The science is doing what I want the science to do: which is not to do what I want it to do, but to do what science wants to do. That is what I do & do not respectively want science to do, which is whatever it does.
@Jeff could you spend 2 minutes at the start of an episode and explain what The Science is and what you're taking into consideration when ranking these games? I've watched all these episodes and I don't know how this scientific ranking could differ from your personal list.
@@kiloyardstare The difference is that Jeff has eschewed mere human emotions and become a souless, science-driven machine powered by cold, hard logic (and whatever energy drink is the FOTW.)
@@kiloyardstare to a guy that literally had to answer to an algorithm for years to score games for a gaming website instead of, you know, giving them the score he thinks they deserve, I think this science gimmick is a sort of vengeance.
all I know for sure is level 2 takes place in the mall, and you collect hats, and I've really only seen the first couple screens cause the platforming is miserable. edit... yup, just like in the video. I never made it past the wet cement part cause I couldn't land on the lollipop, which is a statement that makes even less sense now that I've typed it out.
The guide I had has an extensive walkthrough of the first level, but then only a few tidbits on each one after except for the last level, which has _nothing_ mentioned.
The best thing to come out of Bart vs. the Space Mutants is the intro cutscene on the Amiga version, and at least the developers had the courtesy to put it on a separate disk so you could safely dispose of the game itself.
I played Snake Rattle N Roll a bunch as a young child. Rented it repeatedly from Blockbuster. One time the rental box had Skate or Die in it by mistake. I was so bummed!
Simpsons the Arcade Game - Hit & Run - The Simpsons Game (2007) are like the only top tier Simpson games that i know of, but I will always have a soft spot in my dead heart for Virtual Springfield.
The Simpsons' game is probably the clearest example of developers being super-stoked with their ambitions for the first level, and then a vertical cliff-dive to "oh god, let's just get through it".
@@justsignmeup911 The final stage is the nuclear plant. It's a maze that requires collecting items to deposit into a room. It's the one part of the game where the time limit can be a problem because you can only carry so many items at once, so just gathering everything and dumping it isn't an option.
Klash Ball is a port of the original Speedball, which I don't think anyone would argue is a truly beloved game. It wasn't until the sequel that the series got its repuation since it added progression, a transfer market, upgrades, a larger arena with gimmicks and a heavy emphasis on the presentation side of the game as a future sport. Little touches like replays and watching the ambulance come to drag injured players off the field while vendors shout "ICE CREAM, ICE CREAM" injects a dark sense of humour into the proceedings that makes the whole thing much more memorable than its forebear. Also the name "Brutal Deluxe" is a really obvious play on the classic house track "Let's Get Brutal" by Nitro Deluxe which places it firmly in a particular point in time in British history.
Sorry for the multiple comments, but I think a lot of British design sensibilities were influenced by just how accessible games were at the time. If you played games on your computer you could also write them, and widespread availablility of games at £1.99 and £2.99 meant there was a market for bedroom coders to get their games out into the hands of players. This meant that, in a lot of cases, those games were the sole creation of one or two people without much in the way of focus testing to make them more palatable since, at such a low price if you didn't get on with a title you could just go and pick up another without feeling too cheated. It does mean that a lot of unrefined mechanics lasted longer than they might otherwise have done had publishing been more interventionalist but it also produced a steady stream of gems (Action Biker, anyone?) and laid the foundations for the British software industry as a whole. If you want to see weird, look at what happens when British sensibilities clash up against Japanese design, such as the Famicom ports of Knight Lore and Monty on the Run. As an aside, I'd love to see Jeff in conversation with someone like Kim Justice, who has deep knowledge of the British 8-bit industry.
Enthralled by the look and atmosphere of Bee 52. Hearing nothing but the bug enemy bleeps n bloops, really feels like the creators had an appreciation for nature. We need more garden critter games.
Snake rattle and Roll was the first game I ever beat. I did not find out until later that its a "Nintendo hard" game. (This is not be bragging about being awesome at video games, I had plenty of "easier" games that I could not beat.)
