Review: The Simpsons (Xbox Live Arcade)

By Wayne Webb

I was excited to learn that there was a new Simpsons game for the Xbox Live Arcade, which was quickly tempered when I realised it was very old. It is a port of the old Arcade Machine coin-op Simpsons game from years ago.

The game has been lifted and shifted to a XBLA download. Back in the day when I used to hang out at the Spacies arcade and feed 20c coins incessantly into these hungry machines, they were the highest tech gaming had to offer and were exciting. Twenty years later they are lower resolution that 99 percent of the smart phone games and look dated by comparison.

It’s a kick to play an old Arcade game, perhaps one you never got to finish all the way to the end. Now though with plenty of “credits” already loaded in the XBLA version, it’s no time before you are knocking over levels and powering through the game that used to take hours to get through. You jump on and tap away at your controller, mashing the attack and jump buttons and that is the limit of your skills to be tested. It’s less a measure of your timing now and more a matter of patience and perseverance.

Fun to play if you remember the old game, but introduce it to your kids what the fuss was all about if you start waxing lyrical about the ‘good ole days.’

Pros: Nostalgia trip, good use of Simpsons design and sounds
Cons: Over too quickly. Repetitive, button masher, low quality graphics.

2.5 Shacks Out Of 5

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