In an effort to get my work published on Kotaku, which quite frankly is not going super well, I am going to now rank all of the fake video games that appear on The Simpsons. As a ’90s child who has been raised on all things Simpsons (shirts, pajama bottoms, bed sheets, lunch boxes, I could go on and on), the entire show has been ingrained in me. And when I first starting playing games in the early ’90s, The Simpsons games were obviously go-to choices. When watching the show, some of my favorite jokes and gags were about the fictional games the writers made up, because they could see how big the merchandising empire had become.
My criteria for these are somewhat arbitrary: essentially it’s how funny the joke is, how cool the game looks, whether or not I would want to play it, and how iconic the game is to the episode/show. If there is some gameplay, that really helps the ranking out considerably, but it isn’t 100% necessary. You can kind of tell what type of game each is, the genre, or what it’s spoofing. But really there is no criteria, just enjoy these classic moments and references, since I globbed several games together in various places. Who cares! It’s a list, relax comment shitposters.
Shout-outs to some noteworthy runners-up that I couldn’t quite put on this list but really want to because I couldn’t find visual evidence of their existence or they didn’t quite qualify: Halloween Hit and Run, the Itchy & Scratchy handheld game Bart plays while getting a haircut, Astro Blast, Mixed Martian Arts, the Pachinko machine Bart plays when he buys it with the credit card he found, and that one unnamed game Grandpa Abe played once in “Lisa’s Pony”.
56. Springfield Racers
55. Shaun White: Time Snowboarder
54. Nuke Canada and Nature Canada
53. Pong ’85, Pong ’95, and Pong 5000
52. Plague Station 3
51. Razor Fight II: The Slashening
50. Virtual Doctor
49. Chevy Chase Foul Play
48. The games at Testoster-Zone: Aunts vs. Zombies, Snowboarder, Test Your Strength, and Time Waster
47. All the background games at E4: Grand Theft Scratchy, Big Super Happy Fun Fun Game: Itchy City Stories, Jalo, Dig Dug Revelations, Driver’s License 2: License to Drive, Human Centipede, Blocko, Cosmic Wars, Agelica Button, Q-bert Origins, and Medal of Duty
46. All the background games in Wall E. Weasel’s: Coffee Fiend, Comic Shop, Pffox, Toxic, and Whack the Weasel
45. All the arcade machines at the Kwik-E-Mart: Great White Hunter, Nuke, Killer Joe, and Time Waster
44. All the background games in Noiseland: Nuclear Winter, Robert Goulet Destroyer, Capt. Krusty, Dance Fever ’97, Dougie Houser: The Game, Eat My Shorts, Freeway!, Futurama, Itchy vs. Scratchy, Krusty’s Carnival of Kash, Nurse, Satan’s Funhouse, Shark Bait, Smite of the Bumble Bee, Terminator, View Master, and Mugo
43. World of KrustCraft
42. Pack Rat and Pack Rat Returns
41. Zii Dance Dance Evolution
40. Frosty the Hit Man
39. Assassin’s Creed: Summer of Love
38. Furious Fliers
37. Escape From Grandma’s House I and II
36. Baby Blast
35. Word Jammers
34. Death Kill City II: Death Kill Stories
33. Bar Brawl 4: Final Fracus
32. Guts of War 2: Entrails of Intestinox
31. Fruit Shoot and Prince of Persia: Beverly Hills
30. Cereal Killer
29. Waltz Waltz Revolution
28. All the background games at Captain Blip’s Zapateria: Triangle Wars, Click Clack, Monkey Kong, Polybius, Remington Steele The Game, Space-Tac-Toe, and Unipede
27. Grand Theft Walrus
26. Rock ‘Em Block ‘Em Blockbots, The Claw, and Zap!
25. Panamanian Strongman
24. Low Blow Boxing
23. The Iceman Killeth
22. Cat Fight
21. Marching Band
20. The games on sale behind the glass at Try-N-Save: Angus Podgorny’s Caper Toss, A Streetcar Named Death, Electronic Autopsy, Robot Stampede, Save Hitler’s Brain, Sim Reich, Swim Meet, Canasta Master, Operation Rescue, and Celebrity Autopsy
19. Stickball, Mumblety Peg, and Kick the Can
18. Rocky III vs. Clara Peller
17. Bowling 2000
16. Tandem Bike Ride With Your Mom
15. Kevin Costner’s Waterworld
14. Disembowler IV
13. Larry the Looter
12. Hockey Dad
11. Touch of Death
10. Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge
9. Super Slugfest / Super Slugfest Arcade Edition
8. Billy Graham’s Bible Blaster
7. Earthland Realms
6. Devil’s Advocate
5. My Dinner With Andre
4. Escape From Death Row
3. Dash Dingo
2. Let’s Make a Baby
1. Bonestorm
Then maybe you would like to subscribe to our newsletter, where you will be updated on new articles the moment they hit the site!
