The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants

Moby ID: 4386
DOS Specs
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Description official description

Bart vs. The Space Mutants is a platform game where the player goes into the role of Bart Simpson (from the TV show The Simpsons) and must stop the Space Mutants from invading Springfield.

On each of the five levels, Bart must collect (or get rid of) the ingredients that the Space Mutants are planning to use to build their machine, such as purple objects or balloons. He also has to collect enough "proof" of the aliens existence (brown coins left behind when they are jumped on), so his family members will help him when he meets a boss (characters such as Nelson and Sideshow Bob). This won't be easy since the Space Mutants are "using" human bodies as disguise. In order to discover who are the real Space Mutants, Bart must use his X-ray Specs.

The ways Bart can get rid of those objects sought by the Space Mutants are numerous. For instance, in the first stage, Bart must get rid of purple objects. He can dye them red, cover them, wash them, etc. Some even involve a little puzzle solving, like playing a trick on Moe to make him get out of the bar.

Bart also has some coins that can be used in many ways throughout the game, like buying things, getting devices operating, etc. Those coins are essential to solve some puzzles in the game.

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Credits (DOS version)

12 People

The Simpsons Characters Created by
Game Design by
  • Imagineering Inc.
Original Score by
Story Conceived by
Game Developed by
  • Arc Developments
Game Produced by
Software Engineering by
Visual Engineering by
Audio Engineering by
Additional Sounds by
Additional Graphics by

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 68% (based on 42 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.3 out of 5 (based on 127 ratings with 7 reviews)

A good start for the Simpsons

The Good
Bart vs the Space Mutants is the first major Simpsons videogame licensee that I know of, and as expected with most licensed cash-ins the game was simply a clone of the most popular genre at the time with the particular licensee's characters and locations slapped on... or was it??

Well, yeah it was. But thanks to a series of interesting design choices the game remains an oddity in the world of NES-generation platform games. You see, the evil space mutants (those giant green monsters from space that have become a fixture in the series) have crafted a sinister plot to take over the earth, and good 'ol Bart Simpson is the only one who knows about it and since no one believes him, the only one able to stop the aliens. One would think since this is "one of those games" that Bart's quest involved nothing but having you jump around Springfield while hitting/avoiding the alien freaks lurking around town and collecting coins and similar standard-issue items in your eternal quest to get to the next level... Right? Wrong. The developers while still making a game that appealed to the most kid-friendly genre at the time (a fact worth mentioning considering that the Simpson's fanbase was still pretty young in those days) also managed to inject a series of somewhat deeper gameplay concepts that included collecting evidence to help gather the help of the many familiar Simpsons characters, and also by including the interesting idea of having to foil the alien's plan indirectly.

What does that mean? That you aren't going to win if you kill every baddie around as in most games of these type, what you have to do is defeat the enemy's source of power, which is misteriously related to the color purple. What this means is that you have to explore the levels in detail hunting down these purple blotches and nullify them someway. Sometimes they are obvious and a dose of your trusty spray-can will do the trick, but sometimes they require you to think a little and solve a small jumping puzzle or do some sort of small deduction work in order to find out just how to cover that purple billboard or clean that purple dog...

All in all a challenging and fun twist on a tried and true concept that doesn't boggle the young minds craving for jump-n-run action and which uses the basic control scheme used since Mario Bros to introduce such concepts as inventory and money management (used to buy new and better weapons), to form a nice cocktail between the two.

The Bad
The NES version really didn't do this game justice. Sure, the controls and design seemed fit for the system but the graphics and sounds seemed like crap to me at the time seeing as how the game featured such many large sprites and complex backgrounds that were clearly out of the NES's league. Nowadays, looking at the screenshots of the other versions it becomes quite clear just how much were all of us stuck on the NES missing... Boy just look at those Amiga graphics...

The Bottom Line
A typical platform game based on a lucrative license that nonetheless manages to avoid the usual pitfalls of these adaptations and even manages to include some clever touches that make it worth noticing in the sea of cloned platformers that was the gaming industry in those days. Worth picking up, but while the NES version is playable why neglect the eye candy you can get from any of the other, more powerful versions like the Amiga or Genesis one?

NES · by Zovni (10504) · 2004

Eat My Shorts, Dude

The Good
The Simpsons is one of the longest running television shows in the history of television. If you were growing up during the early 1990s you probably caught the Simpsons bug and, to their credit, the folks at Acclaim clearly had some good intentions in bringing the PG13 animated world to the G-rated NES world.

The Bad
It is a side-scrolling action game with little action involved because you simply do not attack anything in a level other then space aliens hiding in humans or the various bosses. You can collect some cool items and perform a few rebellious acts, but they are all designed to collect enough objects (i.e. hats) in a level to meet the boss.

Most of the time, success in each level involves making precise jumps and avoiding space aliens and other oddities like shoes. Bosses are defeated by jumping on them, in the precise place, or figuring out how to collect enough letters to spell a family members name, who provide some help with the boss.

Bart can only withstand two direct hits before he loses a life and there are no continues or passwords. Your health is only restored when you complete a level and you can only earn nine extra lives. The game comes off as being boring and unreasonable difficult.

The Bottom Line
The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants attempts to capture the look of the tv series, with some success. However, Bart is a bit wimpy in the game and their is something a bit odd about being able to collect rockets and cherry bombs, but not actually use them for anything other then to collect something like hats.

