List of The Angry Video Game Nerd episodes

This is the Nerd's first game review ever. This is his first review of an NES game.
He rants on the game's difficulty, departure from the other games in the series, weaker bosses (blaming the lazy developers), the cryptic password system along with the secret passageways, collecting specific items that takes too long, the invisible pitfalls, the infamous shift from day to night with the unnecessary text box every few minutes, lack of bosses, anticlimax, and weak ending. This episode was originally created on May 16, 2004 and previously only available as a part of a film compilation tape with other short films created or directed by James Rolfe.^[2]
The Nerd re-visited this game five years later in "Castlevania, Part II", giving an honest opinion, saying that despite the game's main problems he admits that the game is not really that bad, praising its nostalgia value, graphics and music. The aspect of the Nerd hating the game with a passion in the video was simply a joke. In episode 119, the Nerd goes back to the game briefly to find another version that has fixed many of the problems he had previously complained about.

This episode was originally created on May 28, 2004 and previously only available as a part of a film compilation tape with other short films created or directed by Rolfe.^[2] He complains about the game's unforgiving difficulty, weapons that do absolutely nothing, random town people that kill you for no reason, and awful use of the Mr. Hyde element. He considered Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as the worst NES game he ever reviewed or played. This is the first episode to have the Nerd on camera. The game was donated to Rolfe by a friend and title card artist, Mike Matei.
In four out-of-character videos, Rolfe listed the game at #1 on his lists of the top 10 hardest and worst NES games, the graphical elements (specifically the defecating birds) as the #2 weirdest moment in a video game, and the cane as the #1 most hated weapon or item.
The line "Why don't the weapons do anything?" from the full intro theme originated from this episode.
This game was "re"-revisited in 2010, where the Nerd tried to beat the game.

(YT) April 8, 2006

This episode was intended to be the last in the then-trilogy.^[2] The Nerd criticizes the game's awkward controls, difficult levels and its disappointing short length as well as its bad ending. Later he realized it was made by LJN who are notoriously known for adapting successful movies into bad-quality video games.
This is also the first review of a game from LJN (a company that The Nerd has a strong hatred for). This is the first episode to feature the name "Angry Nintendo Nerd" onscreen.

This is the first video be to featured on ScrewAttack.
The Nerd bashes the game for its difficulty and lack of faithfulness to the original cartoon.
The line "Why can't a turtle swim?" on the full intro theme originated from this episode, as did "Cowabunga? Cowa-fucking piece of dog shit!". On his list of the top ten hardest NES games, Rolfe listed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at #9. As a first for the series, this episode has a title card.

This is the first review to feature multiple games. On the DVD, the clips from the first Back to the Future film were edited out. Several of the profane lyrics from the theme song were taken from lines used in this episode.
The Nerd criticizes the first game for its monotonous gameplay, rendition of "The Power of Love", and lack of faithfulness to the original film, and the second game for its confusing locations, comparing the level design to Super Mario Bros., no save feature (which makes collecting items near impossible) and boring mini-games.
In two out-of-character videos, Rolfe listed Back to the Future Part II & III as the #8 worst game on the NES, and the skateboard in Back to the Future as the #9 most hated weapon or item.

Despite criticizing the game for blatantly shilling McDonalds and also looking and playing a lot like Super Mario Bros. 3, the Nerd finds this game to be relatively decent overall. However, he notes that there were better platformers available for the NES, and the game has some annoying elements such as most of the levels being full of blocks which send the player all the way back to the start of the level.
This is the first video to feature the Nerd's theme song, and also Kyle Justin's first on-screen appearance, albeit only in the title sequence.

A new scene, showing the Nerd calling the Wally Bear hotline, was added to the Season 1 DVD, and subsequently also to the YouTube re-release. This is also the first review of an unlicensed game.
The Nerd bashes the game for its repetitive and monotonous gameplay and terrible music.

This episode features special guest "Shit Pickle", an original animated character who appeared in other works by Rolfe, and is voiced by Rolfe himself. The Nerd considers it to be weird, pointing out the blue cartridge (NES cartridges are usually grey), and criticizing the poor controls, graphics (though he notes that the wind effects are cool), sound, repetitive level design and weak bosses and ending.

The Nerd has numerous criticisms of the first game, particularly the long sections without any enemy encounters, but notes that by far the biggest problem is the refueling and landing sequences, which he's completely unable to carry out successfully. In the later "Re-Revisited" episode, he attributed his difficulties to the misleading on-screen instructions given in the sequences.
The Second Mission is felt to be a little better, but the Nerd finds its excessive difficulty to be a major drawback. He notes the missiles being faster than in the first game. He says that the title is misleading in that it has nothing to do with the second mission of the first game. He also notes the logo on the top of the cartridge as being so small you would not be able to tell from that angle that it is a different game.
The line "Why can't I land the plane?" from the full intro theme originated from this episode.

Despite making clear his love for Double Dragon and Double Dragon II: The Revenge, the Nerd considers this to be a terrible sequel due to the massive increase in difficulty over the previous two games, which is only made worse by the player being given just one life, with no continues or password system. The Nerd is also shocked that the game misspells player character Billy Lee's name as "Bimmy" in the intro cutscene to the two-player mode.
The line "The characters' names are wrong" from the full intro theme originated from this episode.

This episode guest stars Matei as Jason Voorhees. During the review the Nerd is forced and threatened by Jason Voorhees to do a positive review of the game. During the review, he mentions several criticisms of the game, including the unclear in-game map, bad music, ineffectual weapons and unforgiving difficulty, but tries to spin them as positive aspects in order to appease Jason.
At the end the video, the Nerd kills Jason and confirms that he in fact hates the game. He then starts a drinking binge where he falls asleep and Freddy's glove appears hinting the next review, which is A Nightmare on Elm Street for the NES.

In two out-of-character videos, Rolfe listed the rocks in Friday the 13th at #10 on his list of the top 10 most hated weapons or items, and Jason Voorhees at #10 on his list of the top 10 unwanted guests.

This is part II of the Friday The 13th review. Both Rolfe and Matei assume the role of Freddy Krueger as body double and voice respectively.
While the Nerd says that the game is better than Friday the 13th, and compliments its music and making good use of the "dream powers" concept from A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, he nonetheless deems the game very poor. His biggest complaint is that the gameplay is a blatant rip-off of Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, a game he hates anyway, and he finds most of that game's flaws to be amplified in this one. He also criticizes the generic selection of enemies in the game, and notes that Freddy is depicted as having knives coming straight out of his fingers instead of his glove (which he implies is because the developers used his design from A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, but says is a "fuck-up" regardless).
Towards the end of the video, The Nerd creates three clones of himself (one of which defecates on the game cartridge) which causes Freddy to chase him and his clones which are killed off. The Nerd punches Freddy with the Power Glove and wakes up from his dream and finds that he is wearing the Power Glove, hinting at his next review.
The review was featured on the second disc of Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy.
On the ScrewAttack website, this video features an alternate opening and ending, and also features the song "Welcome to My Nightmare" by Alice Cooper over the end credits, rather than the "Vampire Killer" theme from Castlevania. The DVD version contains new music in place of the "Nightmare on Elm Street" music.

In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed Freddy Krueger at #9 on his list of the top 10 unwanted guests.

After a lengthy set-up procedure, the Nerd tries the included Super Glove Ball, finding that the Power Glove works adequately well, but feeling that the game itself is boring and uninspired. He then moves onto trying it with popular NES games.
Rad Racer and R.C. Pro-Am turn out to be the two games which work the best with the Power Glove, with the Nerd being able to control them almost as well as with the standard controller.
With Castlevania, Kung Fu Heroes, Jackal, Zelda II and Contra, the Nerd finds the Power Glove to work well enough for the games to be basically playable, but ultimately finds it much too unreliable to get far into the games.
The remaining games are all found to be unplayable. In Metroid and Super Mario Bros. the player characters perpetually jump at a reduced height, making it impossible to get more than a few screens into the game. In Lifeforce, the player's ship is constantly stuck to the top or bottom of the screen, and the Nerd cannot figure out how to shoot. In Punch-Out!! he cannot figure out how to dodge or block punches, meaning that he gets defeated almost immediately by Glass Joe, the game's easiest opponent. Double Dragon fares the worst, as the Nerd is unable to make his character do anything more than jitter around, causing him to tear the Power Glove off in frustration and use its inbuilt controller.
By far the biggest shock turns out to be Top Gun, where the Nerd actually manages to land the plane, something he had never managed to do with the standard controller. This is the last episode to use the name "The Angry Nintendo Nerd".

Note: In this episode, the Nerd makes a joke about the odd names of the Rambo movies and says, "What're they going to call the next one? John Rambo?" As stated in his game review of Rambo, the next Rambo movie, ironically, DID have the working title "John Rambo" during filming. This is the first episode to use the name "The Angry Video Game Nerd".

While the Nerd compliments the game's graphics and sound as being impressive for an 8-bit title, he finds the gameplay underwhelming. The main flaw is felt to be the game's difficulty, as he beats Apollo Creed with no difficulty, only lose badly to Clubber Lang in the next round. The minigames included between the rounds are deemed to be needless, as they are supposed to make the fights easier, but in practice are not necessary to defeat Apollo, and prove no help in beating Clubber. The game's length is also criticized, as there are only three opponents (Apollo, Clubber and Ivan Drago).
This episode includes the alternative ending where the Nerd throws the game off the stairs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It was added to the Season 1 DVD, and then in the YouTube re-release. This is also the first review of a Sega Master System game.
In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed the throwing of the game box from the top of the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art as #8 on his list of the top 10 video game abuses.
On the DVD, the opening scene in which the Nerd is playing the first five Rocky films on every TV in his house, as well as clips from the Rocky movies played throughout the review, were edited out.

Bible Adventures has three games, all of which are noted to be rip-offs of Super Mario Bros. 2. The Nerd notes that the "Noah's Ark" game can be unintentionally hilarious due to the sight of Noah running around carrying stacks of animals, though is also frustrating since he can easily drop them. "Baby Moses" proves to be glitchy, and the Nerd notes that it's more fun to deliberately throw Moses in the river and explore the levels. "David and Goliath" is felt to be the worst of the three due to poor level design.
The Nerd actually feels Bible Buffet to be an okay game, but notes that it actually doesn't have much to do with the Bible or Christianity, save for some quizzes which he can't even answer due to not having the question sheets originally included with the game.
Most of the time spent on Super 3D Noah's Ark covers the fact that it actually uses the engine and most of the level designs from the SNES incarnation of Wolfenstein 3D, and that the game is an unlicensed SNES cartridge which needs an official game to be connected via a pass-through port in order to work. The Nerd notes that it's not particularly bad, but finds it excessively hard for a Bible game aimed at children, and criticizes the fact that the Ark has many goats rather than two of every animal.
Spiritual Warfare is only briefly covered, but the Nerd notes that it's a rip-off of the original Legend of Zelda game.
King of Kings: The Early Years is another multi-game cartridge. The first game, "The Wise Men" is criticized for bad controls and the requirement to answer Bible questions in order to get health power-ups. The Nerd skips over the second game, "Flight to Egypt" (though he would later review it in the third "Bible Games" special) and finds the third game, "Jesus and the Temple" to be near-unplayable due to a section where the player character has to be guided over logs going down a waterfall; the logs not only come out in completely random patterns, but sometimes travel up the waterfall instead of downwards.
When first released on the ScrewAttack website, this video was divided into two parts. This is also the first review of a SNES game.
The opening theme is a parody of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town".
In two out-of-character videos, Rolfe listed the goats in Super 3D Noah's Ark as #13 on his list of the top 20 weirdest moments in a video game, and the slingshot in Bible Adventures as the #8 most hated weapon or item.

Before reviewing the third film, the Nerd briefly looks at the first two films, saying that the first one was very good and a more mature take on the TV series that capitalizes on the darker approach of the comics of the same name. He has more criticisms for the second, including the goofier tone, abrupt ending and Vanilla Ice's infamous appearance, but says that the film overall is still okay, and has the most action scenes of the trilogy.
The Nerd considers the third film to be the worst of the franchise. His primary complaint is that the film has little relation to the franchise as a whole, deeming it to be essentially just a Samurai film with the Turtles dropped in. Other major criticisms include the generally poor special effects and animatronics (with Splinter being singled out for criticism), contrived coincidences such as April running into ancestors of Splinter and Casey Jones, and Michaelangelo being sidelined for most of the film, meaning that only one action scene (out of just three overall) involves all the Turtles. He also finds the dialogue so bad that he goes as far to count down his top 10 worst lines from the film. At the end, the Nerd destroys the VHS tape of the film by slicing it in two with Katana, then smashing the two halves to pieces with a hammer.
The Nerd also briefly looks at the SNES game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time, mostly to address the myth that "Turtles in Time" is the film's subtitle (while many VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray releases of the film use it on the cover, the film itself does not).
This is the Nerd's first movie review. Until the release of "How the Nerd Stole Christmas" (ep.97), this was the last of the new Angry Nerd episodes released on YouTube. However, this episode has been removed from his YouTube account due to apparent terms of use violation, and it now only airs on the Cinemassacre and ScrewAttack websites. This episode (apart from the scene where the Nerd destroys the Tape) is not included on the AVGN Volume 2 DVD due to Copyright reasons.
The destruction of the VHS tape of the movie was chosen as the best moment of 2007, and, in a later out-of-character video, was given an honorable mention on his list of his top 10 video game abuse moments. The Nerd makes reference to his review of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with the line "cowa-fuckin' piece of dog shit!". This was the first Nerd episode to be shot at the James Rolfe's new apartment which he lived at until June, 2008.

Note: At the Cinemassacre website both episode 18 and 19 were combined into one episode. Also, even though they were counted as AVGN episodes, James Rolfe later said that it should never have been the case, as it was originally meant to launch as a side series "The Angry Movie Nerd", but it never happened.

(YT) July 25, 2008

The Nerd also does a short review about the history of the Atari 5200. He criticizes its enormous physical size, using the same connection box for both power and TV, and most of all its malfunctioning controllers, which renders him unable to actually play any games for the system. He tries to use a Trak-Ball controller, but fails due to him not owning any compatible games. He then buys another 5200 controller, but got scammed since it lacked the connector to plug into the console.
This is the first video to be featured on GameTrailers, as well as the first review of a console and the first episode to have the current intro.
In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed the Atari 5200 as the #10 worst video game console of all time.

