Commodore 64 Longplay [112] Bart vs the Space Mutants (EU)

Played by: MadMatty

The Simpsons - Bart vs. the Space Mutants, licenced by Acclaim, Developed by Arc Developments for 8/16bit home computers and published by Ocean Software in 1991.

“Hello fellow humans! Bartholomew J. Simpson here, with a very important secrets: Space mutants are invading Springfield. That's right man! A buncha slimy, horrible, totally gross and putrid monsters are taking over the bodies of the people who live here and they wanna build a weapon that's gonna take over the entire planet! PReTTy CoOL, HUh! Anyway, yours truly is the only one who can see ‘em! I’ve gotta spraypaint things, get radical on my skateboard, use my trusty slingshot, and in general behave like a nuisance, man. Plus, with evil dudes like Nelson the bully and Sideshow Bob getting in my way, it’s a good thing I’ve got the rest of the Simpsons to help me out! So if you’re a decent person, a patriot, and somebody who cares about this sorry planet, you’ll do the right thing. SAVE THE EARTH, BUy THiS GaME! Thanks man.”

This is another Commodore 64 game that seems like it got shafted. Last on the list of conversions, minimal effort, rushed and pushed out before it was completed. The Spectrum and Amstrad versions both seem to look and play as you would expect on those platforms but the C64 version just seems to be missing things in general. Interestingly the games title intro plays while the game loads from both disk and tape which is ..different.

Level one right at the start, we get a blank window to paint instead of the Space Mutants movie poster. In the shop you can buy a Magnet that is supposed to help you in level 3 but it gets lost loading level 2. In level 3 when you reach the ferris wheel, it is just a white circle and missing the krusty gfx. In level 5 you have to guess the code to the first door, only to be told what the combination is after getting through it! Also the Homer face on the status bar is broken. Throughout the game there are minor gfx glitches but the ending doesn't seem right. I can well imagine the developers not believing anyone would ever reach it with the awful controls (fire + direction to run which also costs a bullet or just sometimes you can jump then move a direction while holding up to start running) and the fact that you return to the level start should you lose a life! All the home computer versions suffer control wise making them all pretty difficult. Again the ending seems off to me. I would expect some music and at the very least a text based well done like the other versions.

An additional note regarding versions. I use the Original disk release (which I try to do unless bug fixed versions exist). But while testing some cracked releases I noticed that most of them fail at some point. They would often fail to even attempt to load level 2. Using level skippers did work up to a point where they would cause a cpu jam loading later levels. (Maybe they work on original hardware and not Vice). The only one that did work (CSS) seemed to have more gfx glitching suggesting it may have been a preview version of the game. It’s not uncommon to find cracking groups to all use the same broken source image of a particular game as they rarely tested if their crack works past the first level before releasing the game.

00:00:00 Tile / Intro
00:01:10 Level 1 Springfield
00:06:00 Level 2 Shopping Mall
00:11:10 Level 3 Carnival
00:15:45 Level 4 Museum
00:21:10 Level 5 Power Plant -
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[mjtae]

I remember, as a kid, never understanding what you were supposed to do in this game.

[mightypotato]

7:06 I have to go now. My planet needs me.

[MyMelodyOfTheHeart]

This game may be very hard, but, at least the music and sound effects aren't really grating on the ears.

[fastrun]

Lol at the ending. The developer must have just said "nobody is gonna beat this anyway so what's the point".

[cigardragon]

I remember spending so much time on this game, mostly trying to figure out what you were supposed to do ❤️

[deepspeed]

Screw this game for the frustration it brought to me as a child. Simpsons is a broad target market but playing this game was terribly difficult and non-sensical. Made me feel like there was something obvious I was missing.

Watching it decades later I see that no, it wasn’t me. Eff this game. Seriously

[TheZelda]

I immediately think of AVGN when I see this

[RobbieNero]

I loved this as a kid never knew what to do and finally found things out by mistake like the spray can would change the color of things and the rockets did too but never did get past the first level.

[VitalikNerdChannel]

Damn it turns out the version on the NES is a port with the Commodore 64!

[johnlewisbrooks]

Seriously how can a game publisher so totally fuck the controls up this bad? You have games like Mario and Sonic and Aero The Acrobat that nailed it!

[pentelegomenon]

Does this version have the bad jumping controls?

[IuriFiedoruk]

Wow, I did not knew about this port. It actually is nice and does some smart things to simplify the game due to hardware constraints.

[Dorian_Scott]

This version *_really_* seems rushed out the door and even worse than the NES version. There's no music during gameplay, some graphics or various other things are bugged out, and there's no actual ending to the game.

[kawrght]

Its probably supposed to be that bart rejoins his family and the ending plays but it bugs out and bart is blocked by something.
If your not playing the original, then its either a bugged rip, an unfinished version or copyright protection dickery.

[oosha]

At least, the soundtrack doesn't loop non-stop unlike amiga but the elevator buzz sounds eh

[joetrill]

Every gamer of a certain age had a run-in with one of the many bad Simpsons games from the early 1990s. The only good one was the Konami beat-em-up.

[ManicMechanic]

I remember playing this on the original black and white Gameboy. What a great game!

[shadehawk]

wtf was that ending?! "heres your family! in an elevator... with you... another you! while you moonwalk in place!"

[kosin]

THIS FUCKING 6:21 The NES version of this game was much harder.

[vanessanessa]

this version for the old computers It's the most worse than the nes version