Member the games you used to play? We member. The basement at the Hardcore Gamer office has a section known as the Crust Room, with an old grey couch and a big old CRT TV. All the classic systems are down there collecting dust, so in an effort to improve the cleanliness of our work space, we dust off these old consoles every so often and put an old game through its paces, just to make sure everything stays in working order. We even have a beige computer with a floppy disk drive.
Having a mastery of language is a skill that is useful for any critic and few can match the colorful descriptions that James Rolfe aka The AngryNintendoVideo Game Nerd uses to describe the games of his youth. After gaining a large enough following by criticizing terrible games of past generations (and the occasional masterpiece such as Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest), the Nerd took the next step in merchandising his brand, which was to create a game reminiscent of all those games that were less desirable than having an intimate experience with buffalo excrement, which brings us to The Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures.
Review: Angry Video Game Nerd I & II Deluxe
Would You Rather Eat a Rotten Roadkill Skunk?
The Angry Video Game Nerd episodes don’t particularly lend themselves to a video game. They really boil down to someone raging about the terrible games of his childhood, and while it can be entertaining, it doesn’t sound like the most exciting premise for an actual game. to gameify the Nerd, some sort of convoluted plot needed to be concocted. The Nerd’s friends have all been sucked into his TV, where they are doomed to spend eternity in his horrible games. The Nerd is their only hope and armed with his trusty NES Zapper, he dives headfirst into the living world of his most reviled games.
One would naturally assume that any game based on The Angry Video Game Nerd wouldn’t take itself seriously and this is a correct assumption. The Nerd’s guide is Naggi, the Patronizing Fairy, which should get a chuckle from anyone who’s wanted to point their own Zapper at a certain character in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Aside from this obvious nod, there are several references to the videos that should be easy to spot for fans. Some of the enemies are parodies of games the Nerd has complained about in his videos, and there’s also a mention of Bimmy and Jimmy, one of the more infamous typos from the NES era.
Chock Full of References to the Videos
Similarly to Mega Man, the player can tackle the different levels in whatever order they see most fitting. The levels are old school platforming, filled with plenty of enemies to use that trusty zapper on. There are quite a few similarities in these levels to games the Nerd is known not to be a fan of. While the player is free to tackle the levels in any order, putting some thought into the order can help with unlocking the other playable characters: Mike, the Guitar Man and the “BS” Man. The Nerd is the main character, but once he rescues his friends, it’s time to put them to work.
The other playable characters have different abilities and are found hiding in different levels. The first recruitable character is the Guitar Man. The Guitar Man is the rotting corpse of Kyle Justin, the composer of the Angry Video Game Nerd’s theme song who is supposedly decomposing behind his couch. In life his guitar brought us melody, in death he found a way to weaponize his ax. He can be found in Future F-Balls 2010, appropriately enough, behind the couch. The next character to grab is Mike, who is recognizable as a regular in some of the Nerd videos, The lightsaber-wielding Mike is found in the Dungeons and D**kholes level, and the Guitar Man is needed to reach him. The BS Man is found in the Beat It and Eat It level. This ferocious fecal fighter delivers digusting logs that can inflict massive amounts of damage, and as the trend suggests, Mike is needed to acquire him.
But is it Better Than Having a Buffalo… You Know
As many of the games the Nerd hates are frustratingly difficult, the same can be said of The Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures. The game is accessible thanks to the difficulty levels, which on the easiest setting gives the player six health points, which are represented by beer bottles and infinite lives. But on the most difficult setting, there is one beer, one life, no checkpoints, no saving and no continues. As the difficulty levels increase, the enemies get stronger while the player’s attacks get weaker. The color of the zapper changes based on the difficulty setting, so any screenshots will give away what difficulty the player is playing.
The Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures is objectively not bad. How good it actually is depends on how much someone enjoys the Nerd and his brand of humor, along with these types of games. As is the case with most licensed games, references to the source material and their quality can cause the player to overlook some flaws or mediocrity. The gameplay is a good callback to the 8-bit games of the past, but doesn’t excel in any way that revitalizes the style of gameplay. For those unfamiliar with the nerd, it’s a good, challenging 2D action platformer, but not one that can rival the greats of the cartridge era. For fans of the Nerd it can be a hilarious experience. The gameplay is fun enough on its own merits, but the generous injections of the Nerd’s humor elevate the enjoyment to a much higher level, even if the vulgarity and toilet humor isn’t something we can repeat on this particular website.
The Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures was released in 2013 and is just as entertaining today as it was then. It generated a sequel, The Angry Video Game Nerd II: ASSimilation in 2016 and two games were bundled together in Angry Video Game Nerd I & II Deluxe in 2020, although some changes were made to that version. The original Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures is available on PC, 3DS and Wii U, while the bundled edition can be found on PC, PlayStation 4, Switch and Xbox One.
