Retronauts - Retronauts Micro 055: Bart vs. the Space Mutants

Episode Date: January 23, 2017

When The Simpsons took off like a rocket in its first few years, it was only a matter of time before someone scooped up the video game rights. And that "someone" in this case turned out to be Acclaim, those notable purveyors of trash who introduced the concept of "buyer's remorse" to generations of gamers. On this special Talking Simpsons crossover episode of Retronauts, join Bob Mackey, Henry Gilbert, and Chris Antista as the crew thoroughly explores Bart vs. the Space Mutants, the strangely ambitious but all-around bad production that taught us all to be forever suspicious of Simpsons games. Be sure to visit our blog at Retronauts.com. And if you'd like to send a few bucks our way, head on over to our Patreon page!

Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Retronauts Micro. I am your host for this one, Bob Mackie, and who else is here with me today? Nice fruit roll, man. It's Crescentista. God, I forget. He's actually saying something in the Simpsons arcade game, and I forgot to write it down. But I know it's real words, and it means something. I think he's saying, let's go for it, man. I think so. That could be it, yeah. But I always heard nice fruit roll, man.

And who else is here today? Hey, it's Henry. Collect all the hats, Gilbert. Collect all the hats? I'm more into exit signs myself. And today's episode, in case you didn't look at the title of the podcast you're listening to, it's all about Bart versus the Space Mutants, the first Simpsons game, and probably the most prolific Simpsons game.

Why, you've got to do this to the people, but. Hey, someone did it to me, imagining and acclaim teamed up to ruin my childhood together in tandem. This is one of the cruelest things that I think happened to us as little kids in terms of games. It really was. And, okay, so I did an entire Simpsons podcast for Retronauts about five years ago. All of our old episodes are on Archive.org. If you want to look up old Retronauts that are from the One-Up collection, just go to Archive. org.

Type in retronauts, you'll find them all there. And I really wanted to zero in for this reboot of that episode. I want to zero in on Bart versus the Space Mutants because it's the one everyone played. It's the first Simpsons game, ergo got the most attention. And after that, we're like, I don't want to play another one of these ever. It sets expectations so low for any. other Simpsons game that we didn't even complain that it got arguably

worse after that. Yes, they did get a lot worse. This has some inspired qualities. The execution is terrible. We'll get in that in a second. I did want to say that this is sort of a cheap tie-in to our Simpsons podcast Talking Simpsons. Yes, every Wednesday on Lasertime Podcast Network, go to

TalkingSimpsons.com, correct? Yeah, yeah. We did a season wrap up on it and like this game has just come out about where we're at in the Simpsons this summer. This is around season two. This is 91. This came out when Principal Charming was airing. But it's after the Simpsons arcade game, which is phenomenal.

I think it's the same year. They're both 91. Again, we don't know when arcade games are released. The XBLA version pegs it at February 91. Okay, then these are launching at the same time then. Yeah, if that's true and they didn't know either probably. Yeah, I just

I have, there's a commercial you can find. If you look up the commercial, it's clearly like a Brad Bird joints. A very, like, wow, the Simpsons are real well animated in 91. only for commercials. Yes, when you pay an animation studio to make 20 seconds of animation, they're going to make it look really, really good.

It looks really, really good. And, yeah, that was the first one, but, like, the push for it came months later. There's all these compilation commercials about, like, Bart for the Space Mutants and don't forget about Escape from Camp Deadly, but they always mention Space Mutants because I guess at 91, you're the retronauts guy.

Right. That's when, like, there's the most systems to program for. Yes. So this came out in February of 91. S&ES would launch in America in August. So this is a very late NES game. It looks like a Famicom game from like 1987. It shouldn't have come over here.

It looks really bad. I do want to go over some basic elements of this game. It came out in nine different versions. This sort of reminds me of Double Dragon games like that where it's released on NES, Genesis, every microcomputer, the Spectrum, the Amiga. Everybody got a taste of this trash. Double Dragon is not trash, by the way.

If you own something that could play video games, you had access to Bart versus the space games. You did, and they knew, like, everyone's going to want a Simpsons game. This is still in the heights of Simpson Mania, season two of the Simpsons. And I have to say, I know a lot about the Simpsons games because in 2009 for OneUp.com, I did a blog post about every single Simpsons game. Those aren't online now because, you know, why archive content? You know, I would just throw it away as soon as I was done with it. Just toss it. Who cares?

Ziff Davis waited a good eight years before flushing it down the toilet. So thanks a lot, guys. But that podcast is still online, and I have a lot of knowledge about these awful, awful games to the point where every Wikipedia article about a Simpsons game has a link to something I wrote that no longer works. But I hope they keep those links up because I worked very hard on playing all those awful games. So before we start, I do want to say I will link to a let's compare video from the gaming history source if you want to see the differences between every version. The Genesis version looks surprisingly good.

The Spectrum version looks like a nightmare. There's no music. Every sprite is transparent. It's like some kind of weird hell dimension. I said that when I love, one of my favorite games from two years ago was the rare replay collection. And I'm like, you were too thorough. These Sinclair things remind us the time. Oh, these people aren't perfect.