I expect Dynowarz: Destruction of Spondilous (Spondilouse?) to end up right in the literal middle of the list by the end of this show. But it definitely is no Low G Man (the Low Gravity Man)
You know the funniest/saddest part of Bart vs the Space Mutants? The first level, the one that vexes most people into madness, _is the best level in the game._ There are all sorts of neat moments and interactions in it. It's almost like a side-scrolling point-and-click adventure game. Most of the rest of the game leans on platforming, which is terrible thanks to the squirrely super jump and putting run on the A button. If the whole thing had been like the first level, it probably still wouldn't be remembered fondly, but it would've been a much, _much_ better game. (Oh, and I did beat the game when it was new, though yes, I had some help from a Consumer Guide book.)
oh, man, i remember renting this horrible simpson game. it was fucking indecipherable. not sure if i ever made it to 3... loved that snake game though. wonder how it holds up.
I went back to Snake Rattle ‘n’ Roll earlier this year to 1-credit clear it with no warps. The final areas are even more brutal, if you can believe it. Last three all involve ice physics no matter where you go, plus you can jump back behind the scenery on certain areas and have no hope of making it back, insta-death. Final boss is an ice foot you have to continually attack/button mash, otherwise it completely refills its health infinitely. Dodging instakill boulders AND the foot, with ice physics and trying not to fall off the stage. The game is one of the most brutal I’ve ever played, fitting that it’s by Rare. After somehow doing the no warps run, I’m not sure I ever want to play it again lol.
Its a bad game when Jeff starts off saying "it's worse than" and goes down the list and not a bad game when Jeff says" it's better than" and goes up the list.
American Speaking Here - Snake Rattle and Roll is one of the NES games I still come back to TODAY and play. It's so good, especially the Ice levels near the end. Wish there were more of those. Most of those consist of 'open door early now the rest is a wild platforming challenge without collection worry' I remember basically forcing my parents to buy this game after playing it at a friends house lol Also as an aside. Look at the game map for this game. It's all one neatly interconnected mountain!
MagMax came along with the used NES my grandfather bought me. Since it was an upgrade from my 2600, I thought it was the greatest game ever made for a time. Rented Bart vs The Space Mutants once and hated it, so there's that. Don't think I played the others but it was a LONG time ago.
Bart vs. The Space Mutants is very doable, it just takes patience, persistence, and learning the levels. Which isn't that different from many popular games back then, and even some now. It's feels very satisfying to master it and get further ahead.
Can't say I wasn't expecting to start the day finding a 8-bit prototype of Mark Echo's Getting Up, but that's the beauty of science! I'll have a cow on my way out
i've never actually played that simpsons game but as a little kid i took out a book from the library that was a bunch of game guides, and one of them was for this game then i lost the book and the library sent a collection agency after us to collect the fine. oops
At more or less the height of its popularity here in the UK, the Amiga computer was packaged with its version of Bart Vs The Space Mutants. And so for many British kids it was one of the first games they played (and one of the only games they had) on the system. Bart Vs The Space Mutants therefore is disproportionately fondly thought of over here by people of a certain age. Happily, I already had my Amiga at this point, so I can freely agree with science’s thoughts on the subject. I can only imagine what science would make of controlling the game with the Amiga’s one button joystick…
Oh, holycrap, I have also never seen the 2nd level of Bart VS The Space Mutants. Playing that game is my earliest memory of thinking, "Oh wow...videogames can be BAD."
Bart Vs The Space Mutants on the Amiga had an entire disk dedicated to a 2 minute fully animated intro which was really impressive for the time. I remember being so excited as a kid watching it, then so disappointed in the main game. I just watched the intro again from time to time.
Given the fact that I ended up with a lot of bargain bin games growing up, Snake Rattle n' roll was one I played a ton of as a kid. I rarely got to the level with the bells. Always weird to me seeing someone else playing a game no one I ever knew had or knew of.
