SAN FRANCISCO — In what experts are calling the biggest news for gamers since the release of the Nintendo GameCube, tech billionaire Elon Musk has announced a new slur: cisgender.
“As gamers, we love collecting things — cartridges, funko pops, original soundtracks, and more. But most of all, we love to collect new slurs,” said gamer Dora Farrell. “That’s why it’s so exciting that cis and cisgender, the words used to describe someone who isn’t trans, is a slur. It has beenyears since the last time we had a slur announced. I can’t wait to try it out on all the guys in the next Fortnite lobby I’m in. Fuck off, you dirty cis!”
“Honestly, I’m impressed. I thought Musk was lying when he said he was an inventor, but this is easily his greatest gift to humanity,” said another gamer, Kieran Wong. “I always felt a bit incomplete, but now that I have cis in my arsenal, I feel like Thanos dropping his final slur into his infinity gauntlet. We finally have a new gamer word!”
According to Musk, introducing new slurs into the video game ecosystem is something that he has been working on for a long time.
“The way people act around me, I’ve always felt that my mission on Earth was to leave it. That’s why I spent so much time trying to go to Mars,” Musk explained. “But now I realize that what I’m meant to do is improve the lives of gamers worldwide by creating new slurs for them to use. And that’s my genius, I believe. Words like ‘cis’ have existed for decades, but through my abilities, I am able to give them new meaning.”
I promise you this, gamers: cis is not the final slur. There will be many more,” Musk said. “I cannot explain how just yet, but all sorts of words you see in your everyday life can be repurposed. Truck, film, mournful, disaster, announcement. These are all words that one day will be used by 13-year-olds playing Call of Duty: Warzone to terrorize enemies over a broken microphone. That is my promise.”
At press time, however, gamers began criticizing Musk after he reset the number of slurs by declaring that the n-word will no longer count as one.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny premieres June 30th and we slipped past the booby traps, dodged a rolling boulder, and sneaked out with every bit of info we could. And then we wrote it into this list and published it on our website!
Shia LaBeouf Still Doesn’t Know About It
In an effort to preserve the film’s quality, Harrison Ford assured LaBeouf he was just on vacation and there was no new Indiana Jones in development.
The Film Will Be The Only Topic of Conversation Between You and Your Dad for Two Months
Disney has confirmed that your awkward, stilted conversation with your father during brief visits home will be dominated by Indiana Jones 5 as it is the only piece of pop culture he is aware of from the last decade.
Spielberg’s Script Was Rejected
Legendary director Stephen Spielberg was forced off the project after producers didn’t like his script that explored Indiana Jones’ Jewish upbringing and parents’ divorce in the 1950s.
The Movie Is Woke
Right-Wing fans of the franchise have already decried the movie’s blatantly negative portrayal of Nazis.
It Will Be Ford’s Last Appearance as the Character Until Someone Writes Another Script
Harrison Ford has finally sworn off playing Indiana Jones in the future unless someone writes another Indiana Jones movie.
It Was Cheaper to Clone Young Harrison Ford Than Digitally De-Age Him, and While the Clone Was Beloved by Cast and Crew He Did Not Live Long and Withered to a Husk Moments After Calling Cut
Sad.
John Williams Pretty Much Just Phoned This One In
By the composer’s own admission, he just kind of slowed down the Indiana Jones theme to sound more triumphant and nostalgic and called it a day.
ROMANI PLAINS, Hyrule — After fixing a stone circle with one rock out of place, local legend Link uncovered a dried-up korok left undiscovered during the events of his previous adventure.
The korok, named Kuhu, appeared with a clack of sticks and a puff of dust after spending several miserable years trapped inside the rock.
“Ya-ha-ha! How the fuck did it take you this long to find me,” Kuhu angrily coughed out upon being discovered by the Hero of Time. “Great Deku Tree damnit, it’s not like you have to move a mountain to find me; just one dumb fucking stone. Ow… oh my back is so sore from hiding here this whole time… wait, how long have I been out? How many blood moons have passed?”
Once he appeared, the korok began inspecting his body which had become desiccated and withered while waiting to be discovered. Kuhu’s three-tipped leaf face had holes blown through it, bark had flaked off his back, and the stick holding his pinwheel leaf had been snapped in half.
“Wow, you look like you’re in bad shape, pal,” said Link, somehow without vocalizing. “I’m sorry but there’s a lot going on right now and you guys are pretty much everywhere. I don’t want to get into it, but I think my girlfriend time-traveled and caused the world to get even worse than it had been… Hey, wait, why were you hiding in the first place?”
