The Simpsons review: a family brawler where teamwork was the move set

Smithers runs out of a jewelry store and crashes into the Simpson family. The stolen diamond flies into Maggie's mouth, he grabs the baby, and four people with a vacuum cleaner, a skateboard and a jump rope give chase.

Why does a family make a good fighting team?

Up to four players control members of the Simpson family, and each one fights like who they are. Homer punches and kicks, Marge swings a vacuum cleaner, Bart wields a skateboard, and Lisa attacks with a jump rope. The controls are the arcade standard of one stick and two buttons, so the personality comes entirely from animation and range.

The real idea is what happens when two players stand close. The game lets them mount a combined attack: Homer can carry a kid on his shoulders so they hit at two heights, Marge can throw a kid, and Bart and Lisa can link arms for a clothesline. Suddenly moving next to your friend is not just safe, it is a weapon. That is a rare thing for a brawler to reward.

The best co-op games do not just allow teamwork. They make it a button you can press with your feet.

Springfield as a playground

Almost anything can be picked up and thrown: bowling balls, mailboxes, hammers. Two players together can even throw police cars, which is exactly the kind of cartoon logic the show lived on. The trail leads through the city to the nuclear power plant and Mr. Burns, and the whole time the family is voiced by the show's voice actors, which in the early nineties felt like magic from a machine.

It is not a hard game and not a deep one. It is a warm one, and warmth is not common in beat 'em ups.

What it meant back then

The Simpsons were the biggest thing on American television, and this cabinet let you walk into the living room. Operators knew it: thousands of cabinets were ordered at its first trade show, and it was one of the top three best-selling arcade video game machines of 1991. It turned up in malls, movie theater lobbies, pizza places and bowling alleys, often with a whole family standing at it, which almost never happened with a fighting game.

It was also the cabinet where parents joined in. A dad who would never touch Street Fighter could be Homer for a few quarters, and the kids thought that was the funniest thing in the building.

Playing it today

It is short, easy and full of jokes that land better if you grew up with the show. Play it with three people, stand close, and use the combined attacks. That is where the game still shines.