The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America 30 years ago, and to this day, it remains one of the most memorable classic games of the NES. While the game is not without its criticism, it’s remembered with a certain nostalgia by so many of us former ’90s kids who remember playing the classic game three decades ago.
Even as an adult and as a big fan of John Carpenter’s They Live, it’s hard not to appreciate the premise of Bart vs. the Space Mutants. Its plot sees hostile space aliens invading Springfield, and it’s up to 10-year-old Bart Simpson to stop them. He’ll be doing so using the help of his special X-Ray specs. Much like the shades Roddy Piper wears in They Live, the glasses allow him to separate real people from space mutants in human form.
The evil extra-terrestrials will apparently need to collect certain items to take over the world, starting with everything in Springfield that’s purple in color. In addition to avoiding the aliens, Bart will need to change the color of every purple object in town. Every item will need to be changed in different ways, which can include spray painting them, covering objects with falling laundry, or even using a cherry bomb to scare away a purple bird.
In the next four levels, Bart must prevent the aliens from collecting other items — hats, balloons, exit signs, and nuclear rods — but let’s face it, most everyone who played the game never made it past the first level. Due to clunky controls and unclear objectives, it was easy for players to get stuck. Trying to hit certain objects in hard-to-reach areas using rockets that had horrible aim was, to be quite honest, often much more trouble than it was worth.
For many NES gamers, myself included, playing Bart vs. the Space Mutants was mostly about wandering around in that first level, looking for more Easter eggs and other fun references to the TV series. It was fun as a fan to see places like the Kwik-E-Mart, Barney’s Bowlarama, and the Springfield Retirement Home, as well as bumping into characters like Grandpa Simpson, Jimbo Jones, and Nelson Muntz. All this while listening to the 8-bit version of the iconic Simpsons theme song.
Of course, one of the most fun aspects of the game was the ability to make prank phone calls. In the first level, Bart can find coins that can be used at a payphone to call Moe’s Tavern. Much like the series, Bart will ask Moe for a made-up customer with a pun-based name. Different calls will wield different results, with the names including I. M. Adope, Stu Piddiddiot, and Isabelle Ringing. Acclaim didn’t have to put this in the game, but they did, and 90s me feels blessed for it.
Beyond its later ports to other consoles like Sega Genesis and Game Gear, Bart vs. the Space Mutants hasn’t had a re-release since the early ’90s. In the meantime, many other Simpsons games have been produced, such as the very similar follow-up on the NES called The Simpsons: Bart vs. the World. This was followed by games like Virtual Bart and Bart’s Nightmare on the Super Nintendo and the much more advanced The Simpsons Game on the Wii, PS2, PS3, and Xbox 360.
Still, it’s that first Simpsons game on the NES that I always think of first when talking Simpsons video games. Surely, there must be many other ’90s kids out there who feel the same way. Despite its brutal difficulty and other gameplay issues, there’s a certain nostalgia to the game that makes me strongly miss playing it frequently as a child — even if I spent most of my time in the first level.
Happy 30th anniversary to The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants!
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