“Ya-ha-hoh no it hurts everywhere,” moaned Kuhu to Link. “I should’ve never agreed to do this. Hestu said this was going to be such a great opportunity. ‘Hide out, share your seeds with random people if they see you, and have fun,’ he said. What a crock of seed that was. This sucks… get the fuck out of here, dude! Bye-byeee!”
Before moving on and going to a nearby shrine, Link was presented with an off-white korok seed that crumbled in his hands.
LOS ANGELES — Leaked information from an early Barbie screening confirms that the film contains a hot, steamy scene of Barbie and Ken getting their plastic bodies rammed together by a pair of giant hands.
“I wanted to challenge the unrealistic standards that Barbie sets for young, impressionable consumers,” said director Greta Gerwig. “That’s why we created two enormous CGI arms and let them mash our naked co-stars together. That’s raw. That’s authentic Barbie intercourse.”
Gerwig also collaborated with the film’s composer to underscore the scene with plenty of smooching noises.
“Everyone’s done Barbie sex. When you hit the dolls together, you make kissy noises. It’s common knowledge,“ said pop mega-producer Mark Ronson, who created the music for the film. “If you listen closely, we even added the sound of parents coming down the hallway, asking what the heck is going on in there.”
Lead actors Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, on the other hand, suffered quite a bit from Gerwig’s perfectionism in the romantic scenes.
“Reshooting the scene so many times left my face completely mutilated,” said Robbie, her head wrapped completely in medical gauze. “My nose is hanging by a thread and all of my teeth were knocked out. My career is ruined. Don’t forget to see Barbie, in theaters July 21.”
Ryan Gosling also suffered a variety of injuries, mostly to his lower half.
“My erection got shoved back into my body like a nail getting hammered. I’m paralyzed from shaft to balls,” Gosling said, offering to show his gruesome injury to interviewers, all of which declined. “But that’s just the kind of thing you need to accept as a serious actor.”
Barbie is rated PG-13 due to smooth, plastic nudity and occasional references to cooties.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — A heated argument broke out in a local half-finished basement after 22-year-old Jeff Wyman compared himself to the sai-wielding turtle Raphael, despite his obvious resemblance to Michelangelo, sources confirmed.
“You know, I’m a bit of a loner. I’m subtle and mysterious,” said Wyman, as he reclined on an old sofa and poured cheese curls into his mouth. “Plus, I’m super tough, even if I don’t look it. Like, you think Leo is the tough one, but Raph could totally beat him in a fight. He’s got that dog in him, you know? Just like me.”
Wyman’s annoyed friends reported that they had heard his arguments before, and had even prepared a list of rebuttals to all of his claims.
“First of all, he’s never been in a fight in his entire life, so I don’t know why he thinks he’s so tough,” said Tom Barnes, the self-proclaimed Donatello of the group. “He’s not brooding; in fact, he never shuts up. He’s always telling dumb jokes that no one laughs at. One time I saw him pick up a bunch of sausage links and pretend they were nunchucks. He tried to play it off like a joke, but he was really good with them. It’s just so obvious that he’s Mikey! I mean, his favorite color is orange! He tries to say that it’s red-orange, but he’s not fooling anyone.”
Brenda Diaz, Wyman’s partner of 3 years, said that she tries to stay out of debates regarding the heroes in a half shell.
“I didn’t really watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when I was a kid, and Jeff gets really worked up about it, so I just kind of nod along with him when he brings it up,” said Diaz, who happened to be wearing a yellow jumpsuit. “I challenge him on other stuff, though. The other day, we were watching Fellowship of the Ring and he tried to say he was Strider. I was like, ‘Okay, Pippin.’ Maybe he can be Strider when he learns how to use the stove without setting off the smoke detector.”
At press time, Wyman was seen ordering a pizza, emphatically specifying that it should not contain anchovies.
As players are set to dive into the mystical world of Valisthea in Final Fantasy 16, many are wondering if a PC release is in the cards, or if the trip requires a PlayStation 5. While hero Clive Rosfield might be able to wield the power of Eikons to overcome obstacles, we don’t have the luxury of transforming our consoles without the help of the local pawn shop.
Previous Final Fantasy titles have been released across a number of platforms. However, in this day and age of platform exclusives, timed exclusives, and various backroom deals, it’s always a question of “if” and “when” a title will be coming to another platform.
