Whenever there’s supposed to be parody in games, I tend to treat them with pause. That’s because very few of them do manage to be good parodies. When it comes to delivering a videogame experience that draws upon a comedic source material that wants to actively make fun of the medium, even more. That’s the case with The Angry Video Game Nerd 8-bit, a new release based on the decade-long career of the popular YouTube character performed by James Rolfe.
James, an indie filmmaker who has made a career recording satirical takes on videogaming by playing what he considers bad games, usually of the NES variety, and exposing what he hates about them to exaggerated effect, made the jump to having games of his own in 2013 by partnering up with Retroware. That joining of forces lasts to this day, as they once again are giving a go, injecting even more of the Nerd character on a new adventure.
This time, a returning character from the show, a riff on Jesus Christ of all things, has gone berserk again, as the cyber and foul-mouthed abomination decides to take over our hero’s NES in order to spread chaos all around the world. It falls to Rolfe’s alter-ego to save the day as he cooks up a special cartridge of his own, throwing himself onto the platforms within in order to take out the bad guy once and for all.
The Angry Video Game Nerd 8-bit plays like a run-of-the-mill Mega Man clone, purposefully so. You get to pick which stage you start out at and the overall gameplay is focused on having you do some precision platforming while fending off waves of weird enemies while armed with the Nerd’s zapper. Differently from the Blue Bomber, though, that weapon gets powered up the more pellets he picks up, much like Blaster Master, and as you take damage, it gets weaker.
However, the main problem with the game stems from the very fact that it wants to be a Mega Man game really badly, but the quality just isn’t there. Levels are cumbersomely put together, treating you to cheap deaths and occasionally terrible enemy positioning. With very few checkpoints and a strict life system, that all leads to extremely frustrating times playing, very akin to the ones Rolfe’s character has in his videos.
Now, I have zero experience with the previous games that Retroware has put out based on the Nerd, but I do know of their other releases, and I know they are very talented and able to put out very decent to great retro-inspired titles, so I’ll have to assume that the overall artificially-pumped difficulty and annoyance that stems from those is intentional here, which if true, is a big shame. As an on and off fan of Cinemassacre’s content over the years, finally getting to play one of the games turned out to be somewhat of a disappointment.
Thankfully, there’s an upside to the entire thing, and it’s the FMV videos that basically turn The Angry Video Game Nerd 8-bit into a new episode of the show that you can participate in. It’s just a shame that the actual playing bit is such a disaster as the parts that are there to be watched are quite entertaining, with James hamming it up as usual. For what it is, this is something that he would play in one of his videos and make the ever-living fun out of. Sadly, I saw no other form of enjoyment in it.
#keymailer