The MagMax soundtrack is so abrasive that I had to turn the audio down. It really makes me appreciate the Snake Rattle N Roll soundtrack in comparison. Thank God for David Wise. Snake Rattle N Roll is one of those games I would see all the time in rental stores. But I never played it.
1:40:26 "I'm just trying to lick a toilet seat over here, guys. It doesn't need to be rocket science. Just let me lick the toilet." - Jeff Gerstmann, May 2024
Klash Ball seems like a nightmare to play but the truly shocking part is the audio, if you just listened to this game you would think it was a 2600 game
In Snake Rattle & Roll, the standing there and eating nibbly-pibblies (that's really what they're called) from the machine mechanic is designed for 2 player which has a competitive feel and that part is like hungry hungry hippos. Your combined weight is counted however so it's still co-op. It's also part of why the end of level score screen is so dramatic. It's not great that it no longer feels like a good level layout when you play 1 player. There's a point system for pibblies giving you extra body parts, and your own snake colour gives you more than the other one, and yellow gives you the most.
Part of the underground music on Mag Max sounds like Woody Woodpeckers laugh, which is really distracting. Also, watching Klash Ball made me want to boot up that Death Ball mod for Unreal Tournament 2004 again.
I just noticed that Bart's shorts are purple but only in the first level where the aliens are trying to steal purple things. Did Bart want them to eat his shorts?
I hate that no one mentioned holding the one jump button enabled running in Bart Vs. I hate you had to play the game like that. It's already a terrible experience to begin with.
@@slicknicdwyer funny unrelated fact: This game was also ported to the Genesis. The Genesis is a system with a 3 button controller by default. The Genesis port still requires you to hold jump to run.
@@MissAshley42 It goes deep than that too. It' soften lamented that you spray your paint or shoot a dart every time you jump, but even that can be avoided if you press B slightly after A and continue holding A within a time window. That's troubling though, as it implies the devs thought through the system that much, even as much as to include it in the manual, and decided it was their vision for the game.
I'll try to include it down the line. A fancy list is right here, though it isn't automatically updated as soon as an episode goes up so it may be behind by an episode. 8bitnintendo.science/
I feel like if the body parts just spawned around the level or you get them from killing enemies then Snake R&R would be fine. Treat them like mario coins. Having them spit out of one machine every level is so bizarre.
For me, the quintessential bad licensed game from my childhood is the Beavis and Butthead game on snes. Our local video store had it, and it sucked, but it had Beavis and Butthead. It's only as an adult that I wonder: what would a good Beavis and Butthead game look like anyway?
I spent a lot of time playing Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe on my 1040 Atari st and the thing that was impressive about it was the player market, buying new players and the sense of progression just did not exist at that time in any sports game I think that’s why it was revered. This version is absolute trash in comparison 😂
Hey man, what do ya wanna do today? I wanna listen to a midi version of the Simpsons theme forever and ever and ever and EVER. Great! I've got just the thing.
Was so excited for the Simpons game, and it remains one of the worst things I ever played and put the least amount of time in, despite how much it cost back in the day. Never got far in Super Pitfall, but I enjoyed that much more.
Is Simpsons: Hit & Run the only good Simpsons console game? The arcade game is good as far as beat em ups go, but that doesn’t count. Other than that, I can’t think of a single well regarded game to come out of that license…
Snake Rattle And Roll 100% gets by on its music. It's also incredibly amiga/british. They're the only ones that insisted on that completely trash relative-movement-scheme. It would take till Alone in the Dark/Resident Evil for a worse idea to inexplicably take hold.
I'm going to call it now and just say that Krusty's Funhouse will end up being the best licensed Simpson's game for the NES. That first level in Space Mutants was never great, but I agree that there was some ambition to try and capture the essence of the show. Though the game came out in 1991, so most of the material they had to work with was from the first season. I'm almost certain that I gave up on stage two as well, when I rented the game as a kid,. The sequel; Bart vs the World, released later during the same year Space Mutants, and I remember renting that one as well. I didn't find it to be much better overall, it seems about on par with the first game. Never played Bartman vs Radioactive Man. It will be interesting to see how those two will stack up against the first Simpson's game in the Imagineering NES Simpsons trilogy.