(YT) Aug 6, 2008

The Nerd bashes the game for its monotonous gameplay and lack of connection to the original film. He also points out that the Ghostbusters theme, while being a decent 8-bit version, plays monotonously throughout the entire game. He also criticizes the game for having to spend money on equipment and gasoline. During the stair climb level, he comments that you have to continuously press A to move, rather than being able to use the D-pad. He elects to use a NES Max Turbo controller, to save him the effort of constantly pressing the button. Out of frustration with being unable to avoid the ghosts on the stairway, he uses a Game Genie to give him invincibility to the ghosts. After this, he manages to defeat the final boss, Gozer, only to be rewarded with the infamous typo-filled ending message, which causes him to break down in tears.
After mentioning the Ghost Vacuum item in the game, the Nerd pretends to prank call a store, asking if they sell a Ghost Vacuum. The store clerk is actually a voiceover provided by Kyle Justin, marking Justin's first appearance in an AVGN video.
The DVD and YouTube versions of the episode features a sound-alike version of the Ghostbusters theme that plays over the opening of the video; the GameTrailers version featured no music during these scenes. However, clips from the movie and TV series were removed and replaced with still images. This is the first episode in which the Nerd cries.
In two out-of-character videos, Rolfe listed the game as the #7 worst on the NES, and the ghost food as the #3 most hated weapon or item.

(YT) Aug 26, 2008

Before reviewing the 2600 and Master System versions, the Nerd continues his rant on the NES game, criticizing its typos, inconsistency with the characters from the movie, dull graphics, and the fact the game has only four levels. He subsequently finds the 2600 game to be very similar to the NES game, and a better title by the standards of that system. The Master System version, while still mediocre overall, is also noted to look, sound and play far better than its NES counterpart.
In the YouTube re-release and the DVD, clips from the Ghostbusters movie are removed, and replaced with artwork by Matei, to avoid copyright claims. This is the first review of an Atari 2600 game.

(YT) Sep 9, 2008

While praising Ghostbusters II for being a more playable game, he criticizes the game's controls, demo, lack of a pause button and the fact that the player has to play through the final level four times over. He gives much more positive feedback about the Genesis Ghostbusters game, praising its graphics, controls and boss battles, but he gave some criticism on the game's difficulty and once again lack of Winston Zeddemore the fourth ghostbuster, however still he regards as the best Ghostbusters-based game he had played until that point.

(YT) Sep 22, 2008

This is the first review of a Game Boy game, as well as a Game Boy Advance game. Kyle Justin guest stars as Spider-Man, and also sings a parody of the theme song from the 1967 Spider-Man TV series. The Nerd uses the NES top-loader for the first time, and has used it as his primary NES (excluding the Nintoaster) later on because, despite only supporting RF, works more effectively than the normal model. Spider-Man also introduces the Nerd to Yuengling, a beer brewed by a local brewery, after calling Rolling Rock "Shit Rock" and "corporate bullshit". The Nerd would sometimes drink Yuengling in place of Rolling Rock in later episodes. Rolfe stated most of the episode was unscripted. This is the first review of a 21st-century game.

(YT) Nov 18, 2008

The Nerd notes there to be two main types of game on the Sega CD, the first of which generally play much like normal Genesis games, but feature CD soundtracks and occasionally FMVs. He feels that these games are generally quite decent, albeit not overwhelmingly better than their non-CD counterparts, citing Sonic CD, The Terminator and Sol-Feace as examples of this type of game (he also mentions Snatcher in the following part, despite not having a copy of it due to its rarity). The remaining games are the all-FMV "interactive movie" titles, which the Nerd deems to have been the main reason why the system failed, since they have very little actual gameplay and look awful due to the system's hardware limitations. He claims that the only redeeming value is that they can be unintentionally hilarious due to the bad, low-budget acting usually involved. He ultimately concludes that the Sega CD is not a total waste of time, but that the Genesis lacked the processing power to properly use the CD storage medium.
This is the first review of a Sega CD game. Also, this is the first (and thus far only) episode to feature the full-length AVGN theme song.

(YT) Dec 6, 2008

Unlike the Sega CD, the Nerd finds the 32X to have no redeeming features whatsoever. In addition to noting how inconvenient it is to hook up and how it was released just months before the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation, the Nerd finds himself not liking any of the games on the system. Doom is the only one he feels plays particularly well, and even then he notes that the game suffers from horrible music and the level count being severely cut down (he also notes that Knuckles' Chaotix is supposedly good, but was unable to find a copy in time for the review). The Nerd ends the review by physically destroying his 32X (which he paid just $2.50 for), first shooting it with an arrow and then setting it alight (though another 32X can subsequently be seen attached to his Genesis in most subsequent reviews).
James briefly discusses how inconvenient it is that companies like Sega and Nintendo suddenly decided to stop placing game labels on the top of each game cartridge, as well as mocking the add-ons themselves, regardless of the quality of the games.
In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed the 32X as the #7 worst video game console of all time.

(YT) Dec 8, 2008

(YT) Jan 21, 2009

(YT) July 4, 2009

(YT) Feb 3, 2009

While noting that they were popular games at the time of their original release, when both The Simpsons and Nintendo were at the height of their popularity, in retrospect the Nerd finds both games to be terrible. He faults them both for bad controls, in particular having to use the same button for running and jumping, and finds the level design in Bart vs. the Space Mutants to be tedious, confusing and overly difficult, which results in him not being able to get past the second level. He considers Bart vs. the World to be a little better due to having a more straightforward design (which results in him being able to finish the game), but still finds the overall gameplay bland, and the levels still very difficult and also far too long, especially in the latter stages.

(YT) Feb 16, 2009

In a reversal of most of his NES game reviews, the Nerd actually finds this game far too easy, albeit still with a few annoyingly hard moments. The ending, which reveals that the other Looney Tunes characters (who appear as the end-of-level bosses) were just playing a prank on Bugs, also leaves him annoyed, and he takes his anger out on Bugs, who has been annoying him throughout the video.
Mike Matei guest stars as Bugs Bunny. In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed Bugs Bunny (known as "The Damn Bunny") at #1 on his list of the top 10 unwanted guests.

(YT) N/A

This episode is also known as "Atari Porno" on GameTrailers. There is no longer an official release of this video on YouTube, though it has been uploaded by unaffiliated third parties.

(YT) Jun 4, 2009

The Nerd reviews, tells and recites his memories of reading the Nintendo Power magazine. Justin sings a cover of a song from a Nintendo Power commercial.
The Nerd shows a scene from Rambo on the NES and tells he will review it in the future. He also tells that he will review Fester's Quest in the next episode.

(YT) July 1, 2009

The nerd criticize Fester's Quest for its notorious difficulty, weak weapons and 3D maze section that add nothing to the game, due to being so difficult he gives up after the first boss. he give a short review on the genesis game, like Fester's quest, he bashes the game's difficulty and the sensitive controls. Rolfe portrays all members of The Addams Family, all except for Cousin Itt, who is played by Kyle Justin singing a parody of The Addams Family theme song. This episode also appears in black-and-white, excluding game footage. In his Batman: Return of the Joker review, the Nerd admits to considering the music to be one of Fester's Quest's redeeming qualities, just like any game helmed by Sunsoft in general. In two out-of-character videos, Rolfe listed the game at #10 on his list of the top 10 hardest NES games, and Fester's Gun at #6 on his list of the top 10 most hated weapons or items.
Shortly after the opening sequence, the Nerd dressed as Uncle Fester makes a reference to a phrase Donatello said in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III.

(YT) Oct 8, 2008

This episode guest starts Matei as Leatherface and Chop Top, and Steven J. Klaszky (credited as Jimmie Jim Slugg) as the hillbilly.
This episode uses the same version of the theme song as used in the Rocky (SMS) review. In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed the Chainsaw Family at #3 on his list of the top 10 unwanted guests.

According to Rolfe on the Angry Video Game Nerd Vol. 2 DVD commentary, the original ending was going to involve a longer chase sequence, which would result in Leatherface getting stuck on some rocks, and the Nerd would then decapitate him with his own chainsaw. But the plan was cut short because the sun was setting.

(YT) Oct 30, 2008

While choosing what game to review, the Nerd briefly looks at the infamous E.T., but then passes by.
This episode uses an introduction based on the opening credits for Halloween.
Guest stars Michael Mulvey and Lil' Liam Mulvey as the kids, Matei as Michael Myers, and Nicole Mulvey as the neighbor. In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed the Trick or Treaters at #4 on his list of the top 10 unwanted guests.

(YT) Jul 15, 2009

According to the behind-the-scenes episode of the series, this episode has taken the shortest amount of time to make out of all of the episodes. The Nerd mainly reviews the NES port of Dragon's Lair, and while he does praise the graphics and character animation, he criticizes the extreme difficulty and unorthodox obstacles, stating that it would be impossible to beat until having memorized all of the obstacles.

(YT) Dec 17, 2008

The episode starts with a flashback to the ending of A Very Nerdy Non-Canonical Captain S Christmas. The opening music is a rock cover of "Oh What a Merry Christmas Day" fused with the AVGN theme. Guest stars Stuttering Craig, co-founder of ScrewAttack.com, as the Ghost of Christmas Past.

(YT) Dec 19, 2008

This episode guest stars Stuttering Craig and Handsome Tom from ScrewAttack as the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Present, respectively. The sprite for Dracula's appearance from Castlevania II: Simon's Quest is used for the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come showing the Nerd reviewing Wii games in the future. This is the first Nerd episode with Super Mecha Death Christ, who can be seen in one of the images that flash on the screen quickly. This is the first review to feature a 7th generation console, in this case, the Wii.

(YT) Jul 19, 2009

The Nerd is decidedly unimpressed by the NES game, finding that in addition to being a rip-off of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, the game somehow both follows the film's storyline too much and too little at the same time, causing it to have many seemingly irrelevant sequences that slow the game's pacing, while also featuring bizarre scenarios such as Rambo fighting a giant spider. In addition, he also complains about the game's difficulty and overlong password system.
By contrast, the Master System game is felt to be much better, though the Nerd notes that it still has some flaws such as the player characters moving very slowly, and a glitch that can cause them to spawn inside a solid object. He also attempts to play the system's Rambo III game, but is unable to get very far due to the unreliable light gun that the game has to be played with.
The Nerd uses the last few minutes of the review to address the title of the latest Rambo movie, adding to points made in his Chronologically Confused about Movie Titles video. He says that while the "John Rambo" title he mooted in that video would have sounded silly, it would at least have been distinct from the prior films, and that calling the fourth film "Rambo" meant it could easily be confused with Rambo: First Blood Part II.
In two out-of-character videos, Rolfe listed the Chinese letter attack in the NES game as #4 on his list of the top 20 weirdest moments in a video game, and the incineration of the game as #9 on his list of the top 10 video game abuses.

(YT) Aug 24, 2009

He judges the console's library to be decent overall, and says that Virtual Boy Wario Land was the system's best title, albeit Teleroboxer was the one which made the best effort at simulating the virtual reality experience. The two games he singles out for the biggest criticism are Red Alarm and Waterworld, noting that the former game could potentially have been one of the best titles for the system, but was rendered near-unplayable by using wireframe graphics instead of rendered polygons, while the latter he simply deems to be very poor overall. Ultimately, in addition to the very obvious problem of the system causing eye strain and all the graphics being in red-and-black, he deems the main problem to be the fact that the developers didn't seem understand the difference between virtual reality and just having 3D imagery.
The one game he omits is Jack Bros., which he could not acquire due to it being "rare, expensive and probably not worth Jack shit." However, he later received a copy of the Japanese version and a review is added on the DVD and its subsequent YouTube re-release. In this update, the clip from the Waterworld film was edited out.
In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed the Virtual Boy as the #2 worst video game console of all time.

(YT) Sep 11, 2009

The events of the episode sync up with Pink Floyd's 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon, in reference to the Dark Side of the Rainbow combination.
While acknowledging the 1939 film as a classic (though questioning the motives of Glinda, for not telling Dorothy that she can just use her ruby slippers to transport herself home), the Nerd considers this adaptation to be one of the worst games in the entire SNES library. He criticizes the lack of faithfulness to the film or the book, the bizarre collection of enemies, and the fact that of the four player characters, only the Cowardly Lion is particularly useful. Ultimately however, the game's fatal flaw is judged to be its extremely unreliable collision detection, which makes it possible to randomly fall through the platforms and die. In two out-of-characters video, Rolfe listed the Cowardly Lion at #8 on his list of the top 10 unwanted guests, while the game's poor collision detection topped his list of the top 10 most unfair gaming moments. The episode starts up with a parody of the MGM logo, and is followed by a medley consisting of various fan-made renditions of the AVGN theme. It is also one of the few instances where, in the Nerd character, Rolfe's wedding ring is visible (when he is "attacked" by a clock).

(YT) Sep 17, 2009

The Intellivoice Voice Synthesis Module was used with: B-17 Bomber, Bomb Squad and Space Spartans.
The opening credits feature a techno remix of the AVGN theme song, which is followed by Kyle Justin singing a cover of "Double Vision" by Foreigner. This is the first review of an Intellivision game.

(YT) Sep 25, 2009

Also shown was the Expansion Module #1 which allows Atari 2600 games to be played on the ColecoVision. This is the first review of a ColecoVision game.
On the DVD, Parts I and II were presented as a single video, and the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey was replaced for the opening scene of the ColecoVision review.

(YT) Nov 8, 2009

The Nerd looks at how Super Mario Bros. 3 includes possible Satanic references and the cartridge later comes alive and attacks him. The living weapon Super Mecha Death Christ 2000 BC 4.0 Beta, originally from Cinemassacre's animated movie Wizard of Oz 3: Dorothy Goes to Hell, comes in help of the Nerd. The battle between the possessed cartridge, Rolfe and SMDC was selected as the best moment of 2008.
On the DVD, the review for The Wizard was edited out, in order to avoid copyright issues (though it is still mentioned in passing, when Rolfe talks about how SMB3 was introduced in the film). This episode opens with another medley of fan-made theme song renditions.

(YT) Nov 24, 2009

The Speedboard is featured, but no games are used with this. The Konami Laserscope was played with: Laser Invasion, Duck Hunt. The LJN Roll & Rocker was played with: Adventure Island, Excitebike, Skate or Die, Kung-Fu, Metal Gear, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project, 1943, Beetlejuice. The Brøderbund U-Force was played with: Super Mario Bros., Kung-Fu, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, Top Gun.
The Nerd finds that the Miracle Keyboard works reasonably well, though notes that the included games don't penalize the player for incorrect key presses, making it actually more effective to just hit the keys at random. The LaserScope is found to be highly impractical due to its cumbersome design and constantly having to yell "fire!" to shoot, though the Nerd does get some amusement by killing the ducks in Duck Hunt by yelling curse words at them, which still activate the LaserScope. The Nerd is especially scathing about the Roll & Rocker, as not one of the games he tries to play with it is even vaguely playable, and the standard NES controller still needs to be used anyway (for the A, B, Start and Select buttons), making it completely pointless. The U-Force turns out to actually work reasonably well, much to the surprise of the Nerd, considering its poor reputation (which had previously caused ScrewAttack to name it the worst video game peripheral ever in one of their own videos the previous year), although his attempt to land a plane in Top Gun just ends with him failing in a slightly different fashion to usual, as he overshoots the aircraft carrier instead of falling short of it.
R.O.B. makes an appearance but is not reviewed (until episode 100 on March 2011).
This video was changed a few days after its release to explain that the Nerd's problem with the Super Scope was due to his use of a flat-screen TV. This episode also features the debut of one of the Nerd's cats, Boo, and Rolfe's wedding ring is visible when he puts Boo on the Roll & Rocker.
Rolfe mentioned in a later video called "James and Mike Play Mario Paint" that he paid $50 just for the Speedboard, and used it in that video to put the mouse for the game on.