Well, I mean, that just beats up the numbers. You want to get to 30 games. Twelve of them have got to be Sinclair games or Spectrum games. But, yeah, those, it's so close to not even being a game, those ones. It's like, I mean, technically it's a game, but it can't even fulfill what you're paying for which is just like I want to control Bart Simpson that thing is not Bart Simpson on screen so you're not even getting that it's a weird yellow duck creature and I have to say that this game I don't mean to I don't mean to insult our European listeners but I feel like

Europeans have a great amount of tolerance for terrible platformers because we were spoiled with the NES yes like Mario came out Super Mario brothers came out in 85 set a standard like all games should play at least as good as this they can be better but they have to be at least as good as this. Meanwhile, that console crash never happened in the UK. They were playing every garbage nightmare platformer game like Sinclair. Dizzy was defining their platforming experience. And I know a lot of you folks listening are probably

about to flush your iPods on the toilet and rage, but please, a lot of those European platformers are kind of not as great as the Japanese ones we got and were incredibly spoiled by. So that standard was out there in America and if you couldn't meet that Mario 1 standard, you were not worth playing.

Yeah. Not that we, but for me, for me, if you slapped a character on it I liked I would play it I'd at least rent it I would rent it I would say this is not as good as the first Mario game but I'm playing as bugs bunny so I may as well just keep going I want to give them some credit for knowing their audience as well seems like something we talked about on talking Simpsons the Bart craze like it's just weird to think of him being the figurehead of the Simpsons

for the first couple years I mean the Simpson's name is like in there for copyright purposes it's the Simpsons colon Bart versus the Space Mutants But all those NES Simpsons games were Bart, Bart, Bart. Yeah, there's a Bart, a terrible, awful Bart trilogy on the N.S. You played them all on our YouTube channel. They're disgusting. All that Bart stuff and the ads were just like, I mean, it's the Bart game. So Bart's right in the center of it.

So you just see this drawing of Bart. You're like, Bart, I got to get it. That cover art is like the Green Day Duky of NES box art. It is gorgeous. I got to say, yes, Chris. That is the one good thing about this game. The box art, they probably got the guy who draws a merchandise. merchandising art at the Simpson staff to do.

And again, talking Simpsonsie, in almost all merchandise, Bart is wearing a blue shirt early on. That's right. He's not. He's not. It's not quite orange. It's red. I think that's because it's easy to pirate a Bart doll, but it's harder to pirate a, I mean,

you can still pirate NES games, but what are you going to do, red draw the arts and release it yourself, you know? You can make a Bart doll with a red t-shirt, but I think that's what it was for, right? Like, just to certify, like, the wrong color shirt means the merchandise is A-okay. Yeah, I think so. Or they just licensed it differently. Are they like it? I'm sure there was some piece of paper that said,

you license blue shirt bar. You got license orange shirt. I don't know the distinction, but if you look about Butterfinger Beebe's commercial right now, he's always wearing a blue shirt in those Butterfinger commercials. I've seen the coveted rare green shirt part in places too. I don't know where that comes from. So I want to ask you guys,

where did you find out about this game and how psyched were you? I don't want to say I had the brain of like a 65-year-old man my entire life, But I don't know, I think reading a lot of game magazines, even at the age of nine, I knew that license games were bad. Like, even magazines that were trying to shill for everything, even Nintendo Power would kind of tell you that and wink at you like, oh, we all know license games, am I right? And like EGM and things like that. They were the Jimmy Fallon of games publishing. They were very optimistic about everything. Well, they want to say this game is bad in their review.

They're like, you can't be an underachiever to play this game. It's really hard, kids. They actually say that, but I rented this, I played the first level, I immediately died in the second level and that was it. This game to me is that first level. We'll get into why in a bit, but I want to know what you guys, how you encounter the game. I didn't start reading game reviews and magazines until a couple of years after this, like probably 94 or so, maybe 95 was when I really started reading game reviews. So I found out about this through my main form of media comic books. They advertise the crap out.

of it on the back of comic books and it was just the cover with then details and stuff because obviously you can't even get a screenshot so it's going to be the cover and that cover is alive. I can't imagine how bad a screenshot taken from a TV would look like in a comic book on that cheap paper.

Dear God. And I also remember Genesis had this amazing ad that was what do you get because this was the pre-sonic advertising or this was non-sonic advertising before he was their mascot. Like, get the Genesis and you'll hang out with your best friends, Bart, Spider-Man, and George Foreman. It's like the three of them are right there. What about Michael Jackson? We've got all three demographics. Yeah. But so yeah, I saw the ad on the magazines. I was like,

Bart is in a video game. I am the biggest Simpsons fan right now, even in early 1991. So I definitely rented it. And yeah, I think I never got past the first level because it's fucking. stupid. It is a stupid stupid, stupid game. As a kid, I probably, but I didn't have, I doubt I still have the words, like, this sucks. I would just say, like, whatever, I'll get the next thing. I'll rent, let's rent a new thing.

I'm a little older than, I was spoiled like that. Like, I didn't know what bad games were, but I do, I remember referring like, I wanted goddamn Amagon forever. I'm like, well, this game just really hard. Amagon sucks. Surely my expectations were warranted. This game just really

hard and I'm not good enough. And so, I remember, like, if I haven't told you my history in retronauts before, my parents hated games. I had to work really hard to get games. But they encouraged me to read about them. So I got to read about them all the time. I don't remember any skeptical reviews of the game at all. I just was, like, mad hype for it.

