The Simpsons needs no real introduction. The franchise's early run in video games teetered on painfully mediocre to insufferably bad. Easily the most popular video game that came from it was the arcade brawler, a staple of coin-op hangout spots in the early 90's. It was at my local Hill's, and on an almost weekly basis, we would throw quarters into the game while our parents were checking out. 

Developed and published by Konami and released in 1991, it remains astounding that the only home port of The Simpsons was on the Commodore 64. I never had a chance to play that version, maybe I'll track down a ROM of it eventually. This was an incredibly popular brawler game, cabinets were in most places, and with brawler games being the style at the time, it commanded a good deal of attention if the fighting games were hogged by the high schoolers.

The plot is asinine, the family bumps into Smithers, fresh off stealing a diamond, and it lands in Maggie's mouth. This prompts Burns' assistant to grab the infant and make a hasty getaway, with the Simpsons in pursuit. Given they were both in the same location, the amount of distance Smithers gains on you is impressive, not to mention having a legion of henchmen prepared to unleash upon whomever run afoul with them. Spanning eight stages total, you mindlessly pummel through waves of enemies until encountering Burns himself.

Being a brawler game, it's pretty mindless and linear, but can be fairly satisfying. One neat attention to detail is Marge, Homer, Lisa, and Bart each fight with different weapons (vacuum cleaner, fists, jump rope, and skateboard respectively), and the family has fun team-up attacks that vary, depending on who's executing them. This gives the gameplay some personality.

Despite its simplistic appeal, I've always found this game to be more imprecise than other brawler games around this era. It feels like it runs on the same engine as Konami's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game, except it's way more imprecise when it comes to hit detection, hurt boxes, and cohesion. Every other hit seems to miss and practicing the art of avoiding damage gets tricky, even when I've studied patterns.  

The graphics are spot-on, the sprites emulate the show perfectly. For the most part, there isn't a lot of flickering or slowdown. It's impressive, given how many enemies cover the screen and the action picking up. I feel that bearing the likeness of the show makes it one of the more charming IP games out there, when it comes to optics. The visual gags are pretty fun, like the aforementioned TMNT game. 

While The Simpsons overall can be an entertaining beat'em up, buuuut it's really mediocre, all things considered. It's got decent, yet monotonous gameplay, but the game's presentation, visuals, voice samples (with everyone reprising their roles as the main cast) and co-op features balances out the cons. That being said, for a game as popular as it is, it's too bad Konami's hold on the license was temporary. It was unceremoniously removed from the PS3 and Xbox marketplaces in 2014, and only saw a re-release in the form of those crummy 1up Arcades. For me, it's definitely nostalgia, but the reputation The Simpsons game carries supersedes its quality. And sometimes, that's not always a bad thing.