(YT) Dec 12, 2009

This episode does not use the AVGN theme music, instead opting for an Indiana Jones styled intro sequence.
To commemorate the release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the Nerd takes a look at one game for each of the original three Indiana Jones films. First of all he looks at the Raiders of the Lost Ark game for the Atari 2600, and while he notes that it was an ambitious game for the 2600, he ultimately judges that the console simply was not advanced enough to handle such a game, and that having to use two joysticks and the unclear solutions to the puzzles only made it more frustrating.
Next, he looks at the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom game for the NES, which in turn was based off the arcade version of the same game. The Nerd says that while it may have been a good arcade game (though admits not being old enough to remember that version well), the NES version was wrecked by awful controls, repetitive gameplay and, again, a lack of clarity on how to progress through the game.
Finally, the Nerd plays the Ubisoft Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade game. Though this game is a more traditional side-scroller, the Nerd ultimately judges it to be the worst of the three games, due to the terrible-looking monochrome graphics and excessive difficulty, which ultimately culminates in two extremely lengthy and tedious boss fights.
As a coda, the Nerd briefly discusses Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures, which he likens to the Super Star Wars games as an example of a classic movie adaptation done well.
On the DVD release and subsequent YouTube re-release, new footage is shown of both cartridges for Temple of Doom, and footage of the Last Crusade game by Taito is added. The Nerd considers this version a huge improvement over the Ubisoft game, even if it has some flaws such as needless puzzle segments and a long, confusing stage in the Nazi castle.
In two out-of-character videos, Rolfe listed the confusing navigation in Temple of Doom as #5 on his list of the top 20 weirdest moments in a video game, and the whipping of the Last Crusade cartridge as #9 on his list of the top 10 video game abuses.

(YT) May 7, 2009

This is the first review of a Vectrex game. The Nerd also does a brief review of the Vectrex.
The introduction is a parody of the introduction to Star Trek: The Original Series with an NES in lieu of the Enterprise. Matei guest stars as a Klingon and a Metron. The Nerd also gives a quick review and history of the Vectrex while reviewing Star Trek: The Motion Picture on that system. In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed the Klingon at #7 on his list of the top 10 unwanted guests. This is the first 2008 video to be re-released on YouTube.

(YT) Jan 1, 2010

To begin with, the Nerd takes a brief look at Superman for the Atari 2600. He finds the game extremely difficult to make any progress through due to the unclear layout.
His review of the NES Superman takes up the vast majority of the review. He immediately takes issue with the game using a generic title song instead of the John Williams theme (which actually was used for the game's Famicom release, but not the NES version due to rights issues), and adds that the rest of the music is terrible. On starting the game he criticizes its bad controls, super deformed art style, the seemingly useless collection of powers that Superman has, and the need for Superman not only to take the subway instead of flying to certain destinations, but even having to buy a ticket. The revelation that the game's second stage requires Superman to investigate and solve problems with the stock market results in the Nerd shutting the game off in exasperation.
The Nerd does not review Superman 64, but promises that he will do so in the next episode as he displays a tremendous amount of mail from frustrated fans requesting it be done.
The title screen is based on the cover of Action Comics # 1. In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed the talking Statue of Liberty in the NES game as #7 on his list of the top 20 weirdest moments in a video game.

(YT) Jan 13, 2010

The Nerd begins the review by pretending to think that "Superman 64" is actually Superman on the Commodore 64. He notes that the game is actually decent for the most part, with solid graphics and sound and a variety of gameplay styles. He finds the third stage to be excessively hard however, and also criticises the load times and copy protection the game uses (though notes that these were problems with most Commodore 64 games).
As for Superman 64, the Nerd finds it to be one of the worst games of all time. The main flaws are noted to be the terrible controls and bad collision detection, which make it extremely hard to get anywhere in the game. The Nerd also criticizes the fact that half the game effectively amounts to flying through rings, and the other half generally involves picking up cars, and sometimes also flying the cars through rings. He again questions why the John Williams theme wasn't used, though in actuality this was because the game was based on the 1990s animated series, which did not use Williams' theme. Ultimately, in a parody of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, the Nerd destroys the game cartridge by throwing it into Earth's sun.
This is part II of the Superman review.
This is the first review of a Nintendo 64 game, as well as a Commodore 64 game.
The Nerd also does a brief review on the Commodore 64 system.
Some bits of this episode were filmed in the Nerd's original gaming room in New Jersey, but most was filmed in the new gaming room in Pennsylvania.
The episode starts with a fan-made electronic remix of the theme song.
This is also the first review of a floppy disk based game.

(YT) Jan 27, 2010

The Nerd criticizes The Caped Crusader for weird controls, bad hit detection, confusing menus, and criticizes the Commodore itself for the keypad busting at random. He praises the NES game for having dark and stylish graphics, fun gameplay, and challenging difficulty. He praises the SNES version of Batman Returns for having satisfying beat-'em-up gameplay. While praising the Sega CD version's graphics, he criticizes the game for having too much driving stages, and being boring. He criticizes the Atari Lynx version for having bad graphics, no jump-attack move, and overall difficulty. For Batman Forever, he heavily criticizes the controls, mainly "Up" controlling your jump, also calling the controls to use your grappling hook and jump down "like a cheat code." He also criticizes the similarities to Mortal Kombat, which slows down the gameplay, the stock villains, and the fact that it takes a long time to kill your enemies. Mike Matei guest stars as the Joker. The title card is based on the cover for Batman #1. This is the first episode filmed entirely in the Nerd's new video game room. This is also the first review of an Atari Lynx game.

(YT) Jan 29, 2010

Again, Matei guest stars as the Joker. The opening is a parody of the 60's Batman TV series opening and is animated by Matei. Most of this episode revolves around Batman: Return of the Joker, which the Joker forces the Nerd to play. The Nerd gets very quickly frustrated by the NES version of the game, but actually considers it to be a decent game overall, the only serious issue being its unbalanced difficulty, with the stages being far too hard and the boss fights too easy.
Unsatisfied with this outcome, the Joker then makes the Nerd play the Game Boy version of Return of the Joker, and this time the Nerd finds it to be an outright bad game, due to the poorly executed grappling hook mechanic. The Joker then inflicts even more pain on the Nerd by making him play the Genesis game Revenge of the Joker, which the Nerd considers to be the worst incarnation of the game due to the terrible controls and not being able to get past the first few screens due to some seemingly unkillable gargoyles. The Nerd's rage at this last version of the game helps him escape, and he gets his revenge by inserting all the bad Batman games up the Joker's rectum.
This episode features custom versions of the 1960s Batman theme as well as the 1989 film version, both produced by Chris Holland. In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed the Joker at #5 on his list of the top 10 unwanted guests.

(YT) Feb 28, 2010

The Nerd requested for fans of the series to write this episode for him by emailing him with facts about the game and dialogue. The chosen submitters are credited at the end of the episode. He criticizes the poor comparison between the character on the game cover and the in-game character, the text explaining the backstory for being too long and scrolling too fast, the too powerful enemies, frustrating weapon mechanics, lack of in-game map, bizarre inventory screen (especially calling currency "ludder"), tricky locations of powerups, awful music, frustrating ledges, the fact that you start all over after dying every time, and the unnecessary passwords.

In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed the sword in Deadly Towers at #7 on his list of the top 10 most hated weapons or items.

(YT) Mar 17, 2010

Kyle Justin complains that he is always behind the couch during reviews. The Nerd allows him to participate in this episode and play the game in two-player mode with him (although the Nerd did not know it had such a mode). This review centers on the two-player mode itself because the players can hit each other, thereby making the game more difficult to play. The Nerd wraps up the review by saying that while the single-player mode is still great, the two-player mode is completely unplayable, and Kyle decides that life behind the couch is better after all.
In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed the game at #2 on his list of the top 10 hardest NES games.

(YT) Mar 28, 2010

Rolfe states that the video game adaptation of Dick Tracy is the most frustrating review he has ever done. His anger shown in the video is genuine because he has tried to finish the first level for over 20 years since he had the game, which has never been accomplished due to the high difficulty. Especially criticized are the snipers stationed atop every building, which are nigh impossible to shoot or avoid. The version seen on the DVD (and YouTube) is significantly different from the GameTrailers version. Certain parts where the Nerd shows clips from the movie are replaced by still photos of the corresponding scenes, and the Nerd also added some updates based on questions he got from his fans.

(YT) Oct 2, 2009

This is the first review of an unreleased game, as well as a VIC-20 game, and a Game Boy Color game.
For the VIC-20 game, he criticizes the difficult nature of even trying to put the game in, the lack of graphics (it's a text game) and the lack of clarity on what to do. For the Intellivision game, he plays it on the second model and criticizes the massive AC adapter (since the first model had a normal plug). He also finds certain elements of the game cool and others annoying, like having to use a second controller, but finds the manual text funny. For the unreleased NES game, he calls it one big product placement for Reebok pumps, questions how Dracula can die by being touched, and criticizes the time limit and stair mechanics, but feels that he can't get too mad since it was never released. For the Game Boy game, he questions the bizarre title, points out the familiar music, and criticizes the poor facial graphics on Dracula and the lack of a map and clarity on what to do. For the Sesame Street game, he finds the gameplay weird and wonders why he's even playing it. For the movie tie-in, he criticizes the similarities to Super Mario Bros., poor controls and music, and high difficulty. The SNES and Genesis games he considers basically the same and finds them nonsensical, particularly a part where a plant is facing the opposite direction from normal. He also points out the infamous Fred Fuchs. Finally,he considers the Sega-CD game to be a graphical improvement, but feels that the controls ruin it. The Nerd also does a short review on the Commodore VIC-20 while reviewing The Count for that system.
On the DVD, Rolfe's comparison of the Dracula: Crazy Vampire select screen music to the overture from The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical) (which, in turn, he compares to "Echoes" by Pink Floyd) was edited out.
In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed the credit of Fred Fuchs in Bram Stoker's Dracula as #11 on his list of the top 20 weirdest moments in a video game. Fuchs is also a running joke throughout the series.

Note: Rolfe mispronounces the name Fuchs as "fucks". It is pronounced to rhyme with "books" and is the German word for fox.

(YT) Oct 13, 2009

Matei, in his 10th on-camera appearance in a Nerd video, guest stars as Franken-Nerd.

(YT) Apr 14, 2010

In this first part of a three-part episode, the Nerd reviews the Philips CD-i interactive multimedia CD player, along with Hotel Mario. He bashes the console for its large size (which is shown to be even larger than the Atari 5200), the player 1 controller port being on the back of the console and its odd controller designs.
He criticizes Hotel Mario for its 1980s arcade-style gameplay, confusing elevator controls and annoying enemies that get in the way and re-open doors.
The opening credits show the Nerd's entire video game collection in his room. This is the first review of a CD-i game.
In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed the CD-i as the #6 worst video game console of all time.

(YT) Apr 20, 2010

In this second part of a three-part episode, the Nerd reviews Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon. He criticizes the game for its cheesy cutscenes (which he considers even worse than the Legend of Zelda animated series), terrible controls (especially for jumping and collecting Rupees), frequent dark areas, confusing door entries, maneuvering, short enemies, bad hit detection, lack of recovery time and ridiculously easy bosses. However, he lends praise to its music and graphics.

(YT) Apr 28, 2010

In this final part of a three-part episode, the Nerd reviews Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda's Adventure.
He criticizes Faces of Evil for the same reasons as the above-mentioned Wand of Gamelon.
He considers Zelda's Adventure to be a little better than the other two games, but still has criticisms for its use of digitized actors as sprites, long loading times, bad voice acting, lack of music, tedious menus, confusing layouts and misleading maps.
In the end, he throws all four of the reviewed games to the ground, before supposedly throwing the entire CD-i console after the screen fades to black. Afterwards, a montage of all CD-i Zelda games are shown accompanied by a rendition of the Zelda theme being performed in a flatulent way.

(YT) Dec 19, 2009

This is the first sequel to an AVGN episode.
The Nerd begins with Exodus on NES. He notes that the game is at least playable, but has some very monotonous gameplay. Next, he plays Noah's Ark. Before playing it however, he realizes that the title of the game is similar to one of the games in Bible Adventures. To his surprise, he notices that it's actually a licensed NES bible game. Not only that, but he also noticed that Konami was involved with the game. Really curious, he decides to see what Konami had in mind. To his astonishment, he finds this game a lot better than the unlicensed Wisdom Tree games. He praises the game for being at least playable, and it having decent graphics and music. However, he still criticizes the game's difficulty, weird moments (when Noah turns into a fish), and the fact that you restart the level after going through the bonus stage. Overall, he at least goes as far to call it a game. Next up, the Nerd plays Joshua. However, he finds out that this game is a copy of Exodus, the game he reviewed two games ago. However, he notes that the game also has a voice sample in it. Next he skates across Menace Beach. He plagues the game with horrible controls, pathetic attack range, and extremely annoying level design. He even notes the cutscene with the captured girl's rotting clothes. Next, he flips the next Bible page to Sunday Funday, but this one has three games in one cartridge. First, he plays Fish Fall. The Nerd notes that it has almost nothing to do with the bible. Second, he goes through 4Him: The Ride, but realizes that it's only a karaoke song. Third, he goes to the main game, Sunday Funday. He gives the game the same flaws as Menace Beach, but considers it even worse due to the dumb plot, and the townspeople that attack you for no reason. Finally, he covers the three CD-I bible games. He considers them to be passable, but criticizes them with bland voice acting, unneeded sound effects (in the Moses drawing game), downright obvious directions for the story mode, and bland gameplay for all three.
The "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" parody used as the theme to the original Bible Games review is recycled here. First AVGN episode to be in widescreen and in HD. This episode is filmed in 720p HD, the next being Dark Castle. The series did not start being filmed in 1080p HD until Bible Games III and every episode after that was filmed in 1080p HD. In two out-of-character videos, Rolfe listed the "kill all babies" text in Exodus as #18 on his list of the top 20 weirdest moments in a video game, and Sunday Funday as the #10 worst game on the NES.

(YT) Jul 14, 2010

The Nerd considers this to be decent for an early Genesis title, noting that it contains some good renditions of popular Michael Jackson songs, finds it cool that the game uses Jackson's dance moves for special attacks, and particularly enjoys it when Jackson turns into a robot to fight enemies. However, the Nerd also notes numerous flaws with the game, including the gameplay quickly getting repetitive, the latter stages being excessively hard and having confusing layouts, and having to use Bubbles to lead Jackson to the boss fights.
The episode was released five months before the death of Michael Jackson on June 25.