Will Final Fantasy 16 Come To PC?
Continuing the trend of recent Final Fantasy titles, Final Fantasy 16 will be a timed exclusive for the PlayStation 5. In an interview with producer Naoki Yoshida, the PlayStation Blog touched on the possibility of Final Fantasy 16 coming to PC.
Yoshida acknowledged the “semi-annual monopoly” that Sony has with the series. However, this hasn’t stopped the team from starting work on optimizing a PC version. Fans should note, though, that it is highly unlikely that Final Fantasy 16 will be coming to PC within six months of the PlayStation 5 release.
The most recent example that might give players some context would be Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Cloud and his associates arrived on PlayStation 4 on April 10, 2020. A little over a year later, they made the trek to PlayStation 5 with Intergrade on June 10, 2021. The PC port wouldn’t come until December 16, 2021, when it was released on the Epic Games Store. Finally, Remake came to Steam on June 17, 2022.
So, while it is likely that we’ll get a PC version of Final Fantasy 16 at some point, it probably won’t be soon. However, with 2023 being a bang-up year for gaming hit after hit, there should be plenty to keep players busy until a PC version is announced.
That’s all the info we have regarding a PC port of Final Fantasy 16 at this time. Of course, we’ll have more information up as soon as it becomes available. Until then, make sure to check out Everything We Know About Final Fantasy 16 for a rundown of all the most important information.
BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN — Four ultra-wealthy divers have died 800 miles off the coast of Canada after a brutal fight for a video game controller attached to the submarine they were in.
“You promised it was my turn after 1,000 meters! If the depth reader wasn’t broken, it would probably say 2,000 meters by now,” one of the deceased reportedly said, attempting to wrest the Logitech controller from OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who insisted on going first because it was his game. “You always do this, man. Don’t tell me I get a turn unless you’re actually going to give me a turn. At this rate, it feels like I’ll die before I get to play this thing.”
The heated situation didn’t come to blows until Rush attempted to defend himself with a technicality.
“I said after 1,000 meters, not exactly 1,000 meters. Just let me wait until a good stopping place and then I’ll pause,” he said, trying to get a few more moves in while his fellow gamers ganged up on him. “Dude, stop it! You’re gonna fuck up our run if you don’t cut it out. I’ll shut this whole thing off—don’t think I won’t!”
Despite attempts from the United States Coast Guard, the four men were unable to be rescued.
“We save a lot of crazy people out there, but this is the worst we’ve ever seen. By the time we got to them, their fingers were so tightly gripped around the one controller, we needed power tools to remove it,” said Coast Guard Captain Jessie Conway. “It’s just a damn shame. If they had a second controller down there so someone could be Player Two — even just an unplugged one to let the youngest diver think he’s helping steer the submarine — they would still be alive today. Instead, they’re all sleeping with the Seamen.”
At press time, the Coast Guard shared one piece of good news: the fifth member of the crew, one of the employees who works for the vacationing company, had been discovered sitting quietly next to his crewmates, alive, reading a book.
Diablo 4 has 115 dungeons to farm, but even that can get tedious and boring after a while. Nightmare Sigils are dungeon modifiers that raise the difficulty and apply between three and five affixes. This Diablo IV guide will outline the best affixes you can possibly roll on Sigils.
What Are Nightmare Sigils In Diablo 4?
Currently, there are over a hundred known affixes that can be potentially rolled on a Nightmare Sigil, of which a small group are beneficial to the player. Of the larger pool of detrimental affixes, there are a number which can be mitigated with either the right build or smart tactical play. The ideal combination will let you run a Nightmare Dungeon almost as easily as you would a regular one.
Damage Boosting Affixes: Best Diablo 4 Nightmare Sigils
Frost Damage
You deal [5-15]% more Frost damage.
Lightning Damage
You deal [5-15]% more Lightning damage.
Poison Damage
You deal [5-15]% more Poison damage.
Shadow Damage
You deal [5-15]% more Shadow damage.
Fire Damage
You deal [5-15]% more Fire Damage.
Physical Damage
You deal [5-15]% more Physical Damage.
These are a no-brainer, since they provide an outright percentage buff to your damage output.
Best Nightmare Sigils: Looting And Farming Affixes
Gold Find
You find [10-30]% more gold.
Magic Find
You find more items from enemies.
Nightmare Dungeons are heavily populated with monsters, and loot buffs like these exponentially increase the drop rate from a dungeon run.
