The Simpsons Arcade Review-
Over 20 years The Simpsons have been a part of everyone lives on our TV screens, everyone's favourite yellow family have been in multiple video games on various consoles and a movie. Back in 1991 there was The Simpsons Arcade which was released in arcades nearly all over the world from the US to Japan, I think I did see an arcade machine of it years ago somewhere but wasn't working.
Main plot is where Waylon Smithers steals a giant diamond from Springfield Jewellers for Mr. Burns. Smithers bumps into Homer, his family is conveniently walking down the street. The encounter knocks the diamond out of Smithers' hand, Maggie is kidnapped her and it's up to the family to save her.
Gameplay: If you've played games like Streets of Rage or Final Fight you'll fight countless enemies on the screen through each of the levels. You can choose to play as Homer, Bart, Lisa or Marge though out the whole game your pretty much button mashing the same buttons over and over again using the analog or directional pad to move. And using X to jump and button mashing the square button to attack, through each of the 8 stages you'll face a boss at the end of the level. You'll be able to use weapons such as mallets and slingshots or throw heavy objects at enemies, there's no counter-timer for clearing through a way of enemies unlike other beat-em-up which I've mentioned above. If you remember playing it in the arcade you'll feel like you've taken a trip back down to memory lane and plays like the arcade original.
There are multiple ways in playing the game where you can play on Survival where you only get 1 life, no quarters and continues. Another is where you can play up to 4 players offline or online you'll get 40 quarters which can be shared out between the numbers of players who are playing with you; or only have 10 quarters each once they are all used its game over.
There are only 2 mini-games which players competed against each other to be the first to finish a task by inflating a balloon shaped like their character in the first game, and the other is waking up their character. The mini-games are based on repeated button-pushing, with the player who pushed the buttons fastest winning. If fewer than four players were present, the player or players competed against 1-3 computer-controlled characters in these mini-games.
Graphics and Sound: Graphics haven't really changed much since it was released back in the 90's but you've got the option to switch to sharp or smooth on its graphics and animation character sprites. You can play the arcade game on a full screen or a smaller screen which looks like an ATM/Credit Card screen where the screen is really small making it feel like you're in an arcade. Nothing has really changed since then on graphics as you go through various parts of Springfield from Downtown Springfield to Krustyland. You can change rom before starting a new game where you can play the game in a US rom or switched to Japanese rom but both rom are the same but different high score system.
As you load up the game you'll hear the main theme tune when loading up the main menu and hearing various music but I don't think anyone will care on the soundtrack since it's not that great to listen too. If you're a fan of The Simpsons you've still got the same voices from the family but most you don't hear much voicing just mainly them fighting and getting attacked by enemies.
Overall: You would have thought they'd make this in HD but it turns out they just left it as it is, you can actually finish the game under or more than 30 minutes which is really short and have left it at a bad price around £7.99 or $10 and its unlockable aren't that great. Trophy support is added if you're a trophy collector but you'll playing through the game multiple times on various settings, you can however play online with friends up to 4 players which is possibly the best part of the whole game instead of playing the game all by yourself.
Fans of the series will most likely enjoy wasting 30-40 minutes of their time playing it, might appeal to a few gamers but its best of staying away from an arcade port and heading to the proper arcades instead downloading the game from PSN.
It's better off staying in the past instead of the present day- 4.5/10