(YT) Sep 14, 2010

(YT) Aug 14, 2010

The Nerd does not review any games in-depth, but compares the graphics of games including: Zool 2 (Jaguar) vs. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (Genesis), Brutal Sports Football (Jaguar), Checkered Flag (Jaguar) vs. F-Zero (SNES), and Cybermorph (Jaguar) vs. Star Fox (SNES). He notes that despite Atari's repeated highlighting of the system's (supposedly) 64-bit architecture, in practice the games look at best only a little better than their SNES and Genesis counterparts.
This is the first review of an Atari Jaguar game. The introduction features a montage of various video game controllers, with the last one being the Atari Jaguar controller. A minor note includes the quote "Where did you learn to fly?" from Cybermorph. The Nerd replies with "Where did you learn to be an asshole?".

(YT) Aug 25, 2010

Despite the console's reputation, the Nerd enjoys some of the titles, finding Tempest 2000 to be a fun and addictive puzzle game, Doom to be a very good port of the PC original despite lacking in-game music, and Alien vs. Predator to also be very good. However, he criticizes Attack of the Mutant Penguins for being confusing and nonsensical, Kasumi Ninja for being a sub-par Mortal Kombat clone, and Cybermorph for having sluggish controls, excessive pop-up, and an extremely annoying AI co-pilot. In the end, the Nerd says that the Jaguar isn't one of the worst consoles ever, or even the worst stand-alone Atari console (which he considers to be the 5200), but that it clearly under-delivered on the claims Atari made about its capabilities.
The Nerd also discusses the Jaguar CD add-on, but is unable to review any games because of hardware failure. However, a fan sent him a working Jaguar CD soon after this video was released. He later made a video about it in 2013 with Mike and him playing some Jaguar CD games. This sequence also features audio commentary by inventor Richard Daluz, creator of various home appliances which utilize game system components, including the "Nintoaster", which would later be first used in the Action 52 review and then most of the newer episodes.
In two out-of-character videos, Rolfe listed the special moves in Kasumi Ninja as #12 on his list of the top 20 weirdest moments in a video game, and the Jaguar CD as the #4 worst video game console of time.

(YT) Nov 10, 2010

The Nerd also includes a short Chronologically Confused About Metal Gear Sequels segment. A day after the video was released on YouTube, it was flagged for unknown reasons. Rolfe points out the "I feel asleep!" quote from a guard, complaining that "you get shot even when he's asleep". Upon further analysis, one can note that the quote was supposed to be "I fell asleep!", as the guard has just awoken from his doze.

(YT) Nov 26, 2010

Games played include: Tennis, Skiing, Simon Says, Football, Hockey, Analogic, Cat & Mouse, Haunted House, Submarine, States, and Roulette. He considers it unique for a first effort, but criticizes the lack of graphics and the fact that most of the games barely qualify as games. The Nerd reviews the console with the Nerdy Turd as the second player. He also introduces an accessory, the Odyssey Gun, without discussing its use in games, but giving it positive mention that it looks like a realistic rifle.

(YT) Nov 27, 2010

After taking note of the game being from the notorious company LJN, The Nerd bashes The Uncanny X-Men for its sensitive character select screen, level layouts, graphics and annoying CPU AI.
He treats Wolverine more fairly, admitting the graphics are decent, but criticizes its unforgiving difficulty, use of Wolverine's claws (which drain the player's health), poor hit detection and lack of recovery time. He also takes note of the game also being from LJN.
He lends praise to the Konami arcade game, despite the lack of a home release (a home version for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 was released one year after the review).
He admits that the X-Men Genesis game is good, but criticizes its stage select code, the fact that Wolverine's claws are still retractable, and part of the game requiring the player to reset the console without any in-game hint given.
He states that X-Men 2 is a great game, despite giving criticism to the game's cold open.

(YT) Jan 7, 2011

This episode does not use the AVGN theme music, opting instead for a Terminator-styled intro sequence.
The Nerd finds the NES game to be one of the worst games he has ever played, due to awful controls and music, and the fact that it is possible to fall through platforms and die. Even an attempt to cheat and gain extra lives (by attaching a wrench to the controller) fails to help, due to the game inexplicably limiting the player to six lives.
The SNES version fares better, with the Nerd complimenting the decent arcade-style gameplay, but ultimately finding it a mediocre game overall due to the excessive difficulty and overly long levels.
Finally, the Nerd briefly revisits the Sega CD game, which he had previously looked at in his Sega CD review, and despite having some minor issues with the game's difficulty and controls, he ultimately deems it to be a good game, praising its quality, music and a strong contender for the best Terminator-series game overall.

(YT) Jan 11, 2011

This episode uses an intro sequence reminiscent of Terminator 2's opening.
The Nerd considers both the SNES and Genesis ports of The Arcade Game to be mindless and redundant, but considers the latter version better and both to be novelty for the time. However, he dismisses the Game Boy version as "pathetic".
He criticizes the NES version for its unforgiving difficulty and monotonous gameplay, but lends praise for its faithfulness to the film.
Though lending praise to the Game Boy version's graphics, he criticizes the game's unforgiving difficulty, especially the fact that the player is only given a single life throughout the entire game.
He considers the SNES game to be the worst. Though considering the intro funny, he bashes the game's unforgiving difficulty (like the Game Boy game, there is only a single life and no continues or passwords) and awful controls, especially while driving (even considering it the worst driving control he has ever come across).

(YT) Jan 18, 2011

This is the first episode to feature the Family Computer (Famicom) and the Family Computer Disk System, which were given a short review. He criticizes the C64 game for its gameplay, and for seemingly having little relationship with the franchise on which it is based. He heavily criticizes the Famicom version for having repetitive & cryptic gameplay, extreme lack of faithfulness to source material (for example: having the Decepticon logo as a stage boss thrice), & high difficulty. This is the also the first review of a Nintendo Famicom game, as well as an audio-cassette based game. In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed the farm with the dinosaur in the C64 game as #16 on his list of the top 20 weirdest moments in a video game.

(YT) Feb 15, 2011

While the NES Mario Is Missing is felt to have a promising concept of Luigi taking the lead for once, and decent graphics for an 8-bit game, the Nerd says that the game is terrible in execution due to the bizarre objects that are associated with the game's landmarks (in particular, King Kong with the Empire State Building), numerous glitches and faulty collision detection, and Yoshi being in the game solely to make Luigi tall enough to speak to people at tourism desks. The SNES version is noted to be virtually identical, the only differences being better graphics, fewer glitches, and strangely, a seeming emphasis on road safety.
The NES incarnation of Mario's Time Machine is deemed to be the worst of the four games here, for being an even bigger waste of its concept than Mario is Missing, its poorly-executed Mario Bros.-esque minigame, and most seriously, the game giving no clues as to which historical artifacts are supposed to belong to which year, and the fact that if a player attempts to use an artifact anywhere other than precisely the right time and place, the artifact is taken away with no hint as to what the player did wrong.
While the Nerd finds the SNES version of Mario's Time Machine to have the fewest flaws and to be the most accessible of the four games, he also deems it to be the most boring of the four due to it offering the least gameplay (aside from a "time surfing" segment which the Nerd actually finds its most annoying part) and focusing almost entirely on its educational elements. The Nerd then ends the video by ranting against the entire concept of "education games", saying that games should be fun and kept separate from learning, which can be done at school.
This episode uses a C64 version of the theme song. In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed the involvement of King Kong in the NES version of Mario Is Missing as #3 on his list of the top 20 weirdest moments in a video game.

(YT) Mar 8, 2011

This is the first AVGN video to feature a game for the 3DO, and he even does a very brief review of the system. The Nerd declares the game as one of the worst FMV games he has ever seen in his life (though as far as gameplay, he still awards that title to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), so much so that he does not want to expose its existence to his children, which was what he admitted during the AVGN movie trailer screening, heavily panning the lack of gameplay and full motion video (except for the opening, it's all still photos, often with weird color filters), awful writing, acting and dialogue, poor controls, annoying narration, the fact that it doesn't even stay true to the title, and elements that just plain make no sense. In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed the entire game as #1 on his list of the top 20 weirdest moments in a video game, and the 3DO console as the #8 worst video game console of all time. This is also the first review of a 3DO game.

(YT) Mar 15, 2011

In-between lengthy fights with Bugs Bunny (and later Woody Woodpecker), the Nerd reviews the various games and says that while none of them are really that bad, they all follow the same formula and the gameplay quickly gets repetitive. He does say that Crazy Castle 2 and 5 are a little better than the others relatively speaking, as 2 has smaller stages and introduces some new gameplay elements over the first, while 5 has 32-bit graphics and actually gives Woody an attack (which Bugs didn't have in his games), but otherwise the only significant positive he notes about the games is that they have simple, four-character passwords.
Matei guest stars as Bugs Bunny/Woody Woodpecker. Kyle Justin also makes an appearance. This is the second sequel to an AVGN episode. Also, this is the second time that this episode uses the same version of the theme song as used in the Rocky (SMS) review since The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2600) review. This episode marks the first time that Rolfe, Matei and Justin all appear together in an AVGN episode. This is also the only time that the Nerd has "died" in an episode with a guest.

(YT) Mar 22, 2011

Note: In this episode it is seen that the Nerd owns Super Mario 4 Rambo, which was played in the first episode of James & Mike Mondays.

(YT) Apr 14, 2011

The Nerd begins with Monster of Monsters, and identifies several major issues including the confusing and redundant map screen, slow gameplay and the unforgiving time limit placed on boss battles. Despite this, as the review progresses he admits that it was probably still the best NES or SNES-era Godzilla game to be released in the west, as it at least offered self-explanatory gameplay, a decent selection of monsters and allowed the player to cause destruction as Godzilla, which was the main thing he wanted from the game.
Godzilla 2 turns out to be a turn-based strategy game in which the player controls the army and battles Godzilla and other monsters. Not only does the Nerd find the game's title highly misleading when it has virtually nothing in common with Monster of Monsters, he notes that there is no real skill or strategy involved, since the outcome of each battle is decided by a slot machine minigame.
Despite a promising intro sequence with realistic portraits of Godzilla and other well-known monsters, the Game Boy Godzilla turns out to be a cartoonish puzzle game. Offended by this, the Nerd immediately switches it off without really reviewing it.
Super Godzilla, despite having impressive graphics, turns out to be another disappointment for the Nerd, as he finds the fighting engine highly confusing and poorly explained within the game itself, and notes that Godzilla is actually hurt by destroying buildings.
Eventually, the Nerd finds a Godzilla Nintendo game that he likes, Kaijuu Daikessen. Though he finds it to be relatively average for the fighting genre, he admits being highly disappointed that it was only ever released for the Super Famicom, and that the repeatedly hinted-at US release never occurred.

This is the first review to feature the Super Famicom, as well as Xbox and PS2 games, although the latter two were not reviewed in detail. The Nerd also does a brief review on the Godzilla movies. (Rolfe reviewed all the films, including the 1998 American remake, for Monster Madness '08). The scene where the Nerd played the newer Godzilla games, concludes that he was born too early and comes up with a new swear word (which is actually censored, but in the making of the episode, it turns out to be "scunt") to describe the older games was considered the best moment of 2009.

At the Magfest 2012 AVGN Q&A Panel, Rolfe explained that the reason why the Nerd played the newer Godzilla games in the episode was because he thought "that was pretty funny" and explained that he made it like the Nerd does not even know about newer games. He also said that he "played it out like he was really like, having never held an Xbox controller". He said in the end that he sees the Nerd as an outdated guy who literally lives in the past, considering that in real life, Rolfe was more familiar with older games than newer ones to some degree.

(YT) May 3, 2011

The Nerd (wearing a Wayne's World hat from the movie) reviews the Wayne's World game on NES. He criticizes the NES game for its bland graphics, headache-inducing music, bare faithfulness to the movie (when Garth is fighting drums in the first level), the fact that you restart the level on one death, and the pathetic attack (especially Wayne's kick). After playing the game, the Nerd throws it to Garth and lets him smash the NES cartridge to pieces. Next, he reviews the SNES game. He considers this version better than the NES game. However, with him criticizing the repetitive sound clips from Wayne (when he gets an item or gets hit), the confusing level design, familiar music, clunky controls, and the inclusion of Elvis as a boss, he still considers the game bad. After reviewing it, he hurls on the SNES cartridge. Footage from both Wayne's World films is used, as well as one clip from Borat (which were edited out of the DVD release).

(YT) Oct 3, 2010

This is the first Halloween special that does not revolve around a game based on a horror movie (or a novel), instead, the Nerd has a marathon of his favorite horror game series. This is the first review to have four parts. In this video, he reviews Castlevania. He admits that the game is a classic, but criticizes the game's unforgiving difficulty. In two out-of-character videos, Rolfe listed the game at #8 on his list of the top 10 hardest NES games, and the discovery of a pork chop in a wall and the fake credits as the #14 and #9 weirdest moments in a video game, respectively.

(YT) Oct 12, 2010

This is the second time the Nerd reviews Castlevania II, and his first reviewing the prequel game Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, which he calls the best (but hardest) of the NES Castlevania games. In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed Castlevania III at #7 on his list of the top 10 hardest NES games. In the video, the Nerd clarified Castlevania II is a heavily flawed title but praised for its nostalgic and atmospheric levels.

(YT) Oct 20, 2010

The Nerd considers Super Castlevania IV to be the best game in the series, praising its graphics and sound (which he notes are doubly impressive considering it was one of the earliest SNES titles), improvements to the control and gameplay, strong level design and overall atmosphere.
Dracula X is felt to be a decent game overall, but a major step-back from IV (which the Nerd notes is likely because it originated on the TurboGrafx-16), with the Nerd finding it far more similar to the third game.
The Nerd is particularly scathing about the Nintendo 64 Castlevania game, which he accuses of being the worst in the series and temporarily killing his interest in the games. He finds the controls and camera terrible, the selection of enemies ill-conceived, the music to be totally lacking, and the puzzles tedious and nearly impossible to solve.

(YT) Oct 27, 2010

Bloodlines gets a generally positive reaction from the Nerd, who says that it isn't quite as good as Super Castlevania IV, but is nonetheless a strong entry in the series.
Despite preferring the classic Castlevania style over the one adopted by Symphony of the Night and beyond, the Nerd nonetheless admits that it's a very good game, despite being annoyed by the long restart after getting a Game Over.

(YT) May 13, 2011

In this episode it is seen that the Nerd owns some of the rarest NES titles, Cheetahmen 2 and 6-in-1.
The Nerd reviews yet another unlicensed NES game Little Red Hood. He considers it thoroughly awful, criticizing the bulky cartridge, misleading cover art, awful graphics and color scheme, abysmal and cryptic gameplay, repetitive levels, the final level for completely changing the rules, and the ending.
In two out-of-character videos, Rolfe listed the game as the #6 worst on the NES, and the dog as the #5 most hated weapon or item.