Defensive Affixes: Best D4 Nightmare Sigils
Control Impaired Explosions
Being hit by Control Impairing Effects creates an explosion around you.
Lightning Caller
You occasionally call down lightning strikes that damage nearby enemies.
Poisonous Evade
Using Evade leaves a pool of Poison behind, damaging enemies.
Thorns
Your Thorns are increased by [249-491].
Defensive retaliation and passive area of effect attacks are great for thinning out the mobs of monsters that will surround you.
Negative Affixes
For every positive affix on a Sigil, you will be saddled with two or more negative affixes that buff the monsters in the dungeon or otherwise hinder you in some way. Ideally you will roll negative affixes that are countered by your class, build, gear, or tactical sense.
Diablo 4 Best Nightmare Sigils: Neutral Affixes
Double Bosses
Spawns two bosses instead of one!
If you’re confident in your abilities to beat the end-boss of a dungeon, this negative affix might actually prove to be a farming opportunity for additional drops.
Lightning Storm
Lightning gathers above the player. Get into the protection dome to avoid severe outcomes.
While being struck by lightning is annoying, the dome provides some respite if you can time it correctly.
Blood Blister
Monster death will sometimes spawn a Blood Blister. After a short time, it explodes, dealing heavy area damage.
If you can avoid the explosion, the area of effect damage will do you a service versus the monster hordes.
Nightmare Portals
Red portals periodically spawn in the dungeon, unleashing more hellish demons from any region in Sanctuary.
As long as your skills are up to it, more monsters to kill and farm is always a good thing, especially in conjunction with either of the looting and farming affixes.
Any Monster Damage Resistance Affixes
Monster Physical Resist
Monsters take [15-30]% less Physical damage.
Monster Cold Resist
Monsters take [20-40]% less Cold damage.
Monster Fire Resist
Monsters take [20-40]% less Fire damage.
Monster Lightning Resist
Monsters take [20-40]% less Lightning damage.
Monster Bleeding Resist
Monsters take [30-60]% less Bleeding damage.
Monster Burning Resist
Monsters take [30-60]% less Burning damage.
Monster Corruption Resist
Monsters take [30-60]% less Corruption damage.
Monster Overpower Resist
Monsters take [30-60]% less Overpower damage.
Monster Poison Resist
Monsters take [30-60]% less Poison damage.
Monster Shadow Resist
Monsters take [20-40]% less Shadow damage.
Melee Defenders
Monsters take [20-40]% less damage from close targets.
Ranged Defenders
Monsters take [30-60]% less damage from distant targets.
As long as your particular class and chosen skills aren’t actually dependent on one of these damage types anyway, the negative affix will have no impact whatsoever on the damage type that you do deal. Conversely, you can also hold on to Sigils with negative affixes that buff monster attacks with specific elemental damage (of which there are just as many as listed above), as long as your build and gear has the corresponding resistance.
Since the dawn of our nation in 1776, 45 power-hungry ghouls have risen the ranks of our society to become a President of the United States. For better or for worse (we think for worse), none of these men have been gamers. But what if they were? Once and for all, here is an objective ranking from worst to best of every U.S. president by how good at video games they would be.
#45 — Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909)
Teddy Roosevelt practically invented touching grass, and would be horrified at the idea of something like Death Stranding, when he could go outside and walk around with a bunch of shit on his back in real life.
#44 — Ronald Reagan (1981–1989)
Ronald Reagan had dementia when he was president and probably would struggle with any video game more difficult than drawing a clock.
#43 — John F. Kennedy (1961–1963)
Sickly and horny, JFK spent most of his time having sex with people who weren’t his wife and trying to keep everyone from blowing each other up. It’s hard to imagine Jack would have much time to get into gaming, even if he would love some of those romanceable JRPG characters. Most importantly, though, the guy simply didn’t know how to deal with a camping sniper.
#42 — Donald Trump (2017–2021)
By default, all the living presidents go on the bottom of the list because they have the opportunity to play video games, but we never hear about it, so you have to assume they don’t. But Trump has to be the worst gamer of that bunch. I literally cannot imagine Donald Trump holding a controller the right way.
#41 — Barack Obama (2009–2017)
I would bet money that Obama knows the names of several popular video games so that if he was asked about his favorite in an interview, he could say he loves Life is Strange or Gone Home or Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain or some shit. But if you actually stuck him in front of a video game, he would immediately vomit.