And when we found out it was at, like, Blockbuster Movie Gallery, we went and rented it. And it was just like, it's not even that, like, this sucks. It's just like, what are you even supposed to do? And I just remember, like, when you rent a game with your friend, your next door neighbor. That's like an overnight adventure. Oh yeah. Yeah. And this was like... You're spending the whole night crack in that note open. And this is just like after two hours

just like, what about that other game? Yeah, like so we didn't, we didn't slander the game at all. I know I rented it again tried to figure it out, but it is, it is, like you said, it's, that first level is just so mean. It is. It is so mean and obtuse and it's like a, it's a bad platformer on top of all the ideas that throws at you. It's actually the nicest level. It only gets meaner and less inspired. Let's go into some basic details about the game. It was developed at Imagineering, one of the main developments. developers was Gary Kitchin. I thought he was more notable than I think I was thinking of David

Krain when I was looking up this game, but it's actually Gary Kitchin. He's known for programming the Atari 2,600 Donkey Kong. It looks like trash, but it is actually an amazing feat for the Atari. Like having more than one thing on the screen moving is like a miracle on the Atari system. That was designed for two dots to move across the screen at once, and that's basically it. So, I mean, if you can make Donkey Kong happen and he kind of did, he made two levels of that happen. Good for him. And he also made a thing called Gary Kitchens game maker for Apple 2 and I think Commodore. It was sort of an early

game making suite. Very, very limited, but people who grew up in this era have fond memories of it. I was a little too young for that and I didn't have access to a computer until the late 80s. But more importantly, this game is super, super, super reliant on season one. Even more than the arcade game, which is very season one

reliant. I feel like they got some season two materials and these people didn't because we see, let's go over what's in season one that's in this game. So we have a deal from what episode What is that? The grapes of, the, wait, the crepes of wrath, where Bart is an exchange student gets basically abused by two winemakers. In France, while... You slip on the floor.

While an Albanian exchange student steals things. That's a deal. And he throws bombs at you in one level because he's a bomb-throwing anarchist, I guess. They're damn lucky there were cherry bombs in the season one so they could make that an item in the game. Yeah, you're right. They did take that from season one. So we have Sighto Bob, obviously. He is like one of the more notable villains in season one.

is like the best sprite in the game and this is a super superficial pinpoint in that what I when I realize what I love a license game it's just the black if you bother with a black outline around a cartoon character it's it happened for Snoopy yeah it didn't happen for Bart on the NES one but sideshow Bob looks like a good eight bit approximation of side show he's three times the size of Bart yes he is but it still step on his giant feet but the black outline does happen in the Genesis one I was going to blow your minds by pointing out there was the Genesis one because it's the probably the weird this port ever. It is very

good looking compared to the NES version, but things still look off. It's garbage. It's even worse, but it just it actually looks like a, this could be a fun license game, but I just don't know if any games... It's unplayable, just the same as the other ones are. What bad games from the NES era can you think of that get ported onto the next console?

Well, that was to sell it in England. Yeah, probably probably, probably. So other season one stuff, we have Dr. Marvin Monroe, who is the boss of Level 4. Okay, sure. Very odd. You hit him with a own bat? No, they should have done that, Chris, that's amazing. That sounds like you'd have to draw a new

new sprite animation. So do you think the whole game is just them dragging existing assets into the game? Because it feels like very Ninja Turtle's one quality. Like, whatever we got. We have a human character from this other game. It looks nothing like paracentians shoes. They'll probably make a Simpsons episode about that. So we have Space Mutants as well. So Space Mutants

is in the title. No, they're not the Space Mutants. And you're good to point that on, Harry. These are different space mutants In the art for the game, they're these, like, humanoid-looking things with, like, weird, like, eye-stock tentacles on their heads. But in the game itself, they look nothing like the art or the space mutants that are in the movie, the fake movie in The Simpsons, which was, like, a huge season one, two, and three reference going to Space Mutants movies. They're like a king and codos that can survive on oxygen. Yeah. Yeah, they are from the same drawing style that the birth king of Cotos, but the space means are a very specific design.

and you don't even see one of them in the game. They're just a big alien. We should see Kang and Kodos in those beginning scenes where their conveyor belt is dropping things into a machine. That should be Keng and Kodos really. They look like Doom characters. They really do. What's great is like that comparison video have,

those things vary wildly from game. Oh, yeah, yeah. It was like, just make what up. How many eyes does it have? I don't know, at least one. Like, okay, this is never actually be in the same screen as Bart, so who cares? It's not like the Simpsons has a distinct look or anything

or like rules to how you draw characters. It does feel weird that like graining there's no system in place to oversee this product and make sure it's accurate. Well, Matt Grinning made sure his name got on the start screen and that's it. Like you didn't have to, but there's also what, babysitter bandit, right?

Yeah, Ms. Bots, she is the boss of the mall. We also have no Burns and Smithers, a real oversight in this game. I feel like they would... Konami knew their super villains who should be the final boss. Yeah, I feel like Konami was much more savvy about everything they did with the Simpsons. In fact,

when I got done with doing all this research I just went online and looked at these sprite sheets for the arcade game and this is masterful this should be in a museum this is so beautiful I made one of the sprites my avatar because I was so inspired I'm like

oh I love these sprites It's time to get rid of that Thanksgiving avatar I agree I can never get rid of my Xbox 360 because it has that unavailable Simpsons arcade game on it anymore old delisting well Konami delisted something

and you can never get it back that in the Inchirtals game came about through marketing a new game with that product that's the only reason it exists Well, I'm glad I thank Konami for playing ball with EA or Ubisoft on that stuff. It was nice to have that game for, what, three or four years maybe? Yeah.

