Bart vs the Space Mutants (Third Review)


Title		Bart vs the Space Mutants (Third Review)
Game Type       Platform
Company		Acclaim/Ocean Software (1991)
Players		1
Compatibility	All
HD Installable	Yes (With Aminet Patch)
Submission	Shane Armstrong

Review
This game I had free with my Amiga when I bought it along with Lemmings
and Captain Planet included in the bundle, so it holds a special place in
my heart with regards to Amiga gaming. It came on two disks, the first
disk containing entirely the intro to the game, which at the time was
absolutely fantastic to watch. It was just like the TV cartoon, on which
the game is based, including the music, and sets the scene of Bart being
bored in his bedroom but looking out of the window and seeing a flying
saucer land in his garden! You are then asked to insert disk 2, whereby
the game begins proper.

The plot for the game is quite bizarre now that I come to think of it, it
had aliens landing in Springfield stealing purple objects from the town!!?
these objects were to be used to build a weapon to destroy the Earth (man,
where do they think this stuff up?!), however good old Bart Simpson was in
this game to put a stop to that!! The controlled character of the game was
Bart, and was played as a vertically scrolling platformer with puzzles
along the way. Bart had at his disposal a pair of X-Ray specs which could
be used to identify the real people of Springfield from the aliens that
had taken the form of normal people. Therefore as you walked, ran and
jumped through the game, you could call upon the specs at any time to
identify who was coming at you!

As I have said the game is not a run of the mill platformer, you do have
to jump on aliens heads and collect coins, but there are a set amount of
purple objects to find before the aliens, to progress to the next level.
The graphics are wonderful and very cartoon like, with big bold colours, a
la cartoon, and the sampled voice, sound and music effects from the
cartoon greatly enhance the gameplay and anyone who is a Simpson's fan
will instantly bond with this game.

Certain key moments in the game are only surpassed when utilising certain
accessories, i.e. cherry bombs and rockets (that Bart so much loves to use
in the cartoon!) and these accessories are only available to the player
when they are bought from shops around Springfield, paid for by collecting
the coins dotted around the levels. This adds a whole new element to the
game and makes the player think a lot more than the average platformer
which in my opinion is a very good thing, because remember this is "The
Simpsons" and any old dog of a game would have sold well just because of
this license, but praise is due to the programmers for adding these extra
elements to give the game more playability and longevity.

Overall "The Simpson's: Bart vs. The Space Mutants" is an excellent little
game, although it has to be said it can be quite hard, as the timing of
certain jumps, for example, has to be absolutely spot on (the collision
detection is sometimes too good!), but as with all good games it does make
you want to go back and try again which is very rare, especially in
licensed games such as this. For anyone who loves old school platforming
with a different twist, Bart vs. the Space Mutants should not be passed by.





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