The Simpsons Arcade

The Simpsons is a side-scrolling beat 'em up that allows players to join in at any time. Two different cabinet models were produced: one allowing up to two simultaneous players, each able to choose a character, and another allowing four players with a dedicated position for each character. Controls consist of an eight-way joystick and two buttons to jump and attack. However, the Japanese version is exclusively 2-player.

The characters have distinctive attack styles; Homer punches and kicks, Marge swings a vacuum cleaner, Bart wields a skateboard, and Lisa attacks with a jump rope. Two characters standing close to each other can mount a combined attack: Homer and Marge holding each other's ankles to roll around the screen and mow down enemies, Homer placing either kid on his shoulders so they can strike at two different heights, Marge throwing either kid, and Bart and Lisa linking arms to execute a clothesline attack. Each player has a health meter, which decreases upon being hit by enemies; food items can be picked up to replenish it. Players can also pick up and throw/swing items such as hammers, bowling balls, and mailboxes as melee weapons, and two players can team up to throw very heavy items such as police cars.

While walking through downtown Springfield, the Simpson family collide with Waylon Smithers, who has just stolen a large diamond from a jewelry shop for Mr. Burns. The diamond goes flying and lands in Maggie Simpson's mouth, and she begins sucking on it like a pacifier as Smithers kidnaps her. The rest of the Simpsons give chase across the city, fighting off hordes of enemies (hired by Mr.

Burns) to reach the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. The pursuit covers eight stages, each of which ends with a fight against a strong boss character. In the final stage, the Simpsons must defeat first Smithers and then Mr. Burns, who uses a mobile battle suit equipped with a variety of weapons.

In the United States, thousands of arcade cabinets were ordered upon its debut at the American Coin Machine Exposition (ACME) in March 1991. The Simpsons went on to win a Platinum award from the American Amusement Machine Association (AAMA) for sales achievement in 1991, making it one of the top three best-selling arcade video game machines of 1991 (with the Neo Geo MVS which won Platinum and below Street Fighter II which won Diamond). In Japan, Game Machine listed The Simpsons on their October 1, 1991, issue as being the eleventh-most-popular arcade game for the previous two weeks.

The arcade game received positive reviews from critics. Sinclair User gave it a positive review, saying: "It's the great looking graphics, good sampled sound and clever animations that makes the Simpsons such fun to play". ScrewAttack ranked the arcade game as the best cartoon-based game. The game was inducted into GameSpy's Hall of Fame.

Soon after the Simpsons' arcade release, Novotrade released ports for Commodore 64 and MS-DOS computers. A listing on the Australian Classification Board website, posted on November 9, 2011, hinted at a port of the game being developed by Backbone Entertainment for multiple platforms. In January 2012, a high-definition port of The Simpsons Arcade Game was announced for PlayStation Network for release in February, with a release on Xbox Live Arcade also revealed. The port features online multiplayer, the ability to unlock the rare Japanese 4-player version of the game, and promotional content from the game's arcade launch.

The game was initially made available exclusively to PlayStation Plus users at no charge. In December 2013, the game was removed from the PlayStation Network store, although at the time it was still available through the Xbox Live Marketplace; no reason for the removal was given by either Sony or Konami.