The Simpsons

The Simpsons arcade game is the rare licensed tie-in that understood its source. Konami built a four-player beat 'em up in which you play Homer, Marge, Bart and Lisa, and it is loud, chaotic and full of the specific jokes the show was running in 1991.

Each family member has a genuinely different weapon, and that is the design hook. Homer punches, Marge swings a vacuum cleaner, Bart attacks with a skateboard and Lisa uses a skipping rope - four different reaches, four different rhythms, four players on one screen with a shared life bar. The stage list follows the show rather than a generic gauntlet: the Springfield streets, Krustyland, a graveyard, a dream sequence, and finally a fight with Smithers and Mr Burns over a stolen diamond. The game is also the origin of two things people remember fondly - the pizza and donut health pickups that everyone races for, and the endlessly quotable 'Bombs away!' call. Konami reused the same hardware family as its X-Men board, and the two-player version was a later, cheaper revision.

• ▸Four family members with completely different weapons and ranges
• ▸Shared health pickups on a timer, so co-op involves negotiation
• ▸A stage list drawn from the show, ending at Smithers and Mr Burns
• ▸One of the loudest and most quoted arcade cabinets of its era