Bart vs the World is much more playable than Space Mutants, but it's significantly harder. Beating it requires a crap-ton of pinpoint platforming, and it still has the same lousy movement and controls as Space Mutants.
I had to go watch a TAS for "The Simpsons" I played that game a lot, never once getting past the second level. Regardless, that TAS run highlights how wack and obtuse that game is.
I played so much Bart Vs The Space Mutants as a kid. I don't know why. I just put a ton of time into it. It's so fuckin terrible but every inch of that game is carved into my memory. Gross.
To everyone reading this, if you are feeling down, depressed, anxious or just worried. Please close your eyes, slowly inhale, then exhale, and remind yourself that you will never be as bad as Operation Secret Storm.
I don't think I've seen the credits for Bart vs the Space Mutants since I was a kid, and wow. I know Garry Kitchen can do better! I'm disappointed in you, Garry Kitchen!
I played this game at like 4 years old and had not clue what They Live was, I just became convinced when I closed the door my family were all aliens plotting their moment to do science experiments on me and if I had special sunglasses I'd see their true form. When I first watched They Live when I was slightly older my mind was blown.
The science is doing what I want the science to do: which is not to do what I want it to do, but to do what science wants to do. That is what I do & do not respectively want science to do, which is whatever it does.
Exactly.
@Jeff could you spend 2 minutes at the start of an episode and explain what The Science is and what you're taking into consideration when ranking these games? I've watched all these episodes and I don't know how this scientific ranking could differ from your personal list.
@@kiloyardstare The difference is that Jeff has eschewed mere human emotions and become a souless, science-driven machine powered by cold, hard logic (and whatever energy drink is the FOTW.)
@@kiloyardstare to a guy that literally had to answer to an algorithm for years to score games for a gaming website instead of, you know, giving them the score he thinks they deserve, I think this science gimmick is a sort of vengeance.
@@kiloyardstare that's the joke....
Unfortunately I already had a cow earlier this morning so by the time I saw this video it was too late.
Space Mutants is the only game I ever rented where I never saw the second level, and that's with one of those "tips n tricks" magazines
all I know for sure is level 2 takes place in the mall, and you collect hats, and I've really only seen the first couple screens cause the platforming is miserable.
edit... yup, just like in the video. I never made it past the wet cement part cause I couldn't land on the lollipop, which is a statement that makes even less sense now that I've typed it out.
Yep, same here. Awful, awful game.
The guide I had has an extensive walkthrough of the first level, but then only a few tidbits on each one after except for the last level, which has _nothing_ mentioned.
The best thing to come out of Bart vs. the Space Mutants is the intro cutscene on the Amiga version, and at least the developers had the courtesy to put it on a separate disk so you could safely dispose of the game itself.
I played Snake Rattle N Roll a bunch as a young child. Rented it repeatedly from Blockbuster. One time the rental box had Skate or Die in it by mistake. I was so bummed!
Simpsons the Arcade Game - Hit & Run - The Simpsons Game (2007) are like the only top tier Simpson games that i know of, but I will always have a soft spot in my dead heart for Virtual Springfield.
I owned Bart Versus the Soace Mutants and this was my first time seeing the second level.
The Simpsons' game is probably the clearest example of developers being super-stoked with their ambitions for the first level, and then a vertical cliff-dive to "oh god, let's just get through it".
The mall stage is lazy trash. Then there's a decent carnival level, then an awful museum/battletoads stage, and I never reached the final stage.
@@justsignmeup911 The final stage is the nuclear plant. It's a maze that requires collecting items to deposit into a room. It's the one part of the game where the time limit can be a problem because you can only carry so many items at once, so just gathering everything and dumping it isn't an option.