(YT) Dec 20, 2010

The Nerd considers Winter Games to utilize the worst controls in a video game, going as so far to be number two on a list of the top ten worst controls in an out-of-character video. At the end, he burns the cartridge.

(YT) June 10, 2011

While the Nerd is initially confused by Street Fighter 2010 not being a fighting game and seemingly having no relation whatsoever to the rest of the series (other than Ken being the main character), he ultimately deems it to actually be a good game overall, in spite of its punishing difficulty, especially in the final stage.
Far harsher words are given to Fighting Street, the TurboGrafx CD adaptation of the original Street Fighter; the Nerd deems it to be one of the worst fighting games he has ever played, and expresses astonishment that Capcom ever greenlit a sequel to it. Street Fighter: The Movie fares a little better, with the Nerd considering it an okay game, but he notes that it seems styled more after Mortal Kombat than any of the Street Fighter games, and that the various Street Fighter II revisions are still much better.
This is the first review of a TurboGrafx-16 plus TurboGrafx CD game and a Sega Saturn game. The opening for the episode shows all of the title cards by Matei made for previous episodes (2006–09). The episode also has a small introduction/review of the TurboGrafx-16.
In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed Street Fighter 2010 at #5 on his list of the top 10 hardest NES games. On the DVD, the brief clips of Back to the Future Part II at the beginning were replaced by still photos of the corresponding scenes.

(YT) June 14, 2011

The Nerd makes some comparisons to The Legend of Zelda (NES) and overall criticizes the awful name, music ripped off from Indiana Jones, cryptic gameplay, and lack of continues.

(YT) June 14, 2011

In addition, the Nerd presents the Ninja Gaiden trilogy on NES. He comments that they are good, but also extremely difficult and that he had yet to beat them at the time. In two out-of-character videos, Rolfe listed Ninja Gaiden at #4 on his list of the top 10 hardest NES games, and the frequent "What the...?" quote in Ninja Gaiden II as the #8 weirdest moment in a video game. This is also the first episode to feature Kevin Finn, who plays a ninja that helps the Nerd improve his gaming skills by outlandish means. This is the last episode in the series to use the NES Top Loader in favor of the Nintoaster in Season 5.

(YT) July 2, 2011

The Nerd reveals the epic quest for the real treasures behind the mystery of the Swordquest releases. He explains how the first two games were released and the tournaments for the first two treasures were held, but as Atari began to die out, the tournament for the third game, Waterworld, was never held, and the last game, Airworld, was never even made. The Nerd ends it by showing his anger towards the last two tournaments not being held. This is also the first review to use an orchestral remix of the AVGN theme.

(YT) July 18, 2011

The Nerd reviews the classic Pong game on various consoles that mostly automatically contain Pong. Consoles reviewed include: Unisonic Tournament 1000, APF TV Fun, Wonder Wizard, RCA Studio II, TV Scoreboard, Super Pong Tellagame, Colorsport VIII, Ricochet, 4 Way Video Game, TV Game 6, Volley 6, Magnavox Odyssey 4000, Fairchild Channel F, Coleco Telstar, Coleco Telstar Arcade. Also, it is his second review to show a 7th generation console (the Xbox 360 with gameplay from Grand Theft Auto IV). This is the last episode in the series to use the old timeslot (usually two episodes per month) due to Rolfe suffering from burnout.

In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed the Coleco Telstar Arcade and the RCA Studio II as the #5 and #3 worst video game consoles of all time, respectively.

(YT) July 21, 2011

"Shit Pickle" makes a brief cameo. The Nerd does not play Cheetahmen, which he hinted he would review in the next episode. He also plays it on the Nintoaster, built by friend and technician Richard Daluz. This is also the new longest episode to focus on a single game, beating Plumbers Don't Wear Ties. In the episode, he makes a comment that most of the games are space shooters. Special criticism is reserved for the fact that it originally cost almost $200 (around $4 per game counting tax) when it was first released, and the fact that two of the games (Alfred N The Fettuc and Jigsaw) don't even work. He then ends the review in a similar fashion to the Nostalgia Critic with a rapid-fire criticism of the game for crashing, dying in midair, bad controls, bad graphics, bad music, misleading titles and power-ups, and games that cannot be won or lost or make no sense, set to clips from the game. In three out-of-character videos, Rolfe listed the game at #10 on his list of the top 10 worst video game controls, the #3 worst game on the NES, and the Storm Over the Desert and Timewarp Tickers games as the #10 and #6 weirdest moments in a video game, respectively. On the DVD, the scene in which the Nerd mentions the title screen music ripping off Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock's "It Takes Two" was edited out.

The trailer of that video was flagged for unknown reasons and gave James a Community Guidelines Strike, The trailer has been re-uploaded.

(YT) Aug 11, 2011

This episode serves as the conclusion to the Action 52 review. He criticizes the last game "Cheetahmen" for the weapons, bosses, glitches and nonsensical storyline (which is also noted to be a blatant rip-off of Captain N: The Game Master), but praises a special jumping glitch and it's the most playable game out of the other 51 individual games.
Cheetahmen II turns out to be much the same, with the only real improvement being a health bar. Special criticism is for the last few levels being called "Level 3", and the fact that after beating the fourth level boss, the game fails to progress to the fifth level, leaving the player in what the Nerd calls Limbo. (The Nerd subsequently accessed the fifth and sixth levels in the following video via a glitch.)
The Nerd concludes the Action 52 saga by reviewing the Sega Genesis version of the game, which he notes to be a vast improvement over its NES counterpart, albeit still bad overall. He also deems the game's incarnation of Cheetahmen to be worse than either NES game, due to the cartoonish graphics and music, repetitive gameplay and extreme difficulty.
In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed Action 52 and Cheetahmen II as the #3 and #2 worst on the NES respectively.

(YT) Sep 2, 2011

In keeping with the theme, the intro has been deliberately glitched. This episode guest stars Kevin Finn as the Game Graphic Glitch Gremlin. It is also one of the few videos in which the Nerd loses in the end when the Glitch Gremlin causes glitches in the real world. In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed the Glitch Gremlin at #6 on his list of the top 10 unwanted guests.

(YT) Nov 15, 2011

The Nerd references this game as being commonly requested, and while he does a review in the traditional AVGN style, he points out that it is not that bad, but does agree that it is very difficult. Kevin Finn reappears as the Game Graphic Glitch Gremlin. He also briefly reviews the first Zelda, referencing how the third labyrinth is shaped like a swastika and the confusing monster titles, including Like-Like, Tektite, Pols Voice, Gibdo, Rope, and Keese.
The opening also includes part of the Zelda song at the end of the last video of the CD-i review. The Power Glove makes an appearance towards the end. While the Nerd notes that he has never beaten the game's final boss, he actually manages to unintentionally defeat the boss with the use of the Power Glove as he moves his hands.

(YT) Dec 1, 2011

The Nerd revisits some of his previous reviews before doing justice to the Back to the Future Trilogy on NES.
For the most part, his criticisms of the two NES games are the same as in the original review. He notes that as the first game progresses it does start to follow the events of the film a little more, though still suffers the same monotonous gameplay and poor graphics and music.
Playing Part II & III in more detail, he deems the game to be even worse than the first one. Despite researching how to play it, he makes no progress whatsoever during two hours of trying to beat the Part II segment, and then uses a cheat code to skip to the Part III segment, but can't make any progress there either.
The Genesis Part III game fares little better. While the graphics are noted to be decent for the time, the Nerd says that the game's music is terrible, and that the gameplay is both repetitive and far too difficult. Despite not beating the first stage, he notes that the game has only four stages anyway, and calls it "pathetic."
By contrast, Super Back to the Future II turns out to be by far the best Back to the Future-related game the Nerd had played until that point. Though he doesn't go into much detail, he nonetheless is exasperated that the game was never released outside Japan.
He ends the video by saying that he has one more game to revisit, one he wishes to not have to touch again.
This is the third time that this episode uses the same version of the theme song as used in the Rocky (SMS) review since The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2600) review (the second was in the Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle episode).

(YT) Oct 31, 2011

The Nerd gives Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde a longer and more in-depth treatment. The title card is based on a poster for the 1931 film version starring Fredric March.

(YT) Dec 26, 2011

The Nerd calls the game an "experiment to create the worst video game character in history" and makes jokes about possible sequels. His main criticism regards the terrible player controls. He also returns briefly to the CD-i, stating that he would rather play The Flowers of Robert Mapplethorpe instead, but changes his mind.

In a parody of How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, the Nerd talks about a variety of games in rhyme, with many hand drawn illustrations by Matei. This is the first new episode since the TMNT 3 movie review to be released on YouTube before GameTrailers. Composer Bear McCreary arranged the "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" parody song with NES-styled audio elements.

(YT) Dec 30, 2011

The Nerd's main problem with the game is the premise of playing out a boy's daydreams, which he considers to be poorly conceived and uninteresting. Aside from that, he says that the game isn't actually too bad overall, with the graphics, sound and gameplay being generally decent, but he gets annoyed by the repetitive level designs, the puzzles being very obtuse, and the last level being a let-down after a much better penultimate level.

(YT) February 9, 2012

Firstly, the Nerd takes a brief look at the four Atari 2600 games, judging them to be relatively typical by the system's standards, though he considers the The Empire Strikes Back game to be the best of the four, and Jedi Arena the worst.
The Famicom Star Wars game is judged to be by far the worst of the games here, due to its extreme difficulty (with only three lives, no continues and one-hit deaths) and bizarre alterations to the film's storyline, such as Darth Vader seemingly showing up as the first level boss and then transforming into a giant scorpion. The only major positive that the Nerd notes is the ability to use Force powers, though even then he finds that they run out far too quickly.
The western NES Star Wars games are considered to be a major improvement over the Famicom version. He still has criticisms for the difficulty (in particular, the ridiculously hard Death Star level in the first game), but still finds it much more manageable than the Famicom game, and judges both games to be playable, faithful to the films and above-average by NES standards.
The Nerd considers the Super Star Wars series to be where LucasArts perfected the Star Wars game formula, judging them all to be near-perfect representations of the films and very good games in their own right. The only real criticism he has is that the boss fights can be overly hard.
This is the last episode to be shot in a 4:3 aspect ratio.

(YT) Mar 15, 2012

On the 100th video anniversary special, the Nerd rants about the bad games and consoles ever made, but then he decides to play Gyromite. He gets help from R.O.B. when it is a two-player co-op game. When the Nerd asks R.O.B. to play another game, R.O.B. chooses Stack-Up, but the Nerd hates that you must control a video game to control a robot, so he claims R.O.B. as a bad accessory. When the Nerd tries to play a different game, R.O.B. eliminates all "shitty" games, and the Nerd will have a world without bad games, but at the cost of every game being Gyromite or Stack-Up and at the good games' existence, so he battles R.O.B. after an attempt on his life. The episode ends with a shot of Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, the first review.

This episode is the second to be shot in 16:9 widescreen (first one being Bible Games 2), along with other episodes in the future. The intro to this episode features clips from previous 4:3 episodes and the theme song up until the vocal comes in. An explosion that expands across the widescreen frame takes place, and all of the title cards Mike Matei drew flash toward the screen until it ends with the R.O.B. title card; this is the last Nerd episode to have a title card as Mike felt that it's a waste to make a title card that would be on screen for only 2 seconds.^[3] This episode features music by John Jennings Boyd and Lachlan Barclay.

In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed R.O.B. at #4 on his list of the top 5 worst gaming accessories.

(YT) April 12, 2012

While the Nerd says that Jaws is actually somewhat faithful to Jaws: The Revenge and definitely not the worst LJN game, he nonetheless considers it poor overall due to the gameplay being extremely repetitive.
Hook is heavily criticized for its generic, overly difficult gameplay, and poor graphics and music.
The episode mostly focuses on the Jurassic Park games. The Nerd considers both Genesis games and the first SNES game to be quite decent, if rather hard, and he compliments the atmosphere and stylish graphics of the first Genesis game, along with the first-person segments of the first SNES game. The Chaos Continues is criticized for its difficulty, poor level design and large segments which feature no dinosaurs. The NES game is felt to be a poorly downsampled port of the first SNES game. The Sega CD game turns out to be a point-and-click adventure game, a genre which the Nerd admitted to not being good at anyway, but even then he considers it to be boring and difficult to make any progress through. The 3DO game is considered to be the worst, with the Nerd criticizing the bizarre and poorly designed minigames, along with the music & sound effects and usage of "lookalike" actors who don't look anything like the characters in the movie.

Throughout the review, the Nerd avoids reviewing E.T. the Extra- Terrestrial (Atari 2600). At the end, the Nerd picks up the game and shudders in dismay. The video fades to black and a "to be continued" message appears, to be reviewed in Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie. The movie was originally intended to come out shortly after this video was published, but was pushed back due to unforeseen difficulties in filming. This is the second episode in which the Nerd cries, albeit silently. In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed the boxart with "E.T. Go Come" as #15 on his list of the top 20 weirdest moments in a video game.

This is the first episode to have a split screen effect in its opening wherein two separate frames are showing different AVGN clips at the same time, possibly to take advantage of the widescreen format. This practice would be repeated in future episodes. This is the first episode to start without having title cards in future episodes.

(YT) May 1, 2012

James Rolfe gives us a look at the making of a typical AVGN episode, using Barbie as the example. At the end is the finished Barbie episode. As of July 2014, this is the longest episode to date, beating Action 52 by over eight minutes. This is also the second episode to feature Rolfe as himself, out of character. The Barbie review alone runs for 3 minutes.

(YT) May 7, 2012

The Nerd bashes Kid Kool for seven design flaws, which he gives names to: inability to backtrack ("one-way bullshit"), ridiculously fast running ("two-geared diarrhea"), awkward jump control ("jump fuckness"), requirement to skip across water ("topside aquatic ass"), vertical scrolling ("air suspension shit-lift"), random and numerous invisible blocks ("invisi-bitches") and frequent dropping down ("free-falling fuck-balls"). In two out-of-character videos, Rolfe listed the game as the #9 worst on the NES, and #8 worst control in a video game.

(YT) May 16, 2012

This episode guest stars and is co-written by Pat Contri, known as "Pat the NES Punk". The Nerd tells that he has recently bought a box of games off of eBay, with Nintendo World Championships listed as one of them. After opening the box, he is disappointed to find out that the cart is in fact a reproduction cart, and soon calls over the NES Punk to attempt to take his rare gray copy by lying about giving it the "Nerd Seal Of Approval", but when the Nerd offers the box of games to him, Pat finds that the box also contains a rare gold copy of the game. After daydreaming about owning the gold and gray copies, the two compete in a winner-takes-all duel to see who wins both the cartridges. The Nerd is surprised that the game is three games (Super Mario Bros., Rad Racer and Tetris) in one, but in a time limit. He eventually decides that the whole game is not worth it and smashes both the cartridges, then offering the NES Punk the reproduction, before Pat starts laughing maniacally and the episode cuts to black right before Pat strangles the Nerd. It is shown post-credits that the smashed carts were props, although the others seen were real. James confirmed both carts actually belong to Pat.

