Bart Simpson's Escape From Camp Deadly

Bart Simpson's Escape From Camp Deadly
Perhaps you should escape from this game while you can.
Genre(s): Platform Platform(s): Game Boy Release Date: November 1, 1991 Developer(s): Imagineering Publisher(s): Acclaim Entertainment Series: The Simpsons

Bart Simpson's Escape from Camp Deadly is a platform game released for the Game Boy by Acclaim Entertainment in 1991.

Development and Release

The game was developed by Imagineering and published by Acclaim. While the game was still in development, Nintendo Power gave out a walkthough in its October 1991 issue. There are quite a few differences between the game's beta and final versions, in which the madman the player rescued in one part was "Madman Krimmel Krogan", whose appearance looked similar to Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th series before his design was changed to the long-haired, overall-wearing, maskless Madman Mort in the final version. Also, the Mount Deadly the player is scaling in another part was named "Mt. Milehigh" before its name was changed to make it more fitting in the final version (as well as the preceding dialogue between Bart and Lisa on how to escape Camp Deadly).

The game was released in 1991 in North America and Europe for the hand-held console Game Boy. The game was released in Japan under the name Bart's Survival Camp (バートのサバイバルキャンプ, Bāto no Sabaibaru Kyanpu) on February 26, 1993. It was the first Simpsons game to be released on a portable console. The plot of Bart Simpson's Escape from Camp Deadly bears a strong similarity to the Simpsons episode "Kamp Krusty" in the sense that they both revolve around Bart and Lisa staying at an evil summer camp. However, that episode did not air until 1992, a year after the game was released.

Plot

Bart and Lisa go to a summer camp, with Lisa looking forward to doing nature walks and bird-watching tours, and Bart looking forward to fun and games, along with campfire weenies. The camp is then revealed to be Camp Deadly, run by Mr. Burns's nephew, Ironfist Burns.

Why We Should Escape From This Game

1. It suffers from bland level design. Most of the camp levels are very similar to each other, and the levels themself are awful too, especially the last levels.
2. Poor controls. There's a bit of an input delay, particularly when jumping, and they are rather unresponsive which make the game way too hard with the platforming sections at times.
3. Lackluster gameplay that becomes too predictable.
4. For a late 1991 Game Boy game, the graphics are poor since they often lack details; the sprites aren't terrible, but the colors are poorly chosen too, which is the reason of why they are poor, they are still better than the NES games, however.
5. Repetitive soundtrack. While the Simpsons theme plays in some levels and the ending, there's three other songs that have short loops. You can, however, turn off the music by pausing the game and pressing A.
   • The soundtrack is also mostly recycled from The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants, with only the death and final level themes are new.
6. The sound effects are also weak, some of which are in poor quality.
7. The game's ending is also terrible. It only consists of a picture of the Simpson family next to the closed camp.
8. It uses artificial difficulty: Several of the enemies can kill Bart in one hit and you have no clear indication which ones do until they hit him.
9. When you hit Lisa with a boomerang, even if it was completely unintentional, you lose the reward she was going to give you.
10. The bullies, Nelson and Ironfist Burns, have pretty lame boss fights and are way too easy to beat.
11. No final boss.
12. False Advertising: Jimbo, Dolph, and Kearney can be seen on the game's cover but are nowhere in the game itself.
13. Horrible framerate. The game moves quite slowly when scrolling a different direction, this is especially noticeable when jumping.
14. You cannot backtrack to previous sections of the level once you go right.
15. The game over is extremely scary and could scare children really easily, especially because of the horrible music that play when you get a game over.
    • The jingle where you die is also disturbing but isn't as bad, though.
16. Very short, the game can be finished in only 30 minutes.
17. No continues. Once you get game over, it's back to the beginning again, which is a problem considering how high the difficulty is in this game.

Redeeming Qualities

1. You have the option to turn off the music that loops after you pause the game and select A, which can be relieving for players who get annoyed easily after hearing the repetitive soundtrack.
2. The sprites at least aren't terrible, but they are ruined by the poor chosen colors.

Trivia

• This game was reviewed on Screwattack.
• This is the first Simpsons game to be released on a portable console.

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