The Simpsons: Bart's Nightmare

"Simpsons fans might like it but that’s about it."

Game Play
Bart's Nightmare is essentially a mini-game collection with five different challenges to complete. While I like this attempt to make the game more than just another cliche, side scroller, it fails to come together well. Almost every aspect of Bart's Nightmare screams lazy and rushed to me.

For starters, Bart's Nightmare is hard, not because of high enemy AI, length, or game play complexity, but because its controls are horrible. Movement and jumping commands are extremely sluggish and jerky. Worse, while you're confined to a snail's pace, most enemies zip across the screen with ease. This makes the hyper paced Indiana Jones and Itchy and Scratchy mallet games near unbearable deathtraps.

Killer mail boxes, basketballs, and packs of bouncing Jebediah Springfield heads are just a few of the bland uninspired antagonists you'll encounter. If the controls weren't so horrid most would probably never touch you, given their very predictable attack patterns. You'll get a different assortment of foes during each game, variety at least, but they don't add anything to the game play.

Most of the games aren't much fun to begin with. In fact the only one I sort of liked was the Superman-esque flying level. The Godzilla spoof is just repetitive and pointless, Indiana Jones and Itchy & Scratchy are **** near hopeless thanks to the horrid hit/miss detection, and the germ level is just easy and unnecessary, really. Virtual Bart may have sucked as well but at least it had one decent mini game, Tomato Toss!

Graphics
There's no excuse for everything looking so cheap and monotone in this game. Springfield was never this bland in the show. Most of the characters are scrunched up and off model to what they should be. Bart looks enough like his TV counterpart that you would recognize him, but he animates in a very sloppy way and seems out of proportion to his environment.

As for the backgrounds, they look like someone drew them up in my computer's “Paint” program in under ten minutes. This thing could have easily passed for an NES game.

The one graphical area that does pull its weight, somewhat, is in the cinematic scenes. They're rough and pixilated but not half bad for the time this was released.

Sound
The audio category is no better. Sound effects are consistently cheesy and the voice samples are grainy as ****. None of the music even references the show. Background music (what little there is) is completely forgettable, just a bunch of faint little whistles here and there.

The amount of distortion in the game's sampling of the opening title sequence “The Simpsons” once again had me questioning what system I was playing this on. Let's not forget that this is the same console that gave us amazing soundtracks like those in FFIII and Chrono Trigger. You expect me to believe that this was really the best they could do? I think not.

Bart sleeping at his desk is by far the worst (and most hilarious) audio bit in the game, his snoring sounds like a constipated walrus being strangled.

Story
The game is set inside Bart's dream after he nods off while doing his homework. The objective of Bart's Nightmare is to prevent Bart from getting a failing grade by recovering his papers after they are blown out his window. The back story is more than what I was expecting for this type of game, so I'll cut them some slack here.

Buy?
Overall this game is just one big stupid waste of time. Even as a die hard fan of the Simpsons, I can't recommend this stinker. Bart's Nightmare has so many glaring flaws you'll be hard pressed to get more than half an hour of entertainment out of it. Stick to “Road Rage” if you want a decent Simpsons themed game.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 01/06/06, Updated 06/06/08

Game Release: The Simpsons: Bart's Nightmare (US, September 1992)