#40 — Joe Biden (2021–present)
If you put a PS5 controller in Joe Biden’s hands and let him play a video game, he would just hold it, not pressing any buttons, and stare at the screen silently with a slightly open smile. Then after like 15 minutes, he’d hand it back to you, and be like “that was great.”
#39 — George W. Bush (2001–2009)
W. would actually try playing a video game if you let him. He would make little “pew pew” shooting noises as his character spun around wildly, looking at the sky, in some Call of Duty game inspired by the people he sent to murder everyone in the Middle East.
#38 — Jimmy Carter (1977–1981)
Oh right, Jimmy Carter is still alive! Maybe he’d get really into building in Fortnite. I don’t think he’d physically play the game, but he could watch some kid play it and point at the screen and say “that’s houses.”
#37 — Grover Cleveland (1885–1889, 1893–1897)
Most people who lose the presidency after one term go home and live the rest out the rest of their lives. Some of these freaks, however, try to win again. Grover Cleveland is the only person who has actually succeeded. If you’re that obsessed with being president, you are not going to play video games in any time period — there is only one thing in the world that interests you: being in charge of a lot of people.
#36 — Andrew Johnson (1865–1869)
Andrew Johnson is often listed as the worst president of all time. He fucked up the whole country after the Civil War to the point where we are still dealing with it. He would be the guy on your squad in a battle royale who, in a 4v4 fight, you realize he’s 20 minutes away trying to do some fucking quest.
#35 — Millard Filmore (1850–1853)
Millard Filmore became president after Zachary Taylor died, signed a law that required escaped slaves to be returned to their owners, and then lost reelection, never to be heard from again until a list ranking presidents by how good they would be at video games. Doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who is very good at things.
#34 — Herbert Hoover (1929–1933)
Herbert Hoover often gets the blame for being the guy who created the Great Depression, which historians consider the greatest resource management in American history. Hoover tried his best to fix a failing economy, but his best sucked and he sucked too.
#33 — John Quincy Adams (1825–1829)
Dude’s middle name was fucking Quincy and he became president because his daddy was president. He would not be a gamer, he’d be playing polo or some fucking shit.
#32 — Lyndon B. Johnson (1963–1969)
Lyndon B. Johnson’s main interaction with video games would be constantly saying to his kids, “you’re addicted to that damn game!” but never learning what the game is (or that it’s multiple games) or really doing anything to stop them from playing it.
#31 — Gerald Ford (1974–1977)
Gerald Ford has undeniable jock energy. He wouldn’t know the name of a single video game, but somehow, deep in his bones, he’d know to call Halo “Gaylo.”
“You know, a Simpsons video game is a little like the mule with the spinning wheel. No one knows why it got made, and danged if he has that much fun playing with it.”
Games based on The Simpsons are infamously bad, a collection of half-assed titles most of which were designed more as cash-ins and commercials than a gaming experience you were destined to remember. As easy as it is to criticize the motives of The Simpsons corporate overlords who seemingly insisted on releasing as many games as they had ideas for games, maybe it makes sense that it took a while to figure out what exactly a good Simpsons game could look like. I mean, it’s easy to decide what phrase Bart should say on a T-shirt (top two are “Don’t have a cow, man” and something supporting the first Gulf War), but it’s a little harder to decide what kind of interactive adventure best suits the greatest satire of the 20th century.
So they did Bartman stuff for a while. Then eventually as games were able to do more, the bad games started getting graced with (sometimes) better graphics and more importantly, the ability to include voice acting. Most of them still weren’t great, but it helped, damn it. It’s not that hearing Kent Brockman or Principal Skinner pipe in a funny little quip makes a crappy game good. No, it’s not that far from crappy. They were just… less crappy.
Personally, I’m endlessly fascinated by video game adaptations, the more ill-advised the better, and I am always looking out for sleeper hits among them. It’s definitely a rough batch of games when taken in all at once, and there’s only a few worth a full blown recommendation, but I was pleasantly surprised to find a lot of redeeming qualities or moments in the games that occupy the middle of the list.
I’ll try to keep the Simpsons references to a minimum here, so as not to be too insufferable. Instead of relying heavily on quotes and references, I’ll just try to write a good piece. I’ll just be honest, I’ll be truthful, and I’ll be sharp. (Be sharp, get it? Heh heh…. well, you can’t blame a guy for trying.)
Note: I’ve excluded certain Mobile and PC games, mostly because they’re tricky or impossible to access today. I still really want to check out Virtual Springfield sometime. It’s gotta be more fun than a lot of the stuff I played. And to my knowledge, it’s the only one of these with Phil Hartman in it.
