The Simpsons Wrestling
The Simpsons Wrestling is a professional wrestling video game, made for the PlayStation console. The game was developed by Big Ape Productions, and published by Fox Interactive and Activision. It was released in the PAL region on March 22, 2001, and in North America on April 12, 2001.
The Simpsons Wrestling
Professional Wrestling is just one of these areas. The sport has been referenced many times over the years, especially during the wrestling boom period of the late nineties. Characters have been seen watching the sport on TV, attending as a fan in the stands and even donning a wrestling persona and jumping in the ring themselves. Actual real life wrestlers have even made brief celebrity cameos.
The Simpsons Wrestling is a wrestling game based on The Simpsons for the PS1. The Excuse Plot is as follows: the city of Springfield is hosting a wrestling championship, and everyone is out to become the champion. The game is notable for featuring all of the original voice actors from the show, with dialogue provided by the actual writers.
The Simpsons Wrestling is a comedic professional wrestling style game starring the characters from the animated television show. Centered around exaggerated brawls between the cast of characters, the game featured the same voice talent heard in the series.
The age-old debate as to what the best wrestling game ever is will likely rage on for the rest of time. The discussion has been more prevalent than ever recently due to the revamp of the WWE 2K series, and the seemingly imminent arrival of AEW Fight Forever. 2K took a year off to get its house in order and returned with a marked improvement in WWE 2K20. Yes, I know, the bar for that one was incredibly low. As for Fight Forever, what AEW has shown off so far has been met with mixed reactions. Here's hoping it still arrives soon, although CM Punk being front and center on the cover makes me think its release will have been delayed.
Reminiscing about The Simpsons Wrestling makes me feel even older. Not only because it launched a few years earlier than Here Comes The Pain, but also because I used vouchers I won at school to buy it. I vividly remember clutching the PS1 game on the bus as my excitement built at the prospect of playing a game that combined two of my favorite things at the time and let's be honest, two of my favorite things to this day. That's right, somehow, Simpsons Wrestling didn't diminish my love of The Simpsons or pro wrestling.
Simpsons games during that era were mostly amusing homages to other popular series. Road Rage was the show's take on Crazy Taxi, Hit & Run was GTA Springfield, and Simpsons Wrestling was the series' very own WWE game, just without the WWE. Well, actually, there was a lot lacking about Simpsons wrestling, not just an affiliation with an actual wrestling company. Unlike Road Rage and Hit & Run, Simpsons Wrestling was bad. Really bad. In fact, it might well be the worst wrestling game of all time.
The graphics were bad, even for 2001, and the gameplay was even worse. It felt like the game had been created by someone who had heard about wrestling due to its popularity at the time but hadn't watched more than a few clips or five minutes of Raw. Granted, Simpsons Wrestling wasn't supposed to look or feel like a real wrestling game. The characters had special powers and the rulebook had been torn up and probably turned into a Squish-E. It was effectively an arcade fighter rooted in wrestling, but if anything, that made the game even worse.
The fighting genre had an even richer history by that point with games like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter both having been around for a decade or more. Simpsons Wrestling simply wasn't up to scratch when held to the standards of a wrestling game or a fighting game, so might well deserve the unwanted award of being the worst in both genres. Simpsons fans are lucky the two other games from the show came after it as they were infinitely better and proved the iconic cartoon did have a place in the video game world. Hit & Run remains so popular almost 20 years later that it is one of the most demanded remakes of all time. Unfortunately, the ownership of its rights appears to be so tied up and convoluted, a remake or a remaster might never happen. The same likely applies to Simpsons Wrestling, but no one is demanding a remake if that so no harm, no foul.
I did pause for a second while piecing this article together to determine whether or not I was being a little harsh. I considered whether my inability to defeat Ned Flanders clouded my judgment. I'm not sure 11-year-old me ever made it past his aggressive approach and lightning strikes. I'm also well aware that if The Simpsons Wrestling doesn't get the worst wrestling game ever label, then those in charge of such decisions might look to my beloved Crush Hour as a potential contender. Don't even think about it. There's not a thing wrong with that game and it definitely needs a remaster.
To double check I wasn't remembering The Simpsons Wrestling through whatever the opposite of rose-tinted glasses is, I had a little look on Metacritic. The PS1 game has a lowly score of 32, and yes, that is out of 100. Two outlets gave the game a zero, which might be a tiny bit harsh, but it does further my claim so I'll allow it. Suffice to say, I'm not the only one who thinks Simpsons Wrestling remains the worst wrestling game ever. An unwanted accolade made even more meaningful by the arrival of the downright awful WWE 2K20.
Josh is a writer at TheSportster and has been watching wrestling since Stone Cold and The Rock's WrestleMania My Way package reeled him in. Nowadays you can find him standing between WWE and AEW fans wondering why everyone just can't get along.
To conclude The Simpsons Wrestling is an embarrassment to The Simpsons, its an embarrasment to video-games and its even an embarrassement to wrestling. I mean fictional characters hitting each other with silly objects and having annoying catchphrases is a huge insult to the sport of wrestling isn't it.
The Simpsons Wrestling is a fighting video game based on the animated television series The Simpsons and is based on the professional wrestling genre. The game was made for the PlayStation console, was developed by Big Ape Productions, published by Electronic Arts in Europe and Activision in North America and distributed by Fox Interactive. It was released in Europe on March 23, 2001, and in North America on April 3, 2001.
There are 20 characters in the game, all of whom are voiced by the same actors that provide their voices in the show, and each character executes his or her own exclusive moves and gestures and power moves in the wrestling ring. The matches take place in detailed 3D locations from Springfield. A round in the game ends when one wrestler pins his opponent for a three count. Two victorious rounds wins a match. Unlike in traditional wrestling rules, the opponent may be pinned belly-down. 041b061a72