The Simpsons (Xbox 360)

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Description

Waylon Smithers has just stolen a diamond from Springfield Jewelers for Mr. Burns. While trying to make a getaway, he crashes into Homer, which knocks the diamond out of his hand. Maggie catches it in her mouth, prompting Smithers to grab her and run off. The Simpsons decide to go after him, but Mr. Burns has tons of henchmen, who want to prevent the family getting their daughter back.

The Simpsons is basically a side-scrolling beat-em-up featuring the characters from The Simpsons TV show. The player can choose to play as each of the four Simpson characters. Homer, who punches and kicks; Marge, who swings her vacuum cleaner; Bart, who wields his skateboard; and Lisa, who uses a jump rope as a whip. Other weapons such as hammers and bowling balls are also available to use. The game's levels are Downtown Springfield, Krustyland, Springfield Discount Cemetery, Moe's Tavern, Springfield Gorge, Dreamland, the Channel 6 studio, and the Power Plant. Each level ends with a boss whose speed and strength will increase after taking a certain amount of damage. End level bosses are the wrestler Professor Werner von Brawn, a hot air balloon shaped like Krusty the Clown, a pair of bouncers, a drunk at Moe's Tavern, a henchman in a bear suit, an imaginary, gigantic bowling ball, and a martial arts sensei dressed like a kabuki actor. There's also the showdown finale against Smithers and Mr. Burns in a robotic outfit.

Between levels, the player can compete against the other characters in two mini-games to be first to complete a task (inflating a ballon and waking up their character).

Screenshots

There are no Xbox 360 screenshots for this game.

There are 69 other screenshots on file for other versions of this game.

Alternate Titles

• "The Simpsons Arcade Game" -- Home version title

Part of the Following Groups

• Genre: Beat 'em up / Brawler
• Inspiration: TV cartoons
• Simpsons licensees

User Reviews

There are no reviews for the Xbox 360 release of this game. You can use the links below to write your own review or read reviews for the other platforms of this game.

The Press Says

Video Game Generation	Feb 14, 2012	8.5 out of 10	85
Gamesbeat	Feb 07, 2012	75 out of 100	75
GameCola.net	Apr 19, 2012	6 out of 10	60
The Video Game Critic	Apr 04, 2012	C	50

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Trivia

Character design

The Simpsons appeared in a series of shorts for The Tracey Ullman Show from 1987 to 1989. In these shorts, their designs gradually changed from crudely drawn to having a lot more polish. On both the back cover and the character profiles in this game, it is obvious that the five characters are based on the shorts that aired during the 1989 season of The Tracey Ullman Show. Since then, their designs have improved even more throughout the course of the half-hour The Simpsons show.

Characters peculiarities

• Bart wears a blue shirt in the game, which is also the case on various T-shirts and merchandising items. He does not wear a blue shirt on the TV show however.
• The bow in Maggie's hair switches between blue and pink during the game.
• Barney's hair colour is yellow, the same colour as his skin. He appeared this way on a few early episodes of The Simpsons and hasn't been drawn like this since.
• Smithers also looks funny, having a strange colour-scheme used for his hair and skin. This is not an accident, but based on a single episode of The Simpsons, Homer's Oddysey in which he appears like this and has never been drawn that way since. He's also a lot more villainous than he has ever been in the show.

Plot

Almost the entire game seems to be designed from situations and story elements from the first season of The Simpsons. Among other things, this accounts for Sideshow Bob being a good guy (gives the player food) before he framed Krusty and became a long-standing villain.

Rabbits

The rabbit-like characters often seen in the game are Binky (the two-eared rabbit) and Bongo (the one-eared one), two of the characters from Matt Groening's Life In Hell, a newspaper comic strip.

Information also contributed by Fangusu and WildKard.