Seeing the second level of the simpsons game is like seeing the blob's planet in a boy and his blob
Klash Ball is a port of the original Speedball, which I don't think anyone would argue is a truly beloved game. It wasn't until the sequel that the series got its repuation since it added progression, a transfer market, upgrades, a larger arena with gimmicks and a heavy emphasis on the presentation side of the game as a future sport. Little touches like replays and watching the ambulance come to drag injured players off the field while vendors shout "ICE CREAM, ICE CREAM" injects a dark sense of humour into the proceedings that makes the whole thing much more memorable than its forebear. Also the name "Brutal Deluxe" is a really obvious play on the classic house track "Let's Get Brutal" by Nitro Deluxe which places it firmly in a particular point in time in British history.
"I like licking the foot" - Jeff Gerstmann, 2024, unknown context
Sorry for the multiple comments, but I think a lot of British design sensibilities were influenced by just how accessible games were at the time. If you played games on your computer you could also write them, and widespread availablility of games at £1.99 and £2.99 meant there was a market for bedroom coders to get their games out into the hands of players. This meant that, in a lot of cases, those games were the sole creation of one or two people without much in the way of focus testing to make them more palatable since, at such a low price if you didn't get on with a title you could just go and pick up another without feeling too cheated. It does mean that a lot of unrefined mechanics lasted longer than they might otherwise have done had publishing been more interventionalist but it also produced a steady stream of gems (Action Biker, anyone?) and laid the foundations for the British software industry as a whole. If you want to see weird, look at what happens when British sensibilities clash up against Japanese design, such as the Famicom ports of Knight Lore and Monty on the Run.
As an aside, I'd love to see Jeff in conversation with someone like Kim Justice, who has deep knowledge of the British 8-bit industry.
Enthralled by the look and atmosphere of Bee 52. Hearing nothing but the bug enemy bleeps n bloops, really feels like the creators had an appreciation for nature. We need more garden critter games.
Snake rattle and Roll was the first game I ever beat. I did not find out until later that its a "Nintendo hard" game.
(This is not be bragging about being awesome at video games, I had plenty of "easier" games that I could not beat.)
I expect Dynowarz: Destruction of Spondilous (Spondilouse?) to end up right in the literal middle of the list by the end of this show.
But it definitely is no Low G Man (the Low Gravity Man)
But what of Solstice: The Quest for the Staff of Demnos?
You know the funniest/saddest part of Bart vs the Space Mutants? The first level, the one that vexes most people into madness, _is the best level in the game._ There are all sorts of neat moments and interactions in it. It's almost like a side-scrolling point-and-click adventure game. Most of the rest of the game leans on platforming, which is terrible thanks to the squirrely super jump and putting run on the A button. If the whole thing had been like the first level, it probably still wouldn't be remembered fondly, but it would've been a much, _much_ better game.
(Oh, and I did beat the game when it was new, though yes, I had some help from a Consumer Guide book.)
As one of three people with- let's call them "semi-fond"- childhood memories of MagMax
...It's right where it belongs on the list
I never realized how sinister the Simpsons theme could be.
The first thing that happens in this video is the word "Gangster" appearing at the bottom. I have so many questions
oh, man, i remember renting this horrible simpson game. it was fucking indecipherable. not sure if i ever made it to 3...
loved that snake game though. wonder how it holds up.
Gangster 0:00
Snake Rattle and Roll was the original Skibidi Toilet
I went back to Snake Rattle ‘n’ Roll earlier this year to 1-credit clear it with no warps. The final areas are even more brutal, if you can believe it. Last three all involve ice physics no matter where you go, plus you can jump back behind the scenery on certain areas and have no hope of making it back, insta-death.
Final boss is an ice foot you have to continually attack/button mash, otherwise it completely refills its health infinitely. Dodging instakill boulders AND the foot, with ice physics and trying not to fall off the stage.
The game is one of the most brutal I’ve ever played, fitting that it’s by Rare. After somehow doing the no warps run, I’m not sure I ever want to play it again lol.
Those stairs at the end of the final level. Hell.
Beat the game once, luckily I could beat the final boss the first time that I reached him.