(YT) October 1, 2012

After commenting about his boredom of reviewing 8-bit games, The Nerd decides to review a Sega Genesis game, in this case Dark Castle. He considers the game to be the worst game for the Genesis, bashing its terrible controls, poor graphics, & unforgiving difficulty. He later reviews the CD-I port, which he considers to be even worse. In the end, The Nerd later whips the games out of anger.
In two out-of-character videos, Rolfe listed Dark Castle as having the #1 worst control in a video game, the "Saddam was here" graffiti as the #19 weirdest moment in a video game. This episode was the second episode to be filmed in 720p HD, the first being Bible Games II. T The series did not start being filmed in 1080p HD until Bible Games III and every episode after that was filmed in 1080p HD.

(YT) December 11, 2012

The Nerd finishes the Bible Games Trilogy. He comments that the first game is just reading the Bible with some bad games attached, though he does find amusement in finding unintentional curses in the Bible section. For the second game, he discusses its complicated history and says that the games are all mediocre knockoffs of better games and notes that the only Bible based game, Adam and Eve, is the most original (though still a ripoff), very weird, and has nothing to do with the Bible story, leading him to question the title. For Spiritual Warfare and Bible Adventures, he says they're basically the same as their 8-bit counterparts. And for the final game, he considers it horrendous, criticizing the title, the weak attack, the weird angle you move at, which makes falling frustratingly easy, obvious geographic errors, ridiculous method of collecting health (answering Bible related questions), and awful ending. This is the first episode to be filmed in 1080p HD and every episode after this one was also filmed in 1080p HD.

In celebration of the release of The Expendables 2, the Nerd reviews games based on movies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Despite reminiscing about how frustrating he found Total Recall as a child, and how the game is still very difficult today, he nonetheless admits that it is much better than most of the other games in this video, as it at least offers decent graphics and sound, some interesting level designs, and follows the movie's story quite well.
The Nerd is far more scathing about Last Action Hero, criticizing the game's usage of screenshots from the movie (which are near-illegible in the game due to the NES's graphic limitations), mediocre in-game graphics which make Jack Slater look nothing like Schwarzenegger, and boring, repetitive gameplay.
Conan fares even worse, and is judged to have poor graphics, terrible controls (in particular, pressing down on the D-pad to jump), and unbalanced difficulty, with the first stage being extremely difficult and the following ones too easy. On top of that, it turns out that the game is actually based on Robert E. Howard's original stories rather than the films Conan the Barbarian or Conan the Destroyer, causing the Nerd to realize that he wasted his time reviewing the game.
The Nerd briefly touches on Commando, conceding that it has absolutely nothing to do with the film Commando, but is a good game nonetheless.
Finally, the Nerd reviews Predator, which takes up the bulk of the video; while the Nerd notes that Conan is worse, he also identifies many faults with this game. On top of graphical and control issues, he criticizes the lack of faithfulness to the film, faulty collision detection, glitches that force the player to use a "suicide code" (which the Nerd notes can easily be activated by accident) to kill the player character when it becomes impossible to proceed, and making the titular Predator seem completely unthreatening by having so many of them easily killed during the game.

This is the second new episode since the TMNT 3 movie review to be released on YouTube prior to GameTrailers and the How the Nerd Stole Christmas video that was exclusively released on YouTube. This episode reveals that the Guitar Guy, played by Kyle Justin, is dead because at the end of this episode, just before the Nerd plays Predator all over again, Justin's skeleton is seen with his hat and guitar.
In five out-of-character videos, Rolfe listed the "big mode" in Predator as #20 on his list of the top 20 weirdest moments in a video game, the ending as the #10 worst ending in a video game, the grenades as the #4 most hated weapon or item, the ending, and Conan as having the #3 worst control in a video game, and being the #4 worst game on the NES.

This is one of the hardest NES games the Nerd has ever beaten, ironically also being the first NES game Rolfe ever played (packaged with the NES he got for his eighth birthday). Rolfe later listed this game at #6 on his list of the hardest games on the NES, and the flame at #2 on his list of the most hated weapons or items.
This episode was exclusively released on YouTube, Cinemassacre and GameTrailers two days before the game's re-release on the Nintendo eShop for the Nintendo 3DS.

The Nerd plays a compilation of sports games for the Atari 2600, after ranting about the over-abundadance of sports games.

Football (2600), Realsports Football (2600), Super Challenge Football (2600), Super Football (2600), Basketball (2600), Home Run (2600), Super Challenge Baseball (2600), Real Sports Baseball (2600), Ice Hockey (2600), RealSports Volleyball (2600), Boxing (2600), RealSports Boxing (2600), Tennis (2600), RealSports Tennis (2600), Grand Prix (2600), Math Gran Prix (2600), Karate (2600), International Soccer (2600), Pelé's Soccer (2600), Golf (2600), Miniature Golf (2600). He considers them to range from mediocre to unplayable.

In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed the graphic of the batter in Real Sports Baseball as #17 on his list of the top 20 weirdest moments in a video game.

The Nerd plays Ikari Warriors. Justin reappears as the Guitar Guy (his first appearance in a Nerd review since the Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle episode) after the Nerd uses the continue code to revive him. This episode also features the AVGN theme song for the first time since the Dark Castle episode. Especially criticized is the enormous length of each level. Also receiving criticism is the aiming controls, speed of the character, tanks exploding upon depleting their fuel tanks and repetitive music. The episode was mostly improvised, including Justin's music.

The Nerd plays the Toxic Crusaders games, based on The Toxic Avenger film and Toxic Crusaders TV show. Featured is special guest star Lloyd Kaufman, director of The Toxic Avenger series and co-founder of Troma Entertainment. He considers them all to be awful, from bad graphics to bad gameplay to elements that make no sense (like the player character being hurt by water, despite his goal being to clean stuff up, and toxic waste, which made him) and though Kaufman tries, in his own way, to defend them, he eventually gets mad at them too.

In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed "Toxic Crusaders" on NES as having the #7 worst control in a video game.

The Nerd reviews Bill & Ted's Excellent Video Game Adventure. He considers the game to be terrible even by LJN standards, bashing every single aspect of the game, such as its lack of music (stopping after approx. 30 seconds), tedious phone dialing, confusing circuit navigation, delayed screen scrolling, inability to walk on grass (which the Nerd considers as bad as flaws such as the snipers in Dick Tracy), random passageways, and having to find essential items by jumping into random parts of the scenery. In the end, the Nerd angrily bemoans the quality of LJN's game library (which he calls "a shitstorm of horrible games") and accuses the company of damaging the NES's image as a whole, before saying that Bill & Ted is the company's worst-ever NES game. He then tries to wrap up the review, but ends up twice coming back to yell even harsher insults at the game. Finally, he asks what the game's developers were thinking, and then concludes that this time, "they weren't thinking."
In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed the game as the #5 worst on the NES.

After briefly reminiscing about his initial Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde review, and how he mistakenly referred to the NES game Wall Street Kid as "Tax Man" (which in actuality is a Pac-Man clone for the Apple II), the Nerd moves onto reviewing Tiger Electronics' line of LCD video games. While he concedes that they were very popular, likely due to their affordable nature, the Nerd deems every single one of the games to be extremely primitive, clunky and barely even playable.
He then moves onto the company's line of wrist games, which he considers to be even worse due to their awkward, cramped layout and even more simplistic gameplay. He also complains about the blister packaging commonly used for consumer products, leading to an appearance by the Bullshit Man from Rolfe's You Know What's Bullshit? series.
Next, the Nerd looks at the Game.com handheld console, and while noting that it had some innovative features for its time, he considers them to have been poorly executed, and the console's overall game library very poor, albeit still better than their LCD games.
Finally, he tries out the company's R-Zone system, which he judges to be the worst video game console of all time, due to not only suffering every problem that their LCD games had, but also being extremely awkward to play due to the games being projected in red-and-black right in front of the player's eye. The only positive aspect he mentioned though is that unlike the Virtual Boy, the R-Zone has a headstrap.

In an out-of-character video, Rolfe listed the Game.com and the R-Zone as the #9 and #1 worst video game consoles of all time, respectively.

(YT) October 22, 2013

The Nerd reviews Alien 3. Already expecting the worst when he finds that it's yet another LJN game, he criticizes the backwards control scheme, layout and lack of faith to source material when games such as Contra, Metroid and Xenophobe, which are not even tie-ins to the Alien franchise, copied more from the films than the official game did. He also shows his dislike for the fact that before reaching the end, you must rescue prisoners, yet there is no counter telling you how many are left, and there is a time limit; another criticism is that there are no games based on Alien or Aliens, just Alien 3, which he blames on the fact that the game was made not to be of good quality, but to market the film. However, he commends the music and admits it's not actually that bad of a game overall, especially by LJN standards.

This episode also advertises Monster Madness, in which Rolfe reviews 31 horror/monster films every October; the episode was released the same week he was reviewing the Alien franchise, with the review for the Alien 3 film posted the following day.

The Nerd comes around full circle, reviewing his own games, considering the majority to fun but extremely difficult. Board James makes a cameo and talks about an AVGN Monopoly game. After the Nerd asks him about his jail time, he said he was framed for his crime, and placed the blame on his Dream Phone.

The Nerd is seen playing the PC games on a Commodore 64, but he does admit that he's actually playing on a modern computer while reviewing AVGN Game Over. Seemingly he's seen playing Texting of the Bread on an old phone.

AVGN Adventures is the most recent game ever reviewed by the Nerd, since it only came out two months before the review, on September 20, 2013.

This is also the first review of a PC game.

Note: The Nerd (not Rolfe himself) does not recognize the character "Mike".

For Christmas, the Nerd looks over old department store catalogs and reminisces over some of the games displayed within. Then he begins to look at the wish list of games that his fans have wanted him to look at, beginning with various Sonic the Hedgehog games and Where's Waldo?.

The Nerd states that while Skate or Die was a popular game of its time, he criticizes its awkward controls and short length.
He considers Bad Dudes to be dated, and criticizes its sluggish gameplay, lousy hit detection, and backwards controls.
He heavily bashes Karate Champ for its dreadful graphics, hit detection and controls, even stating that the game contains the worst controls in all of gaming.
Next, the Nerd reviews the "bad" Sonic games he has been requested to do. He comments on Sonic Blast for its sluggish gameplay, as he does for Sonic Labyrinth, in addition to its messy controls. However, he states that with portable games, compromises have to be made.
He considers Sonic R and Sonic Shuffle to be poorly made ripoffs of Mario Kart and Mario Party respectively.
Before playing Shadow the Hedgehog, he finds it strange to see a Sega game on a Nintendo console, and points out how he doesn't even know who Shadow is and is surprised to see a Sonic character wielding a gun. As for the game, he states that while he plays it poorly while going through the first level, it is at least better than the aforementioned games, and he does not consider it terrible.
Next, he returns to the NES and reviews Where's Waldo?. He gives it a negative it for its monotonous gameplay, short length, overlong and unnecessary cutscenes and bad minigames. He ends this part by mocking the title character's clumsy movement in the cutscenes between stages.

Note: This is the first time that the Nerd has covered games for the Sega Dreamcast and Nintendo Gamecube, as well as the Sega Game Gear.

The Nerd concludes his list of requests from fans. He starts by reviewing A Boy and His Blob, which he does not consider bad, but states that it is a tedious game.
Next, he reviews The Three Stooges. Aside from considering the intro funny, he criticizes its depressing plot, repetitive gameplay, bad graphics, broken controls and boring minigames.
On the SNES, he reviews Home Improvement. He criticizes its generic stage designs, weak weapons, unforgiving difficulty, and even gives special mention to its manual, which reads "REAL MEN DON'T NEED INSTRUCTIONS".
Though considering the original arcade version of Pit Fighter to be a classic, he declares the SNES version as the worst game on the console, bashing its dull graphics, broken controls and unforgiving difficulty.
The centerpiece review is of his second-most requested game (after E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial), Bubsy 3D. He bashes the game for its simplistic objective, lack of enemies, dull graphics, awkward controls, camera movement and annoying voice acting, and states the game itself feels like it "was barely started at all".
He finishes with a review of Spider-Man: Maximum Carnage, which he praises as a good beat-'em-up game. He later discovers that the game was published by LJN and is shocked about the fact that they have made a game that's decent.

Due to several fan requests, the Nerd reviews Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing. When he first tries the game, he questions what the complaints were, claiming that he rather enjoys the game. He points out the flaws in its graphics, stage design, inability to lose even on the most recent editions, nonexistent hit detection and physics, and misleading info on the cover. He also points out the phrase "You're Winner" after the end of the race. The Nerd considers the game the worst in terms of programming and quality control (though as far as frustration and overall experience, he still awards that title to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). At the end of the review, the Nerd ponders on how fast he can go in reverse, another criticism in which the truck goes faster in reverse than forward. The result causes the truck to not only achieve "ludicrous speed", but also causes an ear-piercing noise, making the Nerd stop holding the reverse key, though doing so causes him to stop instantly and be sent flying into the video store room (a new portion of Rolfe's basement).

Note: Not counting the AVGN games and all games on the home computers prior to Windows, this is the first PC game the Nerd has ever reviewed.

The Nerd looks at the unreleased Sega CD game Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors, mainly focusing on the mini-game Desert Bus, which many claim to be even worse than Big Rigs. He criticizes the game for being so monotonous, as it takes 8 hours (in real time) to get from Tucson to Las Vegas in the game and that the player has the option of driving back and forth between the two locations but just to only earn points, with absolutely no way to pause the game. He also notes how there are no passengers in the bus the player is driving, that the scenery never really changes for the entire duration of the in-game trip, and that this mini-game was made in response to the controversy surrounding violent video games at the time the game was being made, resulting in an 'overly realistic' game. Not willing to waste his time on the game, he uses a clamp to hold the A button down so that the bus keeps driving but then finds out that because the bus veers slightly to the right, the player cannot ignore the game at all. Then, to top it all, getting stuck in the sand on the side results in the bus getting towed back to the start, also in real time. The Nerd becomes so frustrated by the game, believing that he had failed in his 10-year mission to warn the world about shitty games because many others have played this game (so much so that there is even a fan-made adaptation of the game for the Atari 2600) and suffered through it, that he announces that he is retiring. A brief montage of moments from previous Nerd videos plays before the Nerd decides to look at one more game; Castlevania II: Simon's Quest Redaction.

