PlayStation Agony: Simpsons Wrestling

This article has been edited and re-written for publication on Steemit. I penned it for Retro Gaming Magazine in 2016, and you can read the original here.

While 2001 was a watershed year for the PS2 and Dreamcast, fifth-generation consoles took a nosedive in the game quality department. Some gems like Dragon Warrior VII and Castlevania Chronicles nudged their way on to store shelves, but PS1 games were shifting to the bargain bin as retailers shuffled their layouts to accommodate the flashier systems. Simpsons Wrestling hurled itself into this milieu once Big Ape Productions, the studio behind Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, acquired permission to make a Simpsons game. When a developer has no idea what to do with a license, the easy way out is to have characters punch one another "because REASONS!". Had Big Ape created a sequel to Konami's The Simpsons Arcade Game, this could have worked. Unfortunately Big Ape went with the one-on-one fighter style instead, a genre where the developers had just enough experience to completely cock everything up. There are plenty of enjoyable brawlers on the PlayStation, but Simpsons Wrestling is not one of them.

The Brawl to End 'em All?

Let's start with the good, since I'm lazy and can finish this section the fastest. The main thing Simpsons Wrestling has going for it is Fox Interactive, who provided as much help as they did for The X-Files two years earlier. The back of the box boasts 19 characters, and every last one of them from Homer Simpson and Ned Flanders on down to ringside commentator Kent Brockman is voiced by their original actor. But let's be honest: by 2001, using the voice actors from a popular cartoon is a hurdle any officially licensed product should be able to clear with ease. If South Park pulled it off on a Nintendo 64 cartridge with ten times less storage space, Simpsons Wrestling would have no excuse for not to make the same effort. So yes, the gang's all here. Good job, Big Ape: you managed not to completely befoul the bed.

Willie fights for his life.

Also on the plus side, everyone has at least two character-specific special moves, like Barney's toxic belch and Homer's bowling ball attack. These are funny at first, but it quickly becomes obvious Big Ape spent little time on character balance; characters like Apu and Groundskeeper Willie run roughshod over almost everyone with their abilities, while the members of the Simpsons family for whom the game is named rank among the worst fighters on the disc. Bart doesn't even have a ranged attack, and this is a kid who keeps a slingshot in his pocket -- really, Big Ape? These minor slights are nothing compared to the primary offender though: Ned Flanders. Granted, Flanders must be unlocked by beating him within the game, but he's the most ridiculously overpowered schlub you can imagine. His special attack, a prayer that causes lightning to flash from the heavens and electrocute his opponent, is too fast to be dodged by any but the most agile characters. Once it hits you, it's all over: the blast knocks you down, leaving you unable to dodge the remaning bolts that continue to strike while Ned leaps on for the pin, and you watch the last of your health drain away. Picking Flanders in Simpsons Wrestling is the surest way to cement your asshole status among friends since using Oddjob in GoldenEye, so don't do it.

Unfortunately everything else about Simpsons Wrestling makes me question how badly the design document was mutilated during production. To address the elephant in the room, WWE Crush Hour is a more competent wrestling game than Simpsons Wrestling, and Crush Hour is a wrestling-themed Twisted Metal clone. Simpsons Wrestling plays out like a poorly-coded 2D fighter suddenly given the 3D treatment. Merely dropping two characters into a roped-off ring doesn't make them wrestlers. They need actual wrestling moves, but these are few and far between. The fighting engine rewards players who stick with the basic attack button, while going for the high-risk stamina-draining moves is rarely worth the reward.

Something you'll never see in the cartoon.

Matches quickly devolve into slap-fights or cheese-fests. Most characters have jump attacks that can pogo off the head of an opponent over and over again, allowing you to win a match without touching the canvas if you like. The strong-but-slow fighters have a hard time getting all the hits from their combos to land against speedier fighters, and the various power-ups that land in the ring can turn matches into button-mashing slogs if your opponent manages to grab that full life restoration before you.

It's common knowledge the PlayStation had issues rendering diagonal lines in 3D. We see it even in games as great as Metal Gear Solid. It's a product of the hardware's limitations, and something not even the most talented people at Konami could overcome, but Simpsons Wrestling rubs this deficiency in your face every chance it gets by using a bizarre, corner-oriented view of the ring. This ensures the ring ropes, lines on the mat, and anything else used to depict the arena is always skewed to a diagonal. Did no one in development notice this? Did no beta testers suggest, "Hey, how about rotating the camera 45 degrees in one direction or the other to get rid of all these weird wavy lines?" Because holy hell does this make the end product look amateurish.

You're not drunk, the ring always looks like that.

Even the story is woefully beneath the source material. Aliens from light-years away witnessed the wrestling prowess of Jebediah Springfield, who fought a bear in hand-to-hand combat. It's taken them years to bridge the span between their world and ours, but now they've shown up for an intergalactic grudge match. All of Springfield catches wrestle fever in an effort to be nominated as champion so they can face down the aliens in an epic rumble for the ages. Really, Big Ape? The Simpsons has constantly placed itself on the front lines of skewering popular culture, and "alien wrestling enthusiasts attack earth" was the best idea from the meeting? No wonder MTV's Celebrity Deathmatch was your last hurrah.

Simpsons Wrestling isn't even remotely enjoyable. If you're looking for a Simpsons tie-in on PS1, your options are limited to this title alone. Obviously If it's a choice between "playing Simpsons Wrestling" and "gargling raw sewage", you pick the option which won't result in parasitic infection. But if it's a choice between this game and any other random Simpsons title, take a chance on what's behind Door #2. Sure, you might wind up with a travesty like Bart & the Beanstalk, but you could also find yourself playing Hit & Run, which even non-fans of the show can get behind.