In contrast, the arcade Simpsons game is not especially creative in the game play department but it was alot more fun to play then this game.

NES · by ETJB (428) · 2010

A Devilish platformer that really shines through Nostalgia goggles.

The Good
Bart vs. the Space Mutants is a platform game originally made by the New Jersey based studio Imagineering Inc, for multiple platforms. It was produced and published on the NES by Acclaim, that secured the IP even before the first episode ever aired (when it was just a segment at the Tracey Ullman show), in fact this was the franchise first video game... Acclaim just had an eye for talent and licenses that could potentially be successful. The Box Art is probably one of the best in the NES library, credited to Matt Groening (the creator of the Simspons), colorful, not at all generic and perfectly summarize and represents the game. In fact, Matt Groening and James L. Brooks (Producer of the TV show) were involved with the early concept and wanted a Simpsons "whole" family game. So Imagineering designed the first level, the streets of Springfield, with that mindset of being a Bart Level (with his spray paint graffiti personality); the Shopping Mall for Marge (looking to buy a hat for her hair), the amusement park for Maggie (longing for a balloon), the museum for Lisa of course and the last level, the nuclear power plant for Homer (forgetting the way around his workplace). But Acclaim demanded a Bart-centered game, so they had to abandon all these ideas and just change them for pure platforming with Bart. The rest of the family got relegated to NPC helper roles. That's the reason behind the "silly" goals the game has (though personally I never understood this complaint: you collect hats because... that's what you did in games back in those days) Also, from the original concept they had just 3 months to show a fully working prototype. Finally all the depiction of characters and music had also to be approved by FOX, and by the way, devs didn't have access to previews, so they just watched the show as it aired and added some gags and references on the go; Nintendo also demanded to make the jump feel like Mario, but they couldn't without completely redesigning the game... so they just made Bart jump a little higher and hope to get with that the "seal of approval" (it worked!). So you can tell there was a lot of roughness to the development cycle, and its a miracle that end up working so well...

The Bad
Still the game was very hard, completely unfair, particularly on the middle levels, where the puzzle element almost disappear and the very slippery platforming becomes more and more present with some frustrating moments of thumb hurting controls. These are weird by the way, jump and run are both the same button, A, and that's just the beginning of it, you jump higher and longer with A + B, but B also shoots and frequently the ammo is limited and hard to find... The controls really takes some time and discipline to master. You have few hits (2) , and a very short time limit, but at least a lot of extra lives that you can pick; add to this that boss fights are quite difficult and even confusing at times... and you'd probably never got to see the ending: navigating the gigantic maze of the Nuclear Power Plant.

The Bottom Line
In any case the first level is nothing short but genius. As a result of a conscious decision of trying to make it feel different to a Mario game, ends up hitting the perfect balance between platforming, action, puzzles, secrets and gags. The middle levels are still good, but never reach quite the same heights, and the difficulty in platforming really spikes by then. The graphics as a whole are beautiful, colorful and detailed, you can recognize a lot of characters from the show, and they're on their appropriate roles doing the kind of stuff they did in those first couple of seasons. And The Simpsons theme little tune is fantastic though probably overused with just another couple of original tunes, but the sound FX is great with iconic hit and jump sounds and there's some very impressive early 8-bit digitalization of Bart's voice.

It was a very successful game for Acclaim and spawned two sequels for the NES made also by Imagineering: Bart vs the World (1991), and Bartman meets Radioactive Man (1992) Acclaim hold the rights for NES publishing, but on the PC side it was delivered by OCEAN, and these Amiga and C64, MS-DOS ports they all feel and look slightly worse, clunky and kind of depressing. It even got a remake made by another studio Arc Developments for the Genesis, with ports to the Master System and the Game Gear. To be honest, this control better than the original, though the changes on graphics sound and music, even with 16-bit capabilities, were for the worse: it has more colors and better animations but uglier designs, very generic and not at all Simpsons like.

The original had fails; it is unfairly difficult, it controls poorly, but overall succeeds in being fun, and memorable and to actually make us feel inside The Simpsons universe like no other game from that era (or even from the next two gens). It has a classic, unique NES vibe that is very difficult to describe, and, to me, remains an iconic game from that time period.

NES · by pelida77 (36) · 2023

[ View all 7 player reviews ]

Trivia

Amiga bundle

The game was bundled with the Amiga for about a year, in a bundle called Cartoon Classics which also included Captain Planet, Lemmings, and Deluxe Paint 3. The pack was unchanged when the Amiga 500 Plus model launched. Because the Amiga didn't come with a joystick at the time, the bundled version was edited to allow for keyboard control.

Amiga version

For the Amiga version, Arc Development decided to include an animated opening sequence in the style of the actual Simpsons show. In order for them to do this they had to send each frame to Matt Groening and he hand drew over each one. Despite this effort, the animation still looks poor in comparison to the show.

Awards

  • Commodore Force
    • December 1993 (Issue 13) – #85 “Readers' Top 100”

Information also contributed by Martin Smith

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Psykax.

Commodore 64 added by Quapil. Game Gear added by chirinea. SEGA Master System added by Sciere. ZX Spectrum added by Martin Smith. Atari ST added by Terok Nor. NES added by Unicorn Lynx. Amiga added by MAT. Amstrad CPC added by Katakis | カタキス. Genesis added by Syed GJ.

Additional contributors: Johnny "ThunderPeel2001" Walker, Alaka, FatherJack.

Game added June 28, 2001. Last modified January 20, 2024.