Even at a time when being a licensed game didn't signal a death knell for a game's viability as something good (remember that Shinji Mikami worked on Aladdin and Keiji Inafune on DuckTales), the Simpsons brand has represented the nadir of "quick buck, shit game" license mentality. Everything that was once good about the show – the characters, the dialog, the irreverent take on both television and America – was nowhere to be found in the myriad video game interpretations that have popped up over the years.
Mostly, this is because what a video game requires – that is, action – isn't really something that exists naturally within the framework of The Simpsons. That leaves games like Bart vs. The Space Mutants or The Simpsons: Hit and Run finding contrived reasons to place whatever gameplay framework has been decided upon beforehand into the Simpsons universe, with predictably poor results. Shortened development time, greed, and unfaithfulness to the often (at least, prior to say, 1999) terrific source material meant that the Simpsons universe of video games was about as good as the last season of the Simpsons was – which is to say, not very good at all.
Krusty's Super Fun House is different, though, in that it's actually pretty good and shockingly for Simpsons games, very solidly made. Essentially, the game is a Lemmings clone – you play as Krusty the Clown, whose house has been infested by rats. Rather than calling an exterminator or Chief Wiggum, Krusty decides to take care of the rat problem himself. And that's essentially all that the game gives you for setup.
The game plays as a puzzle/platformer hybrid which tasks the player with picking up blocks and building stairs or barriers so that the rats will make it to the end and get snared in a trap. Since the rats always walk in a straight line and turn right around when they reach a barrier, this makes the rules of play very easy to grasp. As well, you have to avoid or destroy enemies who get in your way and can lower your health.
There's two schools of thought here: the first is that, as a puzzle game, Krusty's Super Fun House is a resounding success. It has simple rules that are easily graspable, that get increasingly difficult as the game goes on, and which provides plenty of fun and challenging puzzles that the player has to solve. But the other school of thought, and the one I was feeling as I finished up my playthrough for this review, was, "why was that a Simpsons game again?"
The setup is completely devoid of any Simpsons-specific context, meaning that though the puzzle-solving is solid, it's just Lemmings with a different coat of paint and a few different mechanics. There's nothing particularly "Simpsons-y" about it, and that's a problem when the primary purpose for the game existing is to be some sort of representative of the Simpsons universe. Sure, there are a few posters with good Simpsons in-jokes on them ("Give a hoot; read a book"), but otherwise, this game could literally exist within any universe, and the lack of presentational values makes the Simpsons license, once again, a squandered thing.
If video game reviewing is ultimately a value judgment on gameplay, then Krusty's Super Fun House is an easy recommendation. It's quite lengthy, nicely paced, challenging, and fun. The problem is that video game reviewing has to consider more than that, and so while there's certainly fun to be had with Krusty's Super Fun House, it's not enough to rescue the game from being grouped in with the other video game rejects stuck in licensed game purgatory. Better than I expected, to be sure, but not quite good enough.
Peter Broda with the suggestions! If you have more suggestions, why don't you let me know what they are?