Another note: I played this weird soccer game at an amusement park several years ago where you kick a soccer ball at Homer. Worth a mention I figured.
20. The Simpsons Wrestling (PS1)
It looks like a wrestling game, it says it’s a wrestling game, but brother, it ain’t a wrestling game!
This game is the shits. The art looks like prison tattoos came to life. The wrestling rings are a square mile large. There’s no refs and your character counts their own 1-2-3 when they do a pin. It’s absolute fucking madness yet somehow it’s all very boring.
I won’t make fun of this terrible game’s terrible premise, as nonsensical as it is. The Simpsons wrestling makes as much sense as the Simpsons doing anything else they’ve done in a video game. In fact, any genre that lends itself to a wide variety of characters is indeed a potential good fit for a Simpsons title, as the cast of Springfield is easily the finest crafted ensemble in television history. Give me a half dozen of them and let me get to work on unlocking the rest, and I’ll assuredly give your awful game a few more hours than it deserves.
So no, this game isn’t atrocious because it makes no sense that The Simpsons would wrestle. In fact, the plot is not bad. Springfield is having wrestling tournaments to figure out who is the strongest one to send up into space to fight the strongest alien. Actually kinda funny! No, this game is atrocious for just about everything else. Namely the graphics, the floaty controls, the mechanics, the inexplicable jumping, and oh hell, it’s probably worth mentioning the graphics again. Also, this wrestling game doesn’t let you do very many wrestling things, like climb the turnbuckle, take it outside the ring, or stick your entire bare ass into a guy’s face. Nope, this is all just rope running and button mashing. Yawn.
As with a lot of the lesser titles on this list, any highlights to be found are the little fun things. I laughed out loud when I won a match with Krusty and he said “That’s they how do it in the Catskills, baby!” Also, Bumble Bee Man literally flies around the ring, and that’s wonderful. However, these are just momentary breaks from the sheer agony of what I am declaring the Worst. Simpsons Game. Ever. Boy, I really hope someone got fired for that blunder. Boo-urns!!
Fun fact: Since WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game was also available on the PS1, The Simpsons Wrestling isn’t even the best fighting game posing as a wrestling game where you can be a clown and whack your opponent with a giant mallet on the system. Sorry Simpsons, Doink the clown did it!
19. Bartman Meets Radioactive Man (NES, Game Gear)
¡Ay, caramba! After an opening cutscene that I actually quite liked, with surprisingly evocative visuals and music, everything just goes to hell here. This is the last of the NES games they made, and somehow the very worst. Levels are overly long, the challenge is unfair, and the muddy graphics cause foregrounds and backgrounds to blend together, making the world hard to navigate. There’s enemies and jumping and all kinds of platform-y things happening, it’s just that none of it is very fun. If you have a soft spot for these dogshit NES adaptations with grotesque color palettes and screeching tones passing as a soundtrack, then put this one on your Must Play list. You’ll be thrilled by the stiff controls, offensive music, and poor design. Hell, there’s even some impossible underwater stuff for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fans! For anyone else, however, you’re better off playing just about anything else besides that stupid wrestling game I just told you about.
18. Bart vs. the World (NES, Game Gear, Sega Master System)
A very unmemorable collection of minigames stitched together to cash in on the hottest property of the time. I mean it when I say this game is unmemorable. It was in my “I haven’t played this one,” mental pile when I started writing this article and researching games, and then when I started playing it I said to myself “Oh yeah, I’ve totally played this; it’s the video game that makes you play the 1-15 slidey square game like you’re a fifth grader in The Great Depression.” I had played this before. Very unmemorable. Anyway, there is some technically okay video game-y stuff in here. Bart goes all over the world collecting powerups and fighting bosses. But man, there’s also a lot of just the least fun minigames you’d ever want to spend your time on, like the aforementioned sliding square game, trivia questions, and a card matching thing. It’s all boring and no part of it is a relief from any other part. Released just seven months after Bart vs. The Space Mutants, this game will have you asking yourself, “What did they do with the other five months?”