Its a bad game when Jeff starts off saying "it's worse than" and goes down the list and not a bad game when Jeff says" it's better than" and goes up the list.
American Speaking Here - Snake Rattle and Roll is one of the NES games I still come back to TODAY and play.
It's so good, especially the Ice levels near the end. Wish there were more of those. Most of those consist of 'open door early now the rest is a wild platforming challenge without collection worry'
I remember basically forcing my parents to buy this game after playing it at a friends house lol
Also as an aside. Look at the game map for this game. It's all one neatly interconnected mountain!
They can't have a cow in Spondylous because there aren't any cows left.
now when you mentioned it those donuts(?) in mall level of Simpsons game reminds me of luggage from Keystone Kapers.
MagMax came along with the used NES my grandfather bought me. Since it was an upgrade from my 2600, I thought it was the greatest game ever made for a time. Rented Bart vs The Space Mutants once and hated it, so there's that. Don't think I played the others but it was a LONG time ago.
MagMax is like what my memory of every bad NES game I rented as a kid was played all at once
Finally Snake Rattle n Roll!!!
Bart vs. The Space Mutants is very doable, it just takes patience, persistence, and learning the levels. Which isn't that different from many popular games back then, and even some now. It's feels very satisfying to master it and get further ahead.
Can't say I wasn't expecting to start the day finding a 8-bit prototype of Mark Echo's Getting Up, but that's the beauty of science!
I'll have a cow on my way out
You can prank call Moe from that payphone - that was the only cool thing I remember from that godawful game
I'll give Bart vs the Space Mutants this: it is kind of fun to imagine Harry Shearer reading the Space Mutants dialogue.
I can think of no greater hell than listening to the sounds coming out of that Simpsons game for hours at a time.
It makes perfect sense that the guy who made A Boy And His Blob also made Space Mutants
i've never actually played that simpsons game but as a little kid i took out a book from the library that was a bunch of game guides, and one of them was for this game
then i lost the book and the library sent a collection agency after us to collect the fine. oops
At more or less the height of its popularity here in the UK, the Amiga computer was packaged with its version of Bart Vs The Space Mutants. And so for many British kids it was one of the first games they played (and one of the only games they had) on the system. Bart Vs The Space Mutants therefore is disproportionately fondly thought of over here by people of a certain age.
Happily, I already had my Amiga at this point, so I can freely agree with science’s thoughts on the subject.
I can only imagine what science would make of controlling the game with the Amiga’s one button joystick…
I originally played Bart vs. the Space Mutants on C64, and let me tell you something brother, it was not a good time
cripes
I'll take your word for it. Thank you for your brave service sir.
Oh, holycrap, I have also never seen the 2nd level of Bart VS The Space Mutants.
Playing that game is my earliest memory of thinking, "Oh wow...videogames can be BAD."
Bart Vs The Space Mutants on the Amiga had an entire disk dedicated to a 2 minute fully animated intro which was really impressive for the time. I remember being so excited as a kid watching it, then so disappointed in the main game. I just watched the intro again from time to time.
Given the fact that I ended up with a lot of bargain bin games growing up, Snake Rattle n' roll was one I played a ton of as a kid. I rarely got to the level with the bells. Always weird to me seeing someone else playing a game no one I ever knew had or knew of.
The MagMax soundtrack is so abrasive that I had to turn the audio down. It really makes me appreciate the Snake Rattle N Roll soundtrack in comparison. Thank God for David Wise.
Snake Rattle N Roll is one of those games I would see all the time in rental stores. But I never played it.
Very excited for the side episode!
1:40:26 "I'm just trying to lick a toilet seat over here, guys. It doesn't need to be rocket science. Just let me lick the toilet." - Jeff Gerstmann, May 2024
The music in MagMax is what I imagine a seizure would sound like.
