When Video Games and Movies Collide: The Craptacular Horrors of The Simpsons Wrestling

If we're being pernickety, The Simpsons wasn't a movie in 2001, when Satan consumed copious quantities of Ex-Lax on his underworld toilet, shat up a storm and expelled this festering ballache from his bowels onto unsuspecting PlayStation consoles everywhere. But there is one now. They even named it The Simpsons Movie, so as to avoid confusing simpleton film-goers. (What if they mistakenly ambled into a showing of The Da Vinci Code, and were stuck in the tedious company of Tom Hanks and his shit-tastic wig for four hours? That'd be a lawsuit, right there.)

As such, we feel entirely justified in unleashing the following cavalcade of piss-takery and/or snark in honor of The Simpsons Wrestling, perhaps the most utterly and inconceivably wank licensed game ever devised. Even our recently-derided South Park Rally, with its penchant for exhorting us to fire horny dogs (complete with the usual canine lipstick erection, presumably) and prostitutes with herpes at opposing racers was preferable.

Most pertinently, there's a great premise right here. The Simpsons may have flogged its own dead horse into a few scarce, maggot-ridden flesh fragments at this juncture (five hundred episodes and counting), but it remains beloved by its lunatic legions of fans. Who wouldn't want to see a wrestling game in which Barney Gumble belches toxic, vitality-sapping clouds? Or Groundskeeper Willie smiting his aggressors in the bollocks with a rake? Or Moe Syzlak throwing a molotov cocktail-esque ‘Flaming Moe' like a ballistic missile full of alcohol and PAINFUL PAIN? Or... so forth. The answer to this rhetorical query is no bastard, that's who.

In summation, it would take a special kind of ineptitude to make this game a hideous, farcical turdtacular mess (akin to that huge mound of Triceratops ‘leavings' from Jurassic Park. "That's one big pile of shit." Yes, yes it is). But, lamentably, developer Big Ape Productions did, and it is.

The most egregious issue, and the one that instantaneously punches you right in the eyeballs with its angry, angry fists of terrible is the graphical inadequacy. The Simpsons' world in the TV show is (now) a wondrously-animated, colorful realm of vibrancy and visual humor. Why, then, does this piece of crap look about as appealing as a bulldog's ballbag? As the screenshots adorning this very page demonstrate, the game looks like it was developed by a dimwitted toddler brandishing a crayon. It looks like ass, is entirely devoid of the flair and endearing comic touches of the show, and you'll have to squint like Mr. Magoo with cataracts to determine which of the ‘famous, zany characters from the much-loved television hit' you have opted for.

But don't leave with the impression that we're solely ripping The Simpsons Wrestling several new assholes right here. That wouldn't even be slightly true. Lest we forget, the original Simpsons cast are lending their formidable vocal talents to their characters here, which is often a shortcoming for licensed wonderment such as this. Our righteous middle fingers remain eternally raised at the game nonetheless, as the sound quality overall makes for a experience similar to hearing the actual voice guys of the Simpsons calling to you, in an ethereal manner, from beneath the surface of a swimming pool. Which is not, we need scarcely say, the optimum manner of demonstrating your wang-waving pride at the only successful coup this ballache managed to make.

Finally, the wrestling itself. It's probably safe to venture that, in a wrestling video game, in which actual goddamn wrestlers wrestle in a wrestling ring in a wrestle-y fashion, one aspect which you may not want to hideously eff right up would be the... wrestling. This business, alas, gives no shits for your logical conclusions. Nuts to them. As such, what we have here is a farcically slapstick button masher in which camp wrist-flailings are exchanged by both combatants until somebody falls over. (Imagine two members of the Village People engaging in a fistfight, that's the scene right here.) There is a half-assed effort at amusing slapstick to be had, but the spirit of the Simpsons is not being channeled here.

Blinky the three-eyed mutant fish as a projectile will not suffice to save this steaming turd. If you've an insatiable desire to see this piss-poor pugilism for yourself, take a look below:

Source of images: gamefaqs