17. Virtual Bart (SNES, Genesis)
And you thought the metaverse sucked in 2023, man
I don’t know why it was agreed upon that the first few waves of Simpsons games would largely be big messy collections of minigames, but here’s another one. It’s one of the worst ones, in fact! The vibrant SNES graphics look way better than the NES games we’ve seen so far here, but it’s a shallow collection of busts without very many redeeming qualities. The plot makes even less sense than most of these games. Bart wanders into Martin’s virtual reality science project presentation and now he has to game his way out or something? I don’t know. At least Bart vs. the World let you select what order you played the games in. Here you just watch Bart spin around and play whatever game he lands on. None of them are very good.
Bart as a dinosaur sounds fun until you get one look at the laughable creature you control. Bart as a baby is a whole minigame based on that one time you saw Bart swing around on a clothesline in a flashback. These are both downright terrible. The game where you’re a pig trying to free other pigs from Krusty’s slaughterhouse is a strange choice and not very fun either, if you can believe it (although that sure looks like the pig from The Simpsons Movie, so that’s fun). The first-person level where you are going down the waterslide has the graphics and originality to be a winner, but it’s probably the most unfair game of the collection.
The two not-fiascos are a little Road Warrior style racing game that plays like the speeder level from Super Star Wars and a game where Bart chucks tomatoes at his classmates to ruin picture day. Nothing too outstanding, but man they feel like Chrono Trigger compared to the other ones here. I give you personal permission to never play this game.
16. Bart vs. the Space Mutants (NES, Genesis, Game Gear)
This bizarre console debut of The Simpsons fancied itself too good to be a straight up platformer or brawler and is a frustrating mess because of it. Aliens that are not Kodos and Kang are invading Springfield and posing as humans. And do you know what they need to build their big weapon? Purple shit. Alas, the graffiti skills of one El Barto could be just the thing to save the city. Bart roams the town of Springfield aiming to turn every purple thing red. That mechanic alone could’ve been a nice layer to a game like this, a twist on standard platformers that has you seeking out red trash cans and awnings to spray paint. On paper it doesn’t sound terrible. Or a screen or tablet or however you’re reading this. Probably a phone. Thanks by the way.
Anyway, it sucks. It adds a layer of indecipherability to an already frustrating platformer. It’s hard and unfair and shitty, but also you’re expected to figure things out like a kid in a purple shirt comes out of the 200 and 400 movie, and that those showtimes correspond to your counting down timer, and that his shirt has gotta get tagged. So you have to go back to the movie theater that’s at the beginning of the level. Backtracking. It’s like Metroid! They should call those games Metroidbartvanias.
The fact that it looks a little better on the Genesis lands it a few spots higher than Bart vs. the World and Bartman Meets Radioactive Man, but all these games so far are very rough upon revisit. There’s been a disturbing internet rumor for years that says this game has a second level and beyond where you do other stuff besides spray painting red things purple. Don’t believe it. It’s a hoax.
15. Krusty’s Fun House (GB, NES, SNES, Game Gear, Genesis, Probably Some Other Things)
It’d be easy to start most of these with the sentence “this game makes no sense,” but that’s not really a fair assessment of video games, is it? Does Mario “make sense”? Nah. Just gimme some fun and we’re good.
That said, this game makes no sense and isn’t very fun.
I swear I’m not looking for too much. Just gimme a good excuse to screw around with these characters that I love! A lot of these Simpsons games are a drag, but come to life at times when a joke lands or the game features a nice ode to the show, when it briefly captures the spirit of The Simpsons, even if just for a moment. Krusty’s Fun House accomplishes this zero times.
I have and will keep complaining about how so many of these games are some hodgepodge collection of minigames, but when you have half a dozen different set pieces and game modes, there’s bound to be some personality that pokes its head out. Krusty’s Fun House on the other hand, is a deflated puzzle game with no variety from moment to moment. Walk around some fucking house as Krusty the Klown and help Bart or Homer or Sideshow Mel or Corporal Punishment kill every mouse in the room by way of leading them to that level’s torture machine. It’s, uh, a hoot?
There’s way too many levels, it isn’t fun, and again, it just doesn’t feel at all like The Simpsons. In fact, it’s almost as if this was some game called Rat-Trap on the Amiga that someone slapped Simpsons characters onto and released for every damn system around in 1992. That’s sort of what it feels like is happening here.
Fun Fact: Was called Krusty’s Fun House on the NES, and Krusty’s Super Fun House on the SNES and the Genesis. They should’ve called the Genesis one Krusty’s Sega Fun House.