And watch, I love that growing up. Coming into the games industry in my mid-20s and then I get a little older and then like the younger kids come in and they review a game like the Simpsons and like, this sucks, four, finished it in 10 minutes. And like, I can't weigh my own memories of this game on why it's so much better than that. And you're not wrong, but like, I need this. this game. It's not meant to be a lasting experience. It's meant to be like a fun little, like... It's been to take $10 of quarters from you. I'm sure you guys have all talked about your arcade memories

but just being forced to travel to places like the Grand Canyon with my parents, like you always hold out that hope. You'll walk into a lodge in the middle of one of these scenic vistas you don't care about. Mobia Simpsons arcade machine. That or Ninja Turtles. Yeah, and like 30% of the time you would... Yes, it's here. It's here. Or altered beast.

I remember being excited. I got Altered Beast in here. Alright, back to to Barber Space. Yeah, so the premise is right from the movie they live, which was only like four or five years old at this point. That's a weird trap, yeah. No, it's two years. It was an 89 film. 89, wow, okay, yeah. So basically, aliens have invaded

Springfield, hiding in plain sight outside of the ones that are everywhere that look nothing like humans. And Bart has to put on x-ray specs to see their true forms, and if you defeat an alien that is disguised as a human, you get a piece of evidence, if you collect all of them in a level, then the family member will help you fight the boss.

That's basically how the game works. I mean, it's not explained in any way. They all have ever explained. They all look like Calvin's Uncle Max. That is an obscure reference for people from this era. He kind of does. And that's one thing, Chris. Like, they, outside of Side Show Bob, they don't nail the look of the show at all.

No, not at all. And that goes for the music as well. Like, number one. Yes. Okay. So we'll play with the Simpsons NES theme, which you'll hear a lot in this game. Yes, so you hear a lot of that loop throughout the game, and I'm going to say Danny Elfman's theme for the show is a very complex piece musically, at least to me knowing nothing about music. It sounds very complex.

Things are lots of instruments, lots of really fast-paced notes. That's good game music. Then it goes to shit right there, yeah. And anyhow, it's not fair to make an NES try to produce this music, but they try with four channels and you hear this looped over and over again artlessly. It doesn't even loop well. It's like, okay, the song's over, it's starting again. So I have a theory on that after, I didn't play this again before doing this, but I did watch, well, I turned on an hour-long playthrough,

the complete playthrough of it. And I watched 30 minutes of it straight until I was like, I got to fast forward. I could not stand this. Because every time you think the level's over, it's not. There's a second song that is sort of like a bad, half-ass remix where they get rid of one instrument. I guess it's a new song. So when I started this game, where I started it

and heard this song I was like oh this start screen is good this start screen is great and they got the music right and they paid for the music and credited

so I'm like well they did a great job and then after 10 minutes of like it's just this song you're driving me crazy and then when I zip towards the end of the game

like it's still just this song and my theory is that they spent all their music budget on that or they're like we got to get this song and when they did it they're like holy shit that's expensive

we have no money for anything else yeah they get creative with that song too like when you fight a boss in some later stages there's a part in the song that's like you know I can't I can't replicate it perfectly but you know the part of the Simpson song I'm talking about you also hear that when Bart dies

when you get to the boss it just does that over and over again that one diddle diddle didily didle do over again until you defeat the boss so yeah they were getting creative with you using that one song that is not done well and so then when I read when I watch the comparison video, the one you probably are thinking of as well, or you're

linking to in this, they have the music, too. Like, you can see every non-NES version was like, we're not paying for Dan. We're not paying Danny Elfin. Oh, is that true? $80,000. The music, the song is not there. Can we play the Genesis one, Chris? Yeah, absolutely.

You won't hear it in the Genesis one. It sounds like Day the Tenicle, actually. That's like the... net reality version of The Simpsons that we never got. Again, they couldn't, they're like, we're not paying Danny Alphabet all this money to license this song. So you can do that didly, didly, didlady, d. It's free.

It doesn't even pull, it should have to the back to the future thing when they play it backwards. Please turn it off, Chris. Thank you. So, yeah, I mean, that song, there are a total of two songs in the game, and they're both The Simpsons song, and it's not done very well, and I'm sure my mom probably lost several thousand brain cells hearing me play this in the background.

I'm not sure how do my parents never beat me? I just, I don't know. I played all these games in front of them and they were fine with it. Just thank them for not beating it. Yes, I'm going to go home and do that and call my mom. So, let's talk about the game's design. So we all hate the first level, of course. We hate the entire game.

But it's, it's, the first level is almost not, but I mean, just, I was a dumb kid. Yeah. But I didn't understand what I needed to do or when I was done doing it. If you read the instructions and if you know what you're doing, the first level is the most inventive level with the most ideas. Yeah. Well, thanks to Nintendo's suing Blockbuster, they couldn't photocopy the instruction, so you don't know what they are.

And I now know there's like a prompt at the bottom that'll tell you, like, you've done enough to move to the goal. Yeah, go to the right. But if anything happens in between, you collect a coin or get hit, it disappears. Oh, no, okay. Like, as a kid, we couldn't figure out for a long time with no manual what you're supposed to do in the game.

So I'll tell you how this game works. In each of the five levels, so the aliens need a certain type of item to power their ultimate machine, which we don't know what that is. They never really say. In the first level, it is red, sorry, it is purple items. Anything purple they need for their world-conquering machine.

So that means Bart has to find ways to either cover up the purple things, change the color. So really, this level taps into the essence of Bart. He's being mischievous with different, like, tools and weapons and tricks and traps. And spray paint, which is a very Bart thing. Yeah, your arm is spray paint, or you can knock down a paint can change the color of an awning or shoot out windows with bottle rockets. But the game never tells you that or how to do it or when you're done

because you do need to do a certain amount in order to progress. When I watched a full playthroat, I was like, oh, I was supposed to buy all those rockets to shoot in that one specific. But only if you stand under the window in the retirement castle, so grandfrey, and blow the whistle.