Klash Ball seems like a nightmare to play but the truly shocking part is the audio, if you just listened to this game you would think it was a 2600 game
In Snake Rattle & Roll, the standing there and eating nibbly-pibblies (that's really what they're called) from the machine mechanic is designed for 2 player which has a competitive feel and that part is like hungry hungry hippos. Your combined weight is counted however so it's still co-op. It's also part of why the end of level score screen is so dramatic. It's not great that it no longer feels like a good level layout when you play 1 player. There's a point system for pibblies giving you extra body parts, and your own snake colour gives you more than the other one, and yellow gives you the most.
You need 4 points per part. Matching color is two points, opposite color is one and yellow is three(and faster)
A real Simpsons adventure game could have been great, in the style of classic LucasArts or even Sierra games.
Getting some Philip Glass Einstein on the Beach (Train) vibes from 1:05:00
Snake Rattle and Roll is mean as hell. It's fun tho
Part of the underground music on Mag Max sounds like Woody Woodpeckers laugh, which is really distracting. Also, watching Klash Ball made me want to boot up that Death Ball mod for Unreal Tournament 2004 again.
I think you had at least two cows, man.
Space Mutants and Rocket Ranger are the two NES games I played as a kid and had absolutely no clue what the hell I was supposed to be doing.
I just noticed that Bart's shorts are purple but only in the first level where the aliens are trying to steal purple things. Did Bart want them to eat his shorts?
My favorite day of the week right now.
Snake Rattle 'n Roll do be having some pretty good feet and feet sounds tho.
MagMax was a fever dream, holy cow (dont have one though)
I beat Simpsons on nes back in th day, no idea how or why I persisted. It's terrible and feels like a fever dream/nightmare.
Re: Good Acclaim Simpson games, Virtual Bart had it's moments but I might have my nostalgia goggles on.
I hate that no one mentioned holding the one jump button enabled running in Bart Vs. I hate you had to play the game like that.
It's already a terrible experience to begin with.
Run and jump being bound to the same button? Bart Vs. The Mutants truly was the Dark Souls of the NES
@@slicknicdwyer funny unrelated fact: This game was also ported to the Genesis. The Genesis is a system with a 3 button controller by default.
The Genesis port still requires you to hold jump to run.
Yeah, it's weird that despite the game's notoriety, more people don't know its control quirks. Hold A to run, press A + B together to super jump.
@@MissAshley42 It goes deep than that too. It' soften lamented that you spray your paint or shoot a dart every time you jump, but even that can be avoided if you press B slightly after A and continue holding A within a time window. That's troubling though, as it implies the devs thought through the system that much, even as much as to include it in the manual, and decided it was their vision for the game.
i beat bart vs space mutants in high school with a buddy. its got a steep learning curve, but its a great game!!
Any chance you could include the link to the live list in these descriptions? I can never remember what it is when I want to check the rankings.
I'll try to include it down the line. A fancy list is right here, though it isn't automatically updated as soon as an episode goes up so it may be behind by an episode. 8bitnintendo.science/
@@JeffGerstmannShow whoa dude, how'd you get those pictures to move???
As a child I read Magmax as Mad Max, thinking this what the movie was based on. I played a ton out of this game for some reason as a child.
"It's like the movie Kids over here" - we talking that last scene or... ?
Simpsons game is an example of a game that deserved to be bundled with the game genie.
When you play Bartman Vs Radioactive Man you'll find it uses the same engine as Swamp Thing (and same sound effects)
dear god...
Bartman vs Radioactive is by far the worst of all Simpsons NES games.
we owned bart vs the space mutants game and i played it a ton... never made it past level two.
I loved Speedball because it was the videogame equivalent of Rollerball, sadly without the Cannnn!
Snake Rattle N Roll is harder to beat than Battletoads in my experience.
58:52 Someone on the localization team romanized Pony Canyon incorrectly for the copyright credit there. 😅
I feel like if the body parts just spawned around the level or you get them from killing enemies then Snake R&R would be fine. Treat them like mario coins. Having them spit out of one machine every level is so bizarre.
Shout out to Gary Kitchen, you crazy for this one 📯📯📯
Please, Jeff, tell us more about these Tactical Crotch Lasers.
I remember renting that Simpsons game and being like "what the fuck is this"
The main event of this thing, as far as I'm concerned.
