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By Justin Crowley on October 22nd, 2001
Introduction As one of the biggest Simpsons fans out there (and the reigning Sega IRC Simpsons trivia king mind you), it comes to no surprise that I was looking forward to Simpsons Wrestling. Unfortunately however, is the fact that a game with such potential turned out to be well as Homer would say, "The suckiest bunch of suck that ever sucked." (Quote modified to fit situationPresentation New Career
Vs.The above should be self explanitory since it’s in yellow text against an all back background. I don’t think I have ever seen a game fail on so many levels. Graphics & Sound This game employs the cell shading effect made
popular by Jet Grind Radio. Unlike the aforementioned game though, Simpsons Wrestling looks very rough, very grainy, and very choppy. Characters move with a stiff awkwardness about them. It is almost unwatchable to a certain point. The frame rate is simply atrocious
dropping below 30FPS at some points. The view which is from a 3/4 isometric angle is atrocious, the rings are bland, and the backgrounds which range from the Simpson estate to Moe’s Tavern are plain ugly. I know what you’re thinking, "Well it is a Simpsons game so there has got to be a lot of great tunes and quips from the show". Well you’re only half right. All of the quotes are either taken from the show or were recorded exclusively for the game. Which means you get some great lines from the likes of Willie, "No one moves
faster than a greased Scotsman", Apu "Yes I am sorry I do not speak English", and the rest of the cast. Music however is horrible. There are absolutely no
tunes from the show. While it would have been nice to hear the mono rail song, the Kwik-E-Mart song, or even the goddamn theme song in the game, they are all non existent. Instead we get really crappy bland ska. Gameplay Choose one Springfeldian, and choose whether to fight ina tournament or against another human player. That’s it. Each character has a standard 3 hit combo that isexecuted by pounding on the X button, a jump move that is executed by pressing triangle and THEN pounding onthe X button, a special move that seems to be accessible at random by pressing the square button, and a taunt which is executed by pressing the R1 button. Come to think of it, this game bears no resemblance to a wrestling game sans the ring.
Lasting Appeal Instead of going on and on about the lack of replay let me present a little experiment i did.Here is a little challenge that I actually tried. I closed my eye, randomly picked a guy, mashed on the X button for the whole game, and still beat it in under 20 minutes. OOOHH really challenging.
Conclusion In closing, not even a Simpsons die hard should buy this game. Go rent it and see for yourself how badly the license was murdered. Let’s hope for the better with Simpsons Road Rage, all though my hopes aren’t too high.
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