It's so adventure gamey. It is, Chris, it is. This really draws into that sort of like you have one game to play for months, try everything, adventure game mentality. because I will give this first level credit because there is so much cool stuff you can do compared to what happens in the second.

There's very much like a level of interactivity you don't see in the second, third, fourth, and fifth level which is just like collect-a-thon garbage. It's probably all we need to talk about because odds are none of you. I would say 80% of you listening never play past. But I do want to talk about what you can do in that first level, not to go on too long,

but you can, these are like the options you have to cover up the purple objects or collect them or whatever. You can spray paint them. One thing is really cool. you can prank call Mo he'll come out in his purple whatever apron you spray paint him it's a very G rated Mo's bartender joke where it's like is Isabelle there with your brains yes

Mo doesn't actually tell Barty's gonna kill him you're like isabel there last name rigging and it's like wow isabel ringing come on dudes you can go on the grass next to a keep off the grass sign a cop will come to you know I don't know arrest you or shoot you and you just spray paint him you can buy a wrench you can buy objects there's shops in the first level where you can buy things That's crazy.

Buy items to use on other items. It's very adventure-gamy. And it's just fun to explore Springfield in 1991. That was the coolest part because it wasn't an authentic Springfield. The movie theater was there. Candy Most Dandy was there. We all love that classic Simpsons location. Hey, you kids.

Yeah. Classic, classic Mr. Dandy. But yeah, they blew all. And Jebedai Springfield says something. That's right. It's like, remember to get a head, Bart or whatever. I don't know. You shoot a bottle of a rocket out of a bird that's resting on his finger.

It's really stupid. And there's a skateboard scene With an off model jimbo Yeah And it doesn't work But it's At least it was proof of Competency of seeing the show

And knowing what Bart did in the first season These are all first season part things Yes And after that It reeks of like But the first level reeks of like That was the concept they pitched Yeah

And then they rushed the rest of it That's true You're totally right Chris Because the rest of the levels Could be in any game at all So the rest of the levels It has the same premise of Get all the blank objects you need.

Instead of having Bart think of creative ways to collect them or disfigure them or cover them up, it's just like, no, just collect them. It's fine. We ran out of things for you to do. Look, there's a hat there. Jump on these floating things in the Springfield Mall and get that hat. This has to be up by Easter. I really want to know the story.

And I was going to reach out to the guy who was, you know, one of the guys who made this. But I feel like, you know, we're just going to make fun of this. And I don't want you to listen to it if we are. And I'm sure you know it's crap too, but I don't want you to be like a party to this. But I still want to learn What it was like to make a game like this Me too like how much time they had What the restrictions were

It reeks of Western development And I think Japanese development Especially with license games Got away with a lot more Because they were able to say This is our process And you hired us

You have to respect that We'll try and hit your date best we can I am looking at the list of publishers For the game Oh it's insane Well that's what I realize now You can say a lot of shit about a claim But they were the only

they were the only one they published was the NES version. Oh, okay. They paid for that song. They spent the money for that song. Actually, I believe... Flying Edge in Ocean Software, they weren't ready to pay. I think Flying Edge might be like an acclaimed subsidiary for Europe. Oh, you know, claims Ultra. Yeah. Basically, yeah, so they don't get in trouble with Nintendo for, you know,

publishing one game on their system. So I want to talk about why this game sucks. I mean, we've underlined a lot of it, but... Well, first and foremost, the platforming is terrible. That's exactly right, Chris. And everything about where you use... step and jump is arbitrary. Bart's hipbox is all over the goddamn place. It's never clear if you can land on something.

It's never clear if something's going to hit you. Like every window sill is a platform no matter how shallow. It's very strange. Except the rules of the world are very strange. Here, I can easily draw this picture in your brains. Here's a door. I just drew a rectangle. Use it. Just a rectangle. In the middle of it is a window.

How would you know that you can use the top of the middle rectangle as a place to stand? It doesn't make sense in the real world it doesn't make sense in a game but that's the only way for you to complete the game it drove me crazy as a kid to be like these are not the obvious visual

tells just from other NES games I was like I played Castlevania I know where I'm supposed to jump why would a metal trash can be a trampoline exactly and even in the even in the speed run I saw the dude was or the player was trying to spray paint something

he's like you're one pixel way it didn't do it like you're standing next to it nope didn't work oh you have to jump up and nail it You can't be standing next to it and spray painting. Well, and it also really drew, it reminded me what drove me crazy when I played as a kid watching. It was just like, these are space mutants. These are enemies on a screen. And by playing Mario, I have been taught, if I jump on these enemies on a screen, they go away.

But it says, like, no, you avoid these spacevines. You can't kill most enemies. Yeah, you're right. And it drives me nuts playing. Who are just floating and nothing and moving up and down. That's one thing, Chris. This reminds me of European-style platformers. I'm sure there are some good ones, but the bad ones I've seen where it's just like the idea behind it is just like a bunch of random shit swarming around on the screen with no rhyme or reason.

Just like it just swarming. No thought as to how the like the best way for a player to get through it. No thought as to like can they possibly avoid getting hit? I mean, it's just, it's just all over the place. And the controls are totally crazy again. Super Mario Brothers One came out six years before this. You need to meet that standard. That standard has been established.