As it turns out, this game, which is a hack of the original NES game, improves on a lot of the issues that the Nerd had with the game when he first reviewed the game 10 years ago, though he notes that certain annoying parts of the game, like having to collect hearts to buy items and invisible floors, are still there. Still, he notes that the improvements made here are 'a good start'. While the townspeople in the original version of the game only gave cryptic riddles that did not help in any way, the Redaction version of the game actually has them giving helpful advice, some of which the Nerd had never knew until that time, like how Dracula's nail could be use to break barrier blocks. Also, the day to night transitions are much faster and are not as interrupting of the gameplay as they were in the original game. After seeing a text box that gives away the answer to how to pass through the one wall (which he had said was the most cryptic part of the game), he decides not to retire after all as he realizes that the 'word of the Nerd' has indeed been heard. The video ends with him realizing that it is now time for him to 'take things further' and do something to top everything he has done so far.

Note: Ten year anniversary of the AVGN.

A clip from Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie of the Nerd reviewing the game. The only difference is that actual footage from the game is used, while in the movie original animations were shown due to a lack of license. He finds that the confusing and non-linear nature is what makes the game addicting, and points out that the game's flaws are the reason people are so fascinated by it. He also states that E.T., despite its many flaws, is not the worst game ever.

This is the first episode entirely dedicated to one single Atari 2600 game.

The Nerd looks at the NES version of Beetlejuice, and quickly despairs on finding out it's another LJN game. Before looking at the game in detail, he takes time to address fans who have tried to correct him about LJN, which was not a developer but a publisher who contracted other companies to develop the games they released; to this, the Nerd points out that LJN are still to blame because they were responsible for making sure the developers made a good product, and points to Beetlejuice developers Rare's generally good track record elsewhere as proof that LJN were likely forcing their developers to churn out hastily developed cash-in games.
Like Kid Kool, he sums up the game's major flaws with his own descriptors: "Bouncing Bullshit" (getting knocked back by touching enemies), "Perpendicular Dick Ploy" (passing through walls), "Bitch Barrier" (being unable to jump down without scrolling), "Inanimate Anal Ass Assassinations" (lack of sense between what's in the background/offscreen and harmless and in the foreground/onscreen and deadly), "Fruitless Farts" (pointless power-ups), "Diarrhetic Diversions" (misleading enemies and areas), "Freeform Fuckery" (lack of loyalty to the source material), "Pinpoint Piss Taking" (stomp attack with irritatingly precise controls), "Rat Trap Crapshoot" (confusing boss fight), and "Bad Music" (self-explanatory).The Nerd decides the game is based not off the movie but on the similarly named star. The Nerd concludes the episode with a fake letter of acceptance LJN wrote to their developers, and then destroys the game by stomping on it, quoting the film.

Day 1 of "12 Days of Shitsmas". The Nerd starts off the video by explaining that this is the first of a series of 12 videos called "12 Days of Shitsmas", released daily through December. He begins with Tagin' Dragon. He looks at the game and says the dragon on the title screen looks absolutely horrible. He criticizes the game for being monotonous and having slippery controls. He claims winning the game is "pure luck" and that he only played the game for a few minutes, even as a rental.

Collectively this 12-day Christmas special is stated in the video description to be over an hour long.^[4]

Day 2 of "12 Days of Shitsmas". The Nerd reviews ALF and compares the game to E.T. which he claims has a similar objective. He compares the villains in the game to pedophiles because of the way they move, and criticizes the fact that the screen does not move fast enough. He also criticizes the character for having a hit box that is too big, as he can get hit by obstacles that are not in the same 3D plane as him. He notices the character does not have a front-facing sprite, meaning he briefly disappears as he turns around. He also mentions the game's lack of sound effects, the fact that ducking only performs a useless squat, and the one-hit deaths with only one continue.

Day 3 of "12 Days of Shitsmas". The Nerd begins by mentioning that CrazyBus is not a game, but a tech demo for the Genesis from Venezuela, created in 2004. He criticizes the game's lack of any goal or interactivity, as all the player does is move the bus forward or backward by holding the D-Pad and is also able to honk the horn. He finds a new found appreciation for Big Rigs and the Tiger LCD games. He mentions the goal for the game is pretty much how long the player can hold down one button for and claims the only things needed for that are the controller and a timer, with no need for the actual game. He also criticizes the soundtrack as being only a mess of random noises. He decides the game was made by somebody who was a fan of buses in Venezuela and after realizing that no other game from the time features Venezuelan buses, he decides the game is the definitive game for Venezuelan buses.

Day 4 of "12 Days of Shitsmas". The Nerd mentions four games for the SNES all based on the TV series The Ren & Stimpy Show and that although the games do a great job of capturing the characters from the show, the games themselves were of poor quality and each had their own flaws. He takes a specific look at Ren & Stimpy: Fire Dogs. He notices Ren is not in the first level at all, with the player only playing as Stimpy. He mentions the irony of using fire poles to slide up to a higher level and the fact that the actual firefighters present are enemies in the game and one hit causes death. He mentions the use of fire extinguishers as a weapon against the firefighters, but they only stun them and only for a few seconds, too fast to be useful, and they are not very accurate shots. He mentions the use of dalmatian-colored paint as a power-up but that walking under fire sprinklers washes it away, and that the extinguishers and paint are found in different locations every time the game is played while the items needed for collection are always in the same area. He criticizes the time limit which only give the player barely enough time to finish when running, and if no damage is taken. He criticizes the method of ending a level by standing in front of a fire engine and selecting each item to deposit into it one by one, each in specific spots, and then a bonus portion of the level where the player must find Ren and guide him to kitty litter, still under the time limit. In the second stage, the player who is playing as both characters has to bounce random objects on a trampoline for five minutes, which the Nerd fails at, assuming he was not successful because the stage needed a 100% score.

Day 5 of "12 Days of Shitsmas". The Nerd looks at The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends and mentions the annoying loop of music in the game which only lasts a few seconds. He says that although the character begins with bombs which are a good attack, they can run out leaving the player with only the capability to charge at others, an attack which damages the player, until he sees any enemy in the game can be easily jumped over. In the next room, full of stairs, he claims the room leads to a dead end until he sees that a random stair in the room actually leads upward. He mentions that Bullwinkle has a hit box that is too big. He does point out that the player can switch to Rocky at any time who can fly, but does not have the ability to climb stairs, which leaves him dumbfounded. He inputs a code the show a later level of the game, and finds the code has caused the game to act glitchy, and then hears music which he considers the worst music he has ever heard on the NES.

Day 6 of "12 Days of Shitsmas". The Nerd flashes back to his playing Toxic Crusaders with Lloyd Kaufman and telling him that he will get around someday to playing an Olsen Twins game. Getting around to it the first time, he looks at Get a Clue for the Game Boy. He is first shocked to hear the game is talking. He finds the game is a decent puzzle platformer but with its flaws. He finds the "puzzle" aspect of the game is literally assembling pieces of a puzzle by using switches to open gates, even though only Ashley can actually activate the switches. He explains that the player can freely switch between Mary Kate, who can jump high, and Ashley who can move switches, but there is absolutely no way to visibly tell them apart, citing that the most hardcore fans of Full House had ways of telling which Olsen twin was currently on screen as Michelle. He mentions that the game has hints which are very specific, actually telling the player how to complete the level! He finds weird mechanics in the fact that Ashley can bounce off of Mary Kate's head and they both can bounce off their dog, and the dog can be thrown as a weapon. He concludes that he thought the game was actually good but was not sure if it was aimed at young girls, or people who like puzzles. Note: First episode dedicated entirely to a Game Boy Color game.

Day 7 of "12 Days of Shitsmas". The Nerd takes a look at V.I.P with Pamela Anderson. He notes that although the characters look like lifeless mannequins, this was acceptable for the standards of the PlayStation's graphics. He criticizes the game for simply being an electronic version of Simon Says, simply being a button masher, as long as the player presses the right buttons with no delay, the game always reacts. He notices Pamela Anderson always attacks with a purse, but after a while, the player switches to her partner who uses a gun, but that rather than play like a first-person shooter, the game plays like an arcade-style shooter. He criticizes the fact that the only collectible item are diamonds which occasionally come out of enemies, but they only unlock cutscenes some of which are already viewable by just playing through the story, as well as still images from the TV series re-done in the game's graphical style, which he notes have no point. The last thing he does is praise the game's energetic and upbeat music.

Note: This is the second episode which is dedicated to reviewing a single PlayStation game.

Day 8 of "12 Days of Shitsmas". The Nerd mentions the game was made not by LJN, but by Ocean, and assumes it is a good game. He finds the game is average at best, as it plays the same as any other beat-em up, particularly the ones available on the SNES which was new at the time of the game's release. He notices the graphics are inconsistent, as he comes out of the jungle and in to what he first thinks is an Egyptian desert but is really a mountain range, midway through the first level. He notices punching and kicking have the same attack power as simply using bullets, and he can even kick down a helicopter to destroy it. He notes that both characters from the film are available to play as in the game but does not know how to switch. He then finds out switching characters is done by walking off the left side of the screen, which angers him. He gives a final warning to never play any game based off a movie and then walks-off screen to the right. Mike Matei then appears from the right, takes over playing the game and, quoting Roger Murtaugh's famous line, says "I'm getting too old for this shit."

Note: This is Mike Matei's first appearance in a Nerd video since 2009 (Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle). This is also the first episode where Matei appears as himself, previous appearances have been as game characters.

Day 9 of "12 Days of Shitsmas". The Nerd begins by talking about the film Porky's the grandfather film of both naughty comedy films aimed at adults, and awful comedy films of the modern day, and ties in the game as being the grandfather of awful movie licensed games. He sees the game begins on a vertically scrolling area but he suddenly winds up on a different screen. After figuring out what happened, he realizes the screen is a trap where the player has to polevault over a pond and collect pieces to build ladders to escape, rung by rung. He mentions the controls for the pole vault mechanic are not smooth but it has to be done to get to the next screen. The second screen is based off the movie scene where Mickey and Ted see the girls showering in the locker room, which he is shocked to see adapted for an Atari game. At first he is not sure what to do on this screen, until he sees that one item is found on each of these screens and it has to be pushed to the screen below to get back to street level. He later finds the items he is pushing are used to blow up Porky's bar and falling into the pond and visiting the shower room have to be done repeatedly. At the end the player has to navigate a maze to get to the bar and The Nerd says the maze is randomized every time the game is played, and there is no indication which path is the right to go, and falling off the maze causes the player to be caught by Porky. After winning the game, he imagines the story Pee Wee would tell about what he did on the day the game's events took place. As the episode goes on, he makes reference to the fact that Porky is not Porky Pig but the title character from the movie and that Pee Wee is not Pee Wee Herman.

Day 10 of "12 Days of Shitsmas". The Nerd mentions the system was made by Mattel, the same company who made the Intellivision and the Power Glove and that the system came out at the same time as the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii but fell under the radar. With the first game he tries, X-Men, he finds the way to start the game is to scan a character card followed by a mod card. He finds the card scanning process mundane because it is not very responsive, and says that a character select screen would have been good for a fighting game. When the game begins to load, he uses the long load time to talk about the cards, which were separately sold trading cards and the fact the system has to be kept lose by to scan cards, and then looks around the room remembering little details from previous episodes, including a broken light which occurred in "Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle". He mentions the game itself is average for an arcade-style fighter from the early 90's. At the end of the match, he sees another card has to be scanned for a finishing move, and then there are loading screens just to see the results, go back to character selection, and the begin another fight. The next game, Marvel Heroes, is a side-scrolling game with average graphics and audio, but poor controls with slippery movement, delayed attack, and poor hit detection. Next is Interstellar Wrestling League, which he finds is quieter than the rest and turns up his TV's volume. He also finds an inconsistent scanning rule as he now has to hold the card in place instead of swiping it. The game itself is humorous and is another arcade fighter game, not a wrestling game. Finally upon playing Ben 10, he is startled by the sound blasting from the TV after playing the last game, and gets to see the game is a fair side scroller. He mentions the game flashes a text box on screen and pauses for even the slightest hint, like pressing the jump button to jump. He notes Simon's Quest and the very similar feature, which he agrees they adapted here into the whole game. He says the text boxes not only inconvenience the player, but they also can be useless as they can be obsucred by the player. He concludes by mentioning he does not own Spider-Man, the fifth game, but that only five games came out for the system, which makes the Virtual Boy library more sizeable. He concludes calling the system the second worst he's ever played, only under the R-Zone.

Day 11 of "12 Days of Shitsmas". The Nerd begins by talking about Universal Studios and their legacy in the movie industry from 1930's monster films to the Spielberg films of the modern day. He rants briefly about how the slow conversion to an amusement park is destroying movies history, like how the oldest piece of a movie set in the world, the Opera House from Phantom of the Opera was destroyed for a Harry Potter ride. He points out despite that, Universal Studios Theme Park was a great place, and had become so popular that a new one opened in Orlando, and then a video game was made. At first, the Nerd thinks this was a great idea, until he begins to play the game. He first finds walking around the park is awkward, because the camera never moves and the player is on a fixed screen at all times, praising the graphics which do look like a Universal Theme Park. When he tries to board a ride, he finds a line. He agrees it is a too real concept at a real amusement park, but wonders why it would be adapted into the game. He also sees the line is short, which he claims would be a "great day" if it were to happen at a real amusement park, but he cannot actually enter the line. He finds the way to progress the game is to pick up and throw away pieces of garbage, made mundane by the difficulty in finding garbage with the fixed camera and the rarity of trash cans in the in-game park, and that a single ride may need 2,000 points when one piece of garbage costs ten. He gets bored and annoyed wanting to actually see some Universal affair, and wondes why the kid in the game would be working to clean trash when he is not an employee of the park, and realizes the trash being collected is usual amusement park litter affair. He decides it is because the kid has made a deal with the park. He sees another way of collecting points is to shake hands with mascots seem throughout the game, and decides the game has redeemed itself slightly when he shakes hands with E.T. He finds that even collecting enough points is still not enough to board a ride, as the points have to be cashed in to buy a hat. When he finally gets to the rides, he finds that they are minigames. The Back to the Future ride is a flying race game. The Jaws game is very similar to LJN's game for the NES, and he is shocked to find it has a moving camera, but poor controls make it hard to play. He decides the NES game is better. The Jurassic Park game is an on-rails shooter, which would only be good as an arcade game. He plays E.T. which is a maze game that he finds has the worst controls of every game and is worse in quality than E.T. on the Atari 2600. He finds the attraction based on Waterworld is not even a game, just a virtual version of the Waterworld Stunt Show at the actual Universal Park, but there is no virtual audience. He finds that the Backdraft game is the best in the collection. He sees the game has a moving camera, but it works poorly, and the changing camera also changes the controls. He points out the rides end quickly, because they are minigames but should have been the main experience. He likens the game to an actual day at Universal Studios, because waiting in lines is boring but there are short bursts of fun on a ride, except that a real day at the park does not involve picking up trash. He sees the game has a final objective, to win a stamp collecting contest, and that every ride attended wins a stamp. He says that would never happen at an actual Universal Park. In the end he mentions that LJN's adaptation of Back to the Future and Jaws were also bad but developed on NES standards and at different times. He decides the game is mostly an advergame for Universal Studios, but a poor one, ending with a fake commercial for Universal Studios Parks that recreates the experience of the game. At the end, he decides to take a peek at his last present - only to discover, much to his horror, an LJN logo.

