The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants

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.