Everyone knows how a game should play. The run button is the same as the judge. jump button how do you let that happen in 1991 it's crazy and also there is a second kind of jump a long jump yes where you hit a and b at the same time so in order to get the most effective jump you hit a once bart jumps you hold in a you start running and then you hit a and b at the same time maybe it'll work maybe it won't work you better hope you're not over a bottomless pit i've played this a ton i still didn't know that yeah yeah it's just a cruel game with this bullshit and then yeah oh you are on a timer by the way you have to find

pieces of a thing and how to dismantle them and you have a timer. We don't have a lot more to go over but I do want to talk about how this game just this devolved into complete nonsense starting with level two. Suddenly, okay, so level one, it's still Simpsonsland, you're riding skateboards, there's aliens there who cares, they need to make a video game concept.

It is believably Springfields. You're like, I'm in Springfield. It's very grounded. Level two, you're riding floating candy bars over pools of wet concrete in the Springfield Mall and just sentient shoes are trying to kill you and giant donuts are just rolling down the hall. and there are no sign jokes

there's no sign jokes in a level where there's nothing but signs okay there's one sign joke that I picked up in my watching this let's play it was the shoe store was called the really big shoe so congrats the Genesis version actually takes some jokes

from Bloodfewed so we hit you do that yeah there are signs for like Wicked Excess in the Tamo Shanter collection but the Linus version has no jokes outside of the ones they made up so level three is Krustyland which again there are some

inventive touches in these levels that show that they cared a little bit. In Crustyland, you can play all the carnival games to earn points, to earn coins, to you know, to pop the balloons. You need to pop in this level. It's very interesting that they have that level of interactivity again, but it's just a very minor part of a bad level.

And the level does have a lights out puzzle, which is the worst, laziest game design ever. If you know what lights out is, it's like when you click on a button, the other buttons light up on either side. It's a really, really wrote super easy puzzle. It's like the, it's like second to lock pushing in the school of puzzle

design. I also saw in that comparison video every game but the NES game has a pretty cool intro sequence. That is more fun and it always makes what is the Atari ST and how do I play one? The other thing for the Genesis was that it took a year they had an extra year and they still

didn't really make it better. No I mean it's weird like some things looked a little better but at the end they didn't know I guess they didn't know the end boss was supposed to be Nelson, so it just looks like some random child in the Genesis version. It's like all blue. Yeah, from hair to shirt, all blue. It's weird,

but side show Bob still looks good. So watching this horrible, I mean, I hats off to whoever let's play this game or long played it that I watch. It looks so painful. And I noticed that they fall back on the same level design tropes over and over after level one. It's like, well, here's a long stretch

of bottomless pit with these very, very tiny moving platforms. We're going to do that for like two times per level. And every level after the first one, you'll have that happening to you. It's so cruel. And the last level is especially hateful. When I've watched that, I've never seen the last level before. When I saw it in that, let's play, it's like, this is, this is an abomination.

It's basically half of any long play you watch is this level. It takes forever and is meaningless. And you can't, it's just like keep going through doors. Nope, that door took you to level five, but the doors locked on the other side. it's yeah it's basically a giant maze where you have to get you have to get like passwords from Lisa summon Homer with donuts to fight enemies I forget what Marge does is probably stupid

She walks through She actually you need to collect 16 power rods To return them to the basement And Marge will take them back for you Because you can only carry four at a time So every time you collect four you've got to go through the maze again To the basement unless you have Marge on your side It is incredibly painful

And there's no boss at the end you just do it and the game's over And you get this dumb image of Bart's head on Mount Rushmore Because the aliens respect him now So, yeah, I mean, watching it felt like a nightmare. Like, I've had these nightmares. Was it Bart's nightmare, honey? I have had nightmares where, I don't know if you guys have ever had these, where you're like, you're having to complete a task,

but it just gets more complicated as you try to finish it. And your teeth keep falling out. And you just can't finish it. And it's just to constantly try. And so when I see this, it reminds me of those nightmares I've had of just like, no, you weren't on level four and grab this thing. And, yeah, if I had suffered through that for months as a kid to get that ending, that ending would have pissed me off too.

Like, it was, so you beat them. And also the last one, the last isotope is just filled in by Maggie's Pass Fire. Yeah, that's a joke, I guess. And then you don't even get to see the aliens really leave and you don't fight anybody. And then it's just Bart, like, it wouldn't Bart have heard on the news that his head was on Mount Rushmore? Yeah, they just go to Mount Rushmore, and his head is there. He's like, wow, I guess this is fun. Confirms, Springfields in South Dakota.

Thanks, players. Yeah, so, I mean, that's Bart versus the Space Mutants. I have to say that there were lots of bad games in 91, but as a kid, again, I say that standard was set. And playing this, I was like, this just doesn't feel right. This doesn't play like a video game should, and I had that inkling, but I wasn't sure, like, if a game could be bad at this point. I just was like, this doesn't work right.

I'm just not going to play it anymore. There was something wrong, and that's the only reason I'd like to talk to somebody involved in it because not to go off but bart versus the world is like largely reused assets from this game it really is to be fair uh things look more simpsonsy but um it is just bad platforming no inventive qualities at all yeah but you reused the same bart Sprite almost to a T yes it's a horrid Bart Sprite they did not fix that Sprite you're right it's a duck like it's a duck thing that's why I mean even though Bart's nightmare is still kind of bad just seeing things look like they

should was like a like just a stunning, just amazing. Yeah, and it's, it's a testament to how bad Simpsons games are. This isn't even the worst one on the N.E.S. I was going to I was going to ask you guys, I mean, like, how did the other NES Simpsons game? I mean, Krusty's Funhouse is different. It's a different game.

