Forbes has revealed that some of Fortnite's most popular collaborations are with celebrities like Kylie Jenner and Travis Scott, but what about The Simpsons? This month, the Fortnite island has become a miniature Springfield, complete with popular characters and well-known locations. If you want to play as Homer and shoot up Moe's Tavern, you can.
The Simpsons has had a long history of video game collaborations, dating back to 1991 when Acclaim released Bart vs The Space Mutants, a side-scrolling platformer in which Bart must defeat an extraterrestrial invasion by doing frustrating pixel-perfect jumps and fighting bosses including Nelson and Sideshow Bob. Despite mediocre reviews, the game sold 1m copies, and inspired a rash of Bart-focused games such as Bart vs The World and Bart's House of Weirdness.
One of the best early Simpsons games was Konami's 1992 arcade hit, The Simpsons, an excellent four-player brawler in which the family is pitted against Mr Burns – who has, in a daft plot that is just an excuse to visit a lot of Springfield locations and attack enemies with skateboards and vacuum cleaners – kidnapped Maggie.
In 2003, Simpsons Hit & Run, a glorious Homer-fronted pastiche of Grand Theft Auto was released. Here you can drive around town visiting Android's Dungeon, Krusty Burger and the Legitimate Businessman's Social Club, while carrying out missions to prevent another alien plot. It remains one of the last great Simpsons titles.
The relationship between The Simpsons and video games has been a symbiotic one, with both coming of age in the hyperactive postmodern era of the 1990s. While some critics have accused video games of perpetuating violence and aggression, others see conflict as a driving force behind most stories, an almost inevitable part of game design.
So what are some good non-violent games? There's ThinkyGames, which has a database of non-violent games that can be filtered by genre. Steam also has a non-violent entertainment curation page, and Common Sense Media is a great resource for family-friendly violence-free games.
The Simpsons has had a long history of video game collaborations, dating back to 1991 when Acclaim released Bart vs The Space Mutants, a side-scrolling platformer in which Bart must defeat an extraterrestrial invasion by doing frustrating pixel-perfect jumps and fighting bosses including Nelson and Sideshow Bob. Despite mediocre reviews, the game sold 1m copies, and inspired a rash of Bart-focused games such as Bart vs The World and Bart's House of Weirdness.
One of the best early Simpsons games was Konami's 1992 arcade hit, The Simpsons, an excellent four-player brawler in which the family is pitted against Mr Burns – who has, in a daft plot that is just an excuse to visit a lot of Springfield locations and attack enemies with skateboards and vacuum cleaners – kidnapped Maggie.
In 2003, Simpsons Hit & Run, a glorious Homer-fronted pastiche of Grand Theft Auto was released. Here you can drive around town visiting Android's Dungeon, Krusty Burger and the Legitimate Businessman's Social Club, while carrying out missions to prevent another alien plot. It remains one of the last great Simpsons titles.
The relationship between The Simpsons and video games has been a symbiotic one, with both coming of age in the hyperactive postmodern era of the 1990s. While some critics have accused video games of perpetuating violence and aggression, others see conflict as a driving force behind most stories, an almost inevitable part of game design.
So what are some good non-violent games? There's ThinkyGames, which has a database of non-violent games that can be filtered by genre. Steam also has a non-violent entertainment curation page, and Common Sense Media is a great resource for family-friendly violence-free games.