After the Family Guy mini game debauchery. I was a skeptic! As a fan of most most cartoon that lean towards the edge, The Simpsons are always one to watch.

The Simpsons Arcade ($4.99)

Join Homer in a drooling pursuit of frosted fried dough. Dodge sinister Springfield forces with touchscreen controls. Get help from Marge, Maggie, Lisa & Bart with “Family Frenzy” power-ups. Race through 25+ levels in 6 environments and run into other favorite characters. Mini-games, plus real voices and sounds add a touch more deliciousness, too.

My Take

On this game, it’s just like the Arcade game they released in 1991.  Or so I thought, same game-type, just a different storyline.  I was pleasantly surprised on how it is presented and played.  As if any person reads my reviews, I detest EA for upchucking retreads for a fast buck.

I don’t think EA stuck their nose in this one.  It was done with some good detail.  Everything revolves around a doughnut, the same doughnut Homer loves to eat in two or three bites, with a flash drive lodged inside…weird.

Presentation

Presentation of the game is classic Simpsons style, all the way down to the sprinkled doughnut. Colors are bright with lots of characters and Simpson town familiarity. The background shows a good amount of useless trivia from the show, but it’s done so well! Easy interface, good controls, even the accelerometer controls are done well.  It’s not a game to push the limits of your iPhone graphic wise.  It’s just made so well even the most hardcore fanboy will love.

Gaming Cross-Reference

It’s a side scrolling Beat-Em-Up.  These tend to be long and with tough bosses with continues to contemplate. So these are serious quarter eating machines as you die often.  If you remember Double Dragon (the game not the movie), Golden Axe or Final Fight, it’s the same thing sans the co-op play.

Gameplay

The plot of the game is retarded, but funny.  Mr. Burns secret plans to do whatever evilness to Springfield are on a flash drive, that’s lodged in a sprinkled pinkdoughnut.  Smithers , who is in charge of this doughnut bumps into Homer, causing it to fly up in the air.  Homer sees it, drools and proceeds to go eat the doughnut.  But MayorQuimby steals the thing and takes off in his limo.  Thus Homer is pissed off and he beats up everyone in his path. So along the way, these Simpson-esque Matrix looking goons are ready for the beating.

So I you go through each section, level by level and beat up everything that attacks you in order to advance.  It’s easy at first, then the bad guys get tougher.  New crooks and cronies arrive with new attacks.  Some parts seem to have too many guys, but Homer has a secret weapon: his gut.  When in trouble, jump and press the attack button and he body slams the ground, knocking everyone to the floor.  Little or no damage is incurred from the slam to the bad guys, but it’s meant to reposition yourself instead of getting your butt handed to you.

Lisa, Bart and Marge help Homer out briefly with their special attacks.  I’m still not sure why they did not make the co-op like the older back in the day. But they come around to get you out of a jam in certain spots.  Homer is able to pick up trash cans and boxes to throw at the enemies. There are certain weapons to use too like ataser.  The graphics on the attack is funny when the bad guy gets tased. Lastly when Homer “dies” or gets knocked out, the player has to swipe the screen left and right to wake him up!

There are Mini Bosses and a Boss at the end of each section.  Each Boss definitely has a weakness just like they all do.  Make it through to the next round, more goons come after you, more mini bosses and boss levels are to follow.  The music gives it away when a boss fight is about to start btw. After the Boss level, there is a quick mini game to win before the next section.

Suggestions

Only Homer??  Come on!  The upright arcade version had four people going at once.  Ok, that’s an easy one.  The load times are a tad too long for me.  It’s worth it, but man, I hate long load times. I did get some slo -mo in the game play during my first boss match.  I’m thinking it’s because on my 3G, there was a good amount of thugs and animation going on.  Anyone with a 3GS experience this when Mayor Quimby was running around??

Conclusion

Classic game, classic Beat-Em-Up.  I’d say this is a sweet game to get. Yes I am biased, yes I still dislike EA.  But this one is a winner.  I’ve played this genre too many times, I’m sorry to say I’m burned out of the beating up type.  TheSimpsons Arcade game brought me back into the fold.  Good job EA for letting Fox and Gracie Films do their magic!