You all remember Sideshow Bob? Y’know, that guy that tried to frame Krusty for murder, but then was exposed by Bart, getting him arrested, and from then on out, he has sworn to kill Bart by any means necessary if it’s the last thing he does? Well, if you don’t know him, then allow me to introduce myself, because I am now Backloggd’s Sideshow Bob, since I wanna FUCKING KILL BART! But hey, you know what, that’s some pretty negative thinking right there, so you know what, let me put my murderous tendencies aside for a second. What we need here is to cover a Simpsons game that DOESN’T star Bart whatsoever to calm me down. Bart can be in it, of course, but as long as we don’t play as him in any way, then we should be fine, and I think I have found a couple of games that fulfill that role. So, let’s go ahead and check out this first title, which is exhaustingly known as The Simpsons: Itchy & Scratchy in Miniature Golf Madness.

For those that somehow don’t know, Itchy & Scratchy are cartoon characters in the Simpsons world who are pretty much just extremely violent and gory versions of Tom and Jerry, and somehow, they managed to get their own set of video games right alongside Bart. I mean, hey, why not, right? They were probably one of the most popular aspects of the show, especially with kids, so why not slap their face on a few games as well, just to keep milking that dead-ass cow on the ground over there. So, their first video game outing is a golfing game on the Game Boy, which is definitely a great sign, and after playing it, I can actually say that…… it’s actually ok? In fact, dare I say, the game might actually be GOOD! Holy shit, this only happens once in a million years, us getting a good Simpsons game like this!.......... ok, that may be stretching it a little bit, but still, for what we got here, it manages to be pretty competent enough, and it doesn’t make me wanna throw my Game Boy at a wall, so that is great news!

The story is…… well, there is no story actually, as the game is pretty much just one long, Itchy & Scratchy cartoon about golf, which is all the plot that I need to go off of, cause I am a fan of violence, and if there is one thing these guys do right, it’s VIOLENCE. The graphics are Game Boy graphics, but the sprites for the characters and environments look decent enough, except for some of the weird animations, such as Scratchy’s terrifying victory animation (skip to 3:40), the music is par for the course for a Simpsons game (Wow, that was such a good joke), where they just play one track for pretty much the entire game, and while the track is a good one, I just wanna hear some different songs every once in a while, and the gameplay/control is… somewhat decent, with it managing to mix together these genres rather well, and it isn’t infuriating to the point of me wanting to scream, so this is an improvement here.

The game is a 2D platfomer/golf game, where you take control of Scratchy, go through a set of 9 different holes, each with their own generic theme to make them stand out from one another, putt your ball all the way to the end of each obstacle course while making sure not to putt too many times so that you can get a good score, defeat the many Itchys that will come for you using either your trusty golf club or whatever other weapons you can find, and have a brief sense of terror flash through you, as Bart appears in the title card for each hole, but nowhere else in the game, which makes you breathe a sigh of relief. It is a bit of a weird combination of genres to be sure, especially for around this time, but they actually manage to blend together well, and it makes the gameplay actually somewhat enjoyable, even if it can get pretty repetitive and annoying in plenty of instances.

Since this is primarily a golf game, your one main concern should be getting your ball all the way to the finishing hole, and the game doesn’t make this easy for you, but at the same time, it doesn’t feel impossible either. Each level has plenty of different hazards and layouts that you have to work around with your sick golfing skills, and while some of these can be pretty annoying to work around, especially given where your ball is placed, but for the most part, it is pretty manageable and fun to work out these different putts and make it all the way to the end. What doesn’t help this out though is the Itchys, because HOLY FUCK, these guys are everywhere, and they are RELENTLESS. It only takes one hit to kill you, so whenever these guys see you, they automatically make a mad dash towards you, and you have to be quick on the draw to either dodge or fight back, otherwise you are down one life. What doesn’t help either is that, in plenty of instances, you are given very little chance to fight back before it is too late, which becomes extremely annoying, especially in the later stages. Thankfully, when you die, you respawn back where you died, so it only really becomes a burden whenever you get a game over.

But really, at the end of the day, there isn’t much more to the game than what I have told and shown you. You just golf around for 9 holes, and then you are done, which I would complain about, but in this case, it is definitely for the best. A lot of these old Simpsons games suffer from having too much variety in their gameplay, whether by having a bunch of poorly designed segments put together that you can barely get through, or by having minigame collections that aren’t really all that good in the slightest. Thankfully though, most of this game has consistent design, giving you a gradual sense of difficulty for each stage, and obstacles that don’t feel like they were made to hit you no matter what (aside from the Itchys, they can burn in Hell).

There are definitely some annoying courses here or there, especially the underwater level that can send you quite a ways back if you don’t know what you are doing, but then again, that is par for the course in a golf game, so I can’t really be too mad at it, and instead, just blame my natural disdain towards golf. Also, you gotta respect how they managed to keep the violence present in this game, with some of it being pretty graphic for this kind of game. I get it, it’s based on The Simpsons, so it is allowed to be violent, but considering that this was marketed towards kids, I thought they would’ve taken out the violence entirely, but thankfully, I was wrong about that. So now we can all happily chop and massacre all the mice we want, and nobody can tell us otherwise!

Overall, despite how annoying the Itchys can be, this was actually a surprising golf game, all things considered, and it is definitely one of the best Simpsons games of this era, with some decent courses to take on, some nice weapons to mess around with, and keeping the overall zanyness and insanity of Itchy & Scratchy alive and well through its simplistic means. I would actually recommend this to those who are fans of golf games, as well as those who don’t mind some jank here and there, because despite how I think the game is merely just ok, it definitely is much better then you would think it is, and it would definitely be fun to mess around with for 10 minutes or so. Now, with all of that out of the way, this right here, ladies and germs, is definitive PROOF that Bart is the sole problem with these Simpsons games! For every game that he has been the star in, they have turned out garbage, but whenever they take him out of the starring role and replace him with someone else, it turns out to be somewhat decent! So now, for every single other Simpsons game we ever have, we just need to get rid of Bart entirely. It will get 10s across the board every time, I promise you.

Game #608