I need to revisit them because I just thought they were all awful. I definitely think, I got this and then I probably rented one more, one I think Bart's Nightmare. And then after that, I was like, never again. I'm not renting a Simpsons game. These are bad. The horrible truth

is that Krusty's Funhouse is the best. It is non-Arcade one. It's based on an existing game so they had nothing they could really It goes to me arcade which is like you're in your nines or 8s especially back then, maybe not now. It's still really good Chris. And then we delve back into the sixes with E.A.'s the

Simpsons game which is fan servicey as hell but the worst 3D platformer I've ever played my own. I mean it's full of mediocre filler. It is but it has production values. They spend a lot the money on getting every voice and an original animation basically an original an episode's worth of original it's a strong seam plus to uh space but then when we replayed it on stuff when we replayed on streams it was like wow this is not fun to play this is not good uh then you get all at crusty's funhouse which was an existing simple puzzle game so it's it's fine but it doesn't need the simpsons at all no no not really i think it's called like rat trap in the ukia it was called rat trap and i think a claim bought the rights to it turn in the crusty's fun house and then it's it's just all bad but everything else is just dirt and it feels

like if a claim was responding to our feedback, which was like, if you can't see the room we're recording him, but I have a Bartman Avenger of Evil cork board 1990 thing in the room. I love Bartman, but we never Bartman has never addressed on the show. It's one joke in one episode

and it's really just a merch, it's like a merchandising thing that became a joke on the show. Yeah. Because Batman was coming out when the Simpsons were huge. That's basically the tie-in. As a kid, I loved Bartman so much, but loved it. Bartman meets Radioactive Man. It's when they seem like they got the note that like we just should be a straight up platformer

and you see why they didn't have the capabilities to do that like it's it's so cruel and mean and awful every single second is worse than the last it's really bad at least the other stuff is like kind of high concept yeah and like it has game elements to it this is just like this is you couldn't have it simpler with i i haven't played simpsons tapped out to the money pit but so i don't feel like i don't feel like doing it but i think they at least got references right I have a real big soft spot for Bart's Nightmare. And what should be better, the itchy and scratchy game. Because it shouldn't have the simplest goal ever.

I had that on my game gear and thought like, oh, this is good. This is good, right? No, it's not. It's really bad. They can't even get the song right. It's so bad. The Forgotten Simpsons game, that's the best one to me. Because it isn't even a game.

It's really a series of screensavers. It's virtual Springfield. That's right, yeah. So Virtual Springfield is a bunch of jokes and references. and it was made, I think, like, 96, 97. And you pointed out to me, blew my mind. You have Troy McClure voices you'll never hear anywhere else, and they got Phil Hartman to do it.

They got all the voices. They're all speaking. And it is, it's an adventure game with no point. It's just like. You collect cards and that's it, right? Pretty much, but it's not for any purpose, really. You're just like, I went to the nuclear plant. Time to click on everything and see what happens.

But you get to see, like, oh, the purple goo from the donut is covering this thing, just like in the episode where Homer prevents the meltdown. Oh, this is the stone cut. Like, I've found a secret place where the stone cutters are. You need your help or somebody in Retronaut's help to like the weird era of the CD-ROM game.

I played it for the Retronauts blog in 2009. It was on an old PC and it barely worked but I still was able to play it. There's that in the Beavis and Budhead. Is it virtual stupidity for Beavis and Budhead? Oh, that's actually good. Yeah. The Muppets one.

And someday we'll find them. Science Theater 3,000 one that was never finished. Somebody will publish some of that. The assignment, Venezuela short is on YouTube, though. It was a DVD extra. Oh, that was made for the game? That was made for the game. Yeah, they made one short.

But I will say virtual stupidity is good. It's not as good as a LucasArts' adventure game, but it's surprisingly well made for a licensed adventure game. And the Duckman game isn't bad either. There's no Jason Alexander, though. Boo. There's a King of the Hill game out there somewhere. But the Simpsons one was good. Virtual Springfield was good.

It gets forgotten by a lot of people. People, I had, at my old place at Games Raider, I had a bit of a disagreement with the other editor I was writing the article with. Wasn't someone from the UK who thought that Bart versus Spacemians was a very good game. Again, that's because he played like Chinese water torture platformers. He was a big Sonic fan. He is a big Sonic fan. Oh, you're talking about J-T. I felt like we have to, let's not name it. I thought, Lisa S.

No. L. Simpson. But look, hey, I don't begrudge him his opinions, his wrong ones. But I felt like I just had to get in a knock on Sonic on the retro-knit. I thought that was a thing we do on here. Hey, if you were tortured enough by bad platformers to think this is a good game, I'm in love with you. More power to you, man, because your life was hard.

I love the idea of somebody loving this game. And if it wasn't for those let's players out here, I don't know that I would have seen more than the first three levels. Thank God that those people are out there doing that what they do. I mean, it just wrote trial and error memorization, Because most every level is just like, first level, it's purple stuff, then hats, then balloons. Balloons, then exit signs. And it's all like kind of, you don't really know how you deal with them.

And if you don't, if you don't pop every balloon, you don't get to the boss. You won't be able to get to the boss. It's, but very good, there's a good, there's a good crusty and itchy, scratchy sprite in there somewhere. There is, yes, there kind of is. This giant's crusty head looks good. And the eyes do follow you. Within the world of that game, that looks yes. The best they could do.

Wait, didn't we have one other clip? We had the commercial, if you want to listen to that. The commercial is a short, sweet 15 minutes. Beautiful animation, I encourage you to look it up on YouTube. It's on our YouTube channel. Bart! Go to bed. Sure thing, Dad.