For me, the quintessential bad licensed game from my childhood is the Beavis and Butthead game on snes. Our local video store had it, and it sucked, but it had Beavis and Butthead. It's only as an adult that I wonder: what would a good Beavis and Butthead game look like anyway?
I spent a lot of time playing Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe on my 1040 Atari st and the thing that was impressive about it was the player market, buying new players and the sense of progression just did not exist at that time in any sports game I think that’s why it was revered. This version is absolute trash in comparison 😂
My cousin growing up absolutely loved Snake Rattle 'n Roll.
I only hated one of my cousins.
Hey man, what do ya wanna do today?
I wanna listen to a midi version of the Simpsons theme forever and ever and ever and EVER.
Great! I've got just the thing.
Was so excited for the Simpons game, and it remains one of the worst things I ever played and put the least amount of time in, despite how much it cost back in the day. Never got far in Super Pitfall, but I enjoyed that much more.
Is Simpsons: Hit & Run the only good Simpsons console game? The arcade game is good as far as beat em ups go, but that doesn’t count. Other than that, I can’t think of a single well regarded game to come out of that license…
I will say the Genesis version of Wheel of Fortune is much better, but also more scary. Thanks childhood!
Snake Rattle And Roll 100% gets by on its music. It's also incredibly amiga/british.
They're the only ones that insisted on that completely trash relative-movement-scheme. It would take till Alone in the Dark/Resident Evil for a worse idea to inexplicably take hold.
Gangster.
Bart on the title screen is non-conforming to design rules. His shorts are also purple, which is odd unless the last level is just you eating them.
They based the sprites on the Ulman shorts. They wanted to fail.
No sir. I will not eat your shorts!
JEFF NO! ACTION 52 IS DARK SCIENCE
I'm going to call it now and just say that Krusty's Funhouse will end up being the best licensed Simpson's game for the NES.
That first level in Space Mutants was never great, but I agree that there was some ambition to try and capture the essence of the show. Though the game came out in 1991, so most of the material they had to work with was from the first season. I'm almost certain that I gave up on stage two as well, when I rented the game as a kid,.
The sequel; Bart vs the World, released later during the same year Space Mutants, and I remember renting that one as well. I didn't find it to be much better overall, it seems about on par with the first game. Never played Bartman vs Radioactive Man. It will be interesting to see how those two will stack up against the first Simpson's game in the Imagineering NES Simpsons trilogy.
Bart vs the World is much more playable than Space Mutants, but it's significantly harder. Beating it requires a crap-ton of pinpoint platforming, and it still has the same lousy movement and controls as Space Mutants.
Bartman vs Radioactive Man is the worst of them all
Playing a bunch of Snake Rattle & Roll prepared young me for the harsh realities of the world and people with foot fetishes.
I had to go watch a TAS for "The Simpsons" I played that game a lot, never once getting past the second level. Regardless, that TAS run highlights how wack and obtuse that game is.
I played so much Bart Vs The Space Mutants as a kid. I don't know why. I just put a ton of time into it. It's so fuckin terrible but every inch of that game is carved into my memory. Gross.
To everyone reading this, if you are feeling down, depressed, anxious or just worried. Please close your eyes, slowly inhale, then exhale, and remind yourself that you will never be as bad as Operation Secret Storm.
🫡
Does this make Jeff a scientist?
I don't think I've seen the credits for Bart vs the Space Mutants since I was a kid, and wow. I know Garry Kitchen can do better! I'm disappointed in you, Garry Kitchen!
I played this game at like 4 years old and had not clue what They Live was, I just became convinced when I closed the door my family were all aliens plotting their moment to do science experiments on me and if I had special sunglasses I'd see their true form. When I first watched They Live when I was slightly older my mind was blown.
Jeff, how about some more Megaman, Castlevania, Contra…you know, have one decent game an episode…
1:16:59 This is exactly what my uncle said after nam
Why don't you spondylus?
I gotta do it my way
Or no way at all