14. Bart & the Beanstalk (GB)
This might be the Simpsons game that feels least like The Simpsons, even more so than the European rat game that they slapped Krusty the Klown onto. This is Bart Simpsons going through the ol’ banstalk fairytale. The gameplay is boring and feels super loose. Bart comes to a sliding stop when you release the d-pad, like the whole game is an ice level. Additionally, it’s way too hard. There’s cheap deaths and the levels are confusing. Is this one of the clouds that I jump on and it holds me, or not? There’s some fun stuff and some weird stuff (level design in the Giant’s castle and fighting Mr. Burns If He Was A Cloud respectively), but none of it makes more of an impression than the overall blandness on display here. I was very pleased to discover some sleepers among The Simpsons’ Game Boy games. This is not one of them.
13. The Itchy & Scratchy Game (SNES, Game Gear, Genesis)
You know a franchise is out of control when the side characters start getting full blown games. This one has a weird set up, and I appreciate what they were trying to do, but it just really doesn’t work. At first glance, the game looks like one of those big SNES platformers with levels that feel like airplane hangars filled with things to jump on. The twist here though is your goal isn’t necessarily reaching the end. Instead, you’re meant to run around and collect power ups as Itchy and fight off Scratchy when he pops up once in a while. Once you beat the cat to death, you progress to the next level. It didn’t take me long to figure out that not only could I just stand perfectly still and wail on Scratchy when he ran up to me every few seconds, but it was actually the easiest strategy at times.
A pointless game that nobody was asking for that is a little broken, and it’s also not very violent? I’m not some sicko that needs games to be violent to enjoy them, but I am gonna need my adaptations to resemble the thing they’re adapting in some way. Itchy and Scratchy cartoons are bloodbaths, ingeniously creative displays of death and carnage on par with Mortal Kombat and early Peter Jackson films. TheItchy & ScratchyGame feels like you’re playing a Tiny Toons game or something. You squish Scratchy with a mallet over and over and he doesn’t scream in pain or break any bones or anything. Like, come on. I don’t care about farting in video games, but if they made a Terrance and Phillip game and there was no farting I’d be just as outraged. You just expect a certain amount of commitment is all.
FUN FACT: The whole time I was playing this game, I was asking myself “Where’s Poochie?”
12. Bart’s Nightmare (SNES, Genesis)
Bart’s Nightmare – I had this one in my house as a kid*, and I absolutely hated it. It doesn’t make sense, it’s a bunch of unfinished, unfocused ideas that don’t add up to a cohesive game, and it’s way, way too hard. That’s all still true, but imagine my surprise when I played the rest of the Simpsons games I’d missed and discovered that this one is just as bad as I remembered it, yet might be an above average Simpsons game?
The story is insane. Bart is working hard on his homework, and then he falls asleep, and has to recover the scattered pages in his dream by beating a different little game for each page of it he successfully finds and stomps on. At the end of the game, Bart receives his “score” via letter grade. The grade is better based on how many pages of homework you collected in the dream. Why would that matter? Beats me. Maybe he went to class and described it all to Mrs. Krabappel.
The thing about this game that struck me while playing it this time around is the overworld you return to in between games. Bart walking the streets of Springfield in his sleep feels weird and fucked up like an actual dream! It’s not like a graphic Freddy Kruger nightmare, it’s more of an odd and cold dream world, like something out of The Sopranos. You wander the familiar but different streets (left or right, it doesn’t matter here), seeking out scraps of paper, hoping to not be turned into a frog by your sister or to trip over one of the wandering mailboxes. If you jump over a basketball, it turns into a skateboard. It’s a bizarre and unfun world to return to repeatedly between games.
Those games are the expected range from shitty shit to kind of okay. The Bartman game here is decently fun, has great graphics, and would’ve been a better basis for a game, to be honest. The game where you swim around in blood (ew) has a neat visual style and was the only one I could regularly beat in my youth. The Godzilla and Indiana Jones ones play like shit but have cool graphics. There’s probably some more I’m forgetting.
Overall, this game is as bad as most of the early to mid 90s Simpsons games. It just had the good sense to label itself a nightmare for you.
Personal anecdote: I borrowed Bart’s Nightmare from a friend of mine in middle school, and while I was never that angry of a gamer, it did make me so mad that I ejected the (again, borrowed) game and threw it against the wall. The back of the cartridge broke off, but it was just cosmetic damage. I was able to scotch tape it back together and it played just fine. Still though, I felt awful. What was I going to tell my friend? “Hey, here’s this game back, I busted it up and taped it back together.” I felt so terrible and embarrassed. There’s a happy ending, though. My friend didn’t even want the game back!