It's Bart versus the Space Mutants for your N.E.S. Only Bart Simpson can save the Earth. Bart! Get the Simpsons game for your NES from a claim. That was a good eight seconds of anime. But there's multiple versions. of it as they make new Simpsons games they still are always hawking

Bart versus the Space Pumetons but it's still available it is but when they want to hot Camp Deadly and Krusty's Funhouse again that the commercial we put up I think somewhere that one of of Krusty naming like eight games it's just like that's when it overwhelmed me of like

it's 1992 three different platforms and I love that because it's the only time the Simpsons really do say a real world existing console and Krusty screens out Super Nintendo that is kind of weird So this is going on much longer than I intended

As with Every Retronauts Micro But I did want to end with asking whether the best Simpsons games I think you guys kind of said which ones you like the most I think we're all agreed on my game I have a soft spot for Virtual Springfield I spend a lot of time in there But it's barely even a game And you can never play it

And it's just lost the time But so yeah my my pick is Simpsons Arcade Yeah me too I mean even if it's shallow It is the best that kind of game can possibly be Just like it's a delivery method for cool animations and references and like great sound effects

great music even I mean we use the music on Talking Simpsons so I do I do really appreciate the work that went into the Simpsons game it is full of references full of jokes like tons of jokes about like they're fighting Ryu and it's Ryu like it's all these

in a Madden Game Factory and when Will Wright is taunting them like he's a boss it's like I've kissed a girl like he said and when they and there's an incredible great joke of them of them talking about their shitty 8-bit games. I do love the, sorry, I'm Marge.

I was going to say that. It's like that was Marge's catchphrase. Everyone else had their own. And that's what she... At the very least, a Simpsons game should be funny. And I know tapped out meets that requirement in Virtual Springfield. And that really does too.

And if you've never made it at the last level of that game, it is a battle through Matt Granning's mansion where he sends Futurama characters to do that. Yeah, that's right. And Zoidberg. I will give an honorable mention to Simpsons hit and run which was the...

My God, sorry, that is the number two. As a game, that's great. I don't know how well it holds up, but it was my favorite Grand Theft Auto until San Andreas came out. We played it a year ago with really bad frame in our YouTube channel, but like, just playing through Spring,

the Springfield map is all wrong. Of course, there's no way it could be right. But it's so silly. It's all funny, and it's got grace voice acting in it. The EA one tried to have that kind of GTA Springfield one too, but it didn't really do it. It was, and that team would later go on to make dead space. That's so weird. Yeah, I mean, starting with

Road Rage, which was the crazy taxi rip-off, they got sued over, someone had the bright idea like, hey, we're making a Simpsons game. Maybe let's hire a Simpsons writer. So I think Matt Selman wrote a lot of Simpsons games. Selman and another writer did the EA game. I remember that, which is, I guess, came out the same year as the movie, so it's turning 10 this year. Oh, boy. I don't want to think about that.

Coming up, baby. So, yes, thanks for joining us on this pleasant hell ride through a just terrible game we all suffered through. Please let me know on the comments or on Twitter or whatever what you think of this game

if you finished it, like if it scarred you for life as it did all of us. But as for me, you can find me on Twitter as Bob Serbo. You can read my writing at something awful.com and fandom.com

where I write video game stuff. And, of course, let's talk about Talking Simpsons. Chris. Sell it, Chris. Talking Simpsons, the laser time's chronological look at every single episode

of The Simpsons. By the time this goes up, We'll be at the bottom end of season four. Can you wait to get to five? Can you believe we're almost at season five? Yeah. Unbelievable. And I do think if I haven't plugged it enough for Retronauts fans,

30-2010 is a show we do where we look back to that week in history 30, 20 and 10 years ago. And it's been really great trying to hold back every time there's like a momentous Simpsons episode released 20 years ago. And the last one was like, it was, and here come the pretzels. Like, we have to mention that. By the time we get to that, our episodes will be two and a half hours long. At the time we get to that, we'll have like nine kids. We'll be able to do the show that often. Little Bob can take over.

Come on, guys. We'll already be in 1984 world by that point. There will be a podcast. I'm H-E-N-E-R-E-Y-G on Twitter. That's where you can find me. I also write for fandom. You'll find my work there. And I'm on other podcasts, but especially Talking Simpsons.

And we got some exciting stuff playing for the future. Oh, boy. All right, we got nothing. Yes. No, we actually do have something planned, but I don't want to stay on a podcast. Are you happy? Boom. See, more than I'm Talking Simpsons.

Yes, and Laser Time, all that, but whatever. Love you, thank you so much. In our YouTube channel, the one game stream you might like, we tried to do, when we were wrapping up that the third season of Simpsons, we did the Three Simpsons games of 1992. And if you think this is a bad Simpsons game, we cannot overlook the Game Boy games, which are utter... They're not even games.

They are dog smegma. They are the worst. They learn nothing. Bart versus the Jaggernauts might actually be the worst game Simpson's game ever made. It's terrible. But I am cited as the expert on the internet, so I have to live that

down for the rest of my days. Well, we excuse Game Boy games for being bad due to their limitations. But if you think looping one song is bad, it sounds like, we don't even know the name of the song, let me write that donkey, don't kid, don't get that that's it. That's that that, that did it for 45

minutes. It is like a ringtone from 1997. Yeah. Yes, black and white graphics as Bart plays an American gladiator's parody. It's awful. Oh, God. Thank you so much for joining us, folks. We'll be back next week with a brand new full-length episode of Retronauts. We'll see you then.