featuring challenging platformer levels. The game had some great graphics, gameplay, and featured hilarious cutscenes. I still think about that corndog scene from time to time.
This game was a pretty blatant copy of Sega's smash hit Crazy Taxi, but it is actually fun. The Simpsons: Road Rage features a host of characters and cars from popular TV episodes and a story that players could progress through. Gameplay was frantic and fast-paced with a heavy arcade feel. Even though it was totally a knock off of Crazy Taxi, it turned out to be one of the best Simpsons games of all-time. Go figure.
The Simpsons Game is one of the more recently released video game titles on this top list. The game was released on Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, and Wii. The game featured a lot of voice work and fully animated 2D cutscenes. The game let you control different members of the family who each had different abilities. The game's story mode feels like a full season of The Simpsons. The game was really fun and entertaining. It featured a ton of classic characters and the story was very well written.
This game was referred to by some players as "Grand Theft Auto Simpsons." The Simpsons: Hit and Run was an open world Simpson video game that features racing, platforming, and an abundance of comedic voice acting. The game really revolved around driving missions, but there are a ton of really funny cutscenes that will leave any Simpsons fan smiling. It's one of the most popular and beloved Simpsons video games and is the arguably the best console release in franchise history, but it didn't take our number one spot.
The Simpsons Arcade game was released in 1991. It is one of the most influential and popular arcade cabinets of all-time. Nearly every kid who grew up playing at arcades in the 1990s has played this game. It features nearly perfect gameplay design with four player co-op that was a blast to play with friends. The music and enemies did right by the TV series and this title really sits above all others. The Simpsons Arcade video game is the best in the history of the franchise. Now go to the mountaintops and let the townsfolk in Shelbyville know.
What Simpsons video game did you think should have been included in this list? Let us know in the comments section and be sure to check out our Shack's Arcade Corner: The Simpsons episode if you can't get enough of this Butterfinger.