Note: This episode features a game which was previously seen on James & Mike Mondays. It is also the first episode entirely dedicated to a game for the Nintendo GameCube.

Day 12 of "12 Days of Shitsmas". Picking up from where the last episode left off, The Nerd fully unwraps the present to the shock that LJN had developed a whole game console. He opens the box and decides he'd rather analyze the Styrofoam packaging it came in than actually play the system. Beginning to play the system, he sees it uses a twin lead antenna connector, which he previously mentioned hating in the Pong Consoles episode. Turning on the system, he is surprised to find it emits white noise, and mentions it is why TVs began to include Mute buttons. He mentions turning the system on with no cartridge produces a blank screen for free drawing, but it came with a cartridge containing ready-made drawings. He mentions the joystick is overly sensitive and that one small jerk sends the cursor flying on the screen, and a button has to be held down to actually draw on the screen. He mentions the presence of buttons to draw straight vertical and horizontal lines, but one cannot draw straight diagonal lines. He tries, and fails, to draw a perfect circle, mentioning he has had better luck on an Etch-A-Sketch. He notes that the very bad controls make it almost impossible to use as either a drawing or a coloring tool, and that the joystick creates an annoying squeak sound. He also notes the lack of a gradient fill tool, which the NES game Color a Dinosaur did have, and that he could still make better images himself in Microsoft Paint. He shows a collection of images he made in Paint as a child. He credits the system because you can change the color of the background and erase marks pixel by pixel, and that it was a unique concept for 1987, but he recommends an Etch-A-Sketch over it because of its portability and lack of electricity. He goes on to talk about later art games including Art Alive and Wacky Worlds Creativity Studio on Sega Genesis as well as Mario Paint. His biggest childhood memories were with Mario Paint which he claimed could do a lot more and had a mouse for control, and that even being dated compared to present-day computer software, it was the presentation that made it fun. He mentions that although it is not considered a game console, he considered it one because it had cartridges, and labeled it the worst console ever. He ends the 12 Days of Shitsmas by wishing the viewers a Happy Holiday and then is seen trying to play the console with the Roll & Rocker, And The "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" parody used as the theme to the original Bible Games and Bible Games 2 reviews is recycled here at the end of the episode.

Note: The Nerd rates LJN Video Art as the worst video game console ever, beating the R-Zone from the Tiger Electronic Games episode.

The Nerd begins by mentioning the game was a mass request by fans. He points out it was the only game from the independent company named HappySoft and because of its rarity, he can only play it using an emulator like anybody else who has seen it, since even reproductions are hard to come by. Beginning the game, he sees a language selection screen with English as a language, and the only music in the game is a five-second loop of the Chinese pop song I Love Beijing Tiananmen, which annoys him since he has never heard a vocal music loop. He is also surprised to find classified ads after selecting the language, one for the company asking for donation of old SNES games, and one offering the sale of Hong Kong 97 at local dealers upon request. The title screen has an image of Jackie Chan ripped right from Wheels on Meals and the Nerd doubts Chan gave the developers consent to use the image. He also points out the game was at least copyrighted in 1995. He is shocked to see the story contains the phrase "fuckin' ugly reds" even more so than seeing the word "hell" in the NES game Rambo. He also finds it weird that, according to the story, Hong Kong's government summons a relative of Bruce Lee named "Chin" rather than Lee himself, but assumes he is just as skilled as Lee. The next picture includes Lee in the background, Jackie Chan, and former governor Chris Patten but claims he cannot see "Chin". When he sees Chan on the next screen, he realizes Jackie Chan is playing the part of "Chin". He also sees the game mentioning he has to kill 1.2 billion red communists, the entire population of China in 1995. It mentions an ongoing project to transform the dead former president "Tong Shau Ping" (Deng Xiaoping) into a "killing machine", using an actual image of the leader with the Nerd mentioning he was still alive at the time the game came out. He concludes the game has the single most ridiculous story he's ever seen for a video game, and makes up a story for a similar game on the SNES which he calls "New York, NY 2017". Getting into the actual game, he notices one-hit deaths with no lives or continues, a lack of any other sound effects, and the game over screen shows a dead body in an image which is even dated, from 1992. The game restarts from the very beginning upon death but he notices the music does not even restart. The game is a very bad 2D shooter with the player playing as "Chin" and shooting white projectiles at oncoming enemies while facing from behind. Hitting an enemy flashes a picture of an atomic bomb explosion in a small square over them and then shows a picture of a dead person. Shockingly, he sees the background for one stage is the Coca-Cola logo. After five minutes of gameplay, the final boss Tong Shau Ping appears, but The Nerd sees he is only a head, which he does not consider an "ultimate weapon" and killing him does not end the game. He decides the game is based off the movie of the same name and that it predicted the death of Deng Xiaoping and the release of Hong Kong by the UK back to China, though even the latter was predicted by the film first. He also mentions the game does not have much to do with the movie and calls it the "worst movie based game of all time". He notices several details in the game point back to the number "97". He decides that every new thought loops back to 97 like the looping tune in the game, so he decides the ever looping game is like the meaning of life, where things end where they begin. Ending saying he's come full circle himself, he says the game is shit.

The Nerd begins by searching through his games trying to find another shitty game. The first game he comes across is Moon Ranger for the NES but the game is so plain he cannot find words. The next game he tries is Kid Niki: Radical Ninja and is happy to see the game is shit but moves on anyway. He sees Dudes With Attitude but cannot put words to the gameplay. He rejects Deathbots because he finds the game boring. He looks at Mad Max based on the movie, noting the game is made by Mindscape and not LJN, but he wishes it were because it means the game is too good to talk about. Giving up trying to find another NES game he decides to look at a system he has never before, the TurboGrafx 16. He mentions the system which was the first 16 bit system that competed with the NES until the SNES and Genesis came out and overtook it. He says that with not as much third-party support as the other two, there are not as many bad games, but he thinks he found one in the form of Darkwing Duck. He remembers the show but not much about it, saying it's a good thing because his expectations are not particularly high or low. At first he finds the controller cord for the TurboGrafx 16 is so short, he has to pull the couch closer to the TV. He sees the unique stage select screen, using a magnifying glass to select a character. He says the graphics for the game are very good for its time. He sees a floating "D" shortly after starting the first level and tries in vain for a few minutes to collect it. He fails with a running start, and tries to get it with skateboarding penguin villains. He says you need to walk a good distance off to get them to appear and then they are too fast for you. He sees he can use a gun to stun them but they are still too fast to shoot, making him give up on the D. One big problem he demonstrates is the delayed controls, with Darkwing jumping about a half-second after pressing the button. Getting to the first level boss, he keeps taking damage and dying trying to jump on his head, and accepts just taking damage to get past him, only to die shortly afterward. Giving up he changes the game's difficulty from Normal to Easy. In another level he finds that the gun has limited ammo, and he wastes it all on one guy not being able to find anymore since it is not too common. At the final showdown he finds that jumping to attack works when it wants and that the hit detection is very bad, all making it look like the game was designed to make it look like the player is performing poor. He says the game has confusing graphics. Being diagonal, it makes it hard to know where you can jump. He also mentions a power line that looks like it can be grabbed, but it cannot. He sees a slide puzzle found in the game which is slowly completed as the game moves on, but is angered at a picture with two characters in the background which makes it confusing. He is also angered by the fact that it seems what you can jump on is random. Falling into a dungeon-like part of a level, he sees you cannot duck and shoot. He also question the presence of precision platforming in a game with bad controls. He gets to a part with two platforms moving in different directions and dies. Trying to take it carefully and wait for the right moment to jump, Darkwing is crushed by a safe because the Nerd waited too long to jump, which finally sends him over the edge. In the end, he says the game could have been better like Darkwing Duck on NES or DuckTales. He says every game with bad controls is different, and that making bad games is an art form. In the end he introduces his shit scale to rate future games. The lowest level is good games he thinks have flaws (Metal Gear, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Castlevania 2). The next is playable games that are just barely passable (Super Pitfall, Dick Tracy, Top Gun). Next level is high-caliber shit (Anything from LJN, the Philips CD-i, and the Virtual Boy). The severe zone follows with games like Action 52, Dark Castle, The Wizard of Oz and the Tiger LCD games. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has a level all its own, and at the lowest are experiences so poor, he does not consider them full games (CrazyBus, Desert Bus, Big Rigs, Hong Kong 97, and Plumbers Don't Wear Ties). He places Darkwing Duck on the same level as LJN games, calling it the worst game on the TurboGrafx 16. Note: This is the first time the Nerd has spent an entire episode reviewing a game for the TurboGrafx 16 and the introduction of the shit scale.

(YT) July 29, 2015

The first episode to dedicate a full episode on a Dreamcast game and is dedicated in memory of Leonard Nimoy, who served as the narrator for the English-language version of Seaman. The Nerd initially has trouble with the controls and is repulsed by the sight of a Baby Seaman (referred to in the game as a 'Mushroomer'). He finds the game to be quite tedious as the player must wait for long periods of time in order for the Seaman to develop further. To pass the time, the Nerd starts to play a Famicom game titled Bakutoushi Patton-Kun but is stunned when he sees that the loading screen for the game displays the word 'fucking'. It distracts him so much that by the time he returns to Seaman, he learns that his Seaman has died. He tries to reset the Dreamcast system's clock back a few days but finds that the game does not allow players to go back to a previous day, meaning that he has to start over. Instead, the Nerd decides to jump the Dreamcast Clock forward a day at a time to progress through the game faster, not realizing that he himself is traveling forward in time as well. He notes the frustrations with certain controls, like how the Water Heater gains momentum even after he's done pressing the button or the Water Spray tool works fairly sporadically. He then proceeds to get into a lengthy conversation with the Seaman before it evolves into a Podfish, dies, and hatches a bunch of Tadmen, who then evolve themselves into Frogmen. Ultimately the Nerd concludes that while the game is tedious and mind-numbing, he praises the game's creative premise. He then gets into a minor argument with a Frogman about it not being real which ends with the Frogman declaring "All Hail Sega! Buy Another Dreamcast!" The Nerd interprets this as Sega being a 'Sentient Electronic Global Annihilator' bent on world domination as exemplified by the company's bold move to take on Nintendo in the 90's and the fact that some of Sega's consoles were named after planets and the game Seaman is right at the forefront given the fact that in the game the Seaman asks a series of questions about the player's personal life which the Nerd interprets as Sega trying to take over people's lives by getting to know all about them. In order to stop this, the Nerd moves the clock forward all the way to the year 3001. By that point he is nothing more than a skeleton. After an in-game quote by Nimoy about how he hopes that the player's normal life isn't getting overshadowed by the game, the Dreamcast's clock reverts all the way back to when the Nerd was born. A series of clips from previous AVGN episodes (as well as the movie) are shown as the Nerd talks about change before returning to the present. The Nerd is now shown from the perspective of the Seaman in the virtual aquarium and the light is turned off.

On the night of October 30, the Nerd is disgusted to find that some kids have left a bag of burning shit on his front door step, the shit being a copy of The Crow for Sega Saturn. First he gives a brief synopsis of the movie and comic it was based on, but that the movie's sequel was not so good. Beginning to play it he points out that the main character being controlled is the less noticeable one on the first screen. He mentions the convoluted control scheme using left and right to rotate followed by pressing up to move forward, pointing out that the game did release at a time when 3D controls in game's were perfected like Super Mario 64. He mentions the game's atmosphere noting that one of the first screens even says "Last Chance" and deciding the game is self-aware, and says he does not like the graphics which are not only dark but pixelated and at low resolution. When he sees the main character's face looks like a member of KISS, he wants to hear a KISS song playing instead of the generic metal rock. He says the game has a stationary camera that changes angles as the character moves, but that sometimes the camera fails to change when the character walks off screen, and that he likes walking around gently to find the exact point of change. He says that combat in the game is very clunky because of the unresponsive and sometimes delayed controls and poor hit detection, comparing it to the NES game Karate Champ but in 3D. He also mentions the perfect fighting occurring in the cutscenes. He mentions that the game has weapons but the controls and hit detection render them impossible to use, and that the player is limited to handguns with limited ammunition while enemies have machine guns and the playable character has no invincibility time, pointing out the irony of a character who is invincible in the films being vulnerable to a single bullet. He mentions that because of the game's difficulty, he is unable to actually finish a single stage, even on the lowest difficulty. At the end, after he gives up, Board James appears on his TV asking why he has never had a Halloween special. The Nerd promises that he will give him one after Halloween and then he sees the board game 13 Dead End Drive at his feet. Note: This is the first episode dedicated to a Sega Saturn game and the first episode where the Nerd reviews a game with an ESRB rating of "M". This episode led into the "Board James" episode 13 Dead End Drive

After discussing how he was a huge fan of the Mortal Kombat series in the 1990s, and adding that he missed this game during its original release due to being busy with Mortal Kombat Trilogy and Mortal Kombat 4, the Nerd tries it out and almost immediately runs into what he deems to be a game-breaking fault, namely the fact that Sub-Zero usually doesn't face the enemies automatically, and the "B" button has to be used to turn him around. Aside from that, he notes that the game's graphics are decent for the time, but heavily criticises the overly difficult, death trap-filled level design, and also the fact that Sub-Zero's abilities have to be earned via a levelling system instead of having them all available from the start. Eventually, the Nerd gets so frustrated by the number of instant death traps that he performs Sub-Zero's fatality from the original Mortal Kombat on the cartridge.

During the video a still photograph is used for the Sega Saturn, due to Rolfe not owning one at the time. As a direct result of this, Rolfe was sent four Saturns and various games for the system by several different fans.

Wrath of the Black Manta (NES) is also heavily featured in the Captain S action sequences, but it is not reviewed by the Nerd. Because Captain S is considered family friendly, the Nerd's usual foul language was greatly toned-down for this episode, though he does swear at the end (bleeped out with a sound effect from Super Mario Bros.).

10. Nintendo Power spoof (Nintendo Power)
9. Grading the grammar and spelling of the end title screen of Ghostbusters (Ghostbusters: Follow-Up)
8. Getting frustrated at constantly dying and imitating the death screen image of Silver Surfer crying (Silver Surfer)
7. Fighting Frankenstein's Monster with the Super Scope (Halloween)
6. Literally "eating his shorts" (The Simpsons)
5. Destroying the 32-X (Sega 32-X)
4. Destroying the game in the style of The Addams Family (Fester's Quest)
3. His "war" with the game Die Hard (Die Hard)
2. Fighting Bugs Bunny (Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout)
1. Destroying the VHS copy of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (At the time, this video was only available on ScrewAttack's website).

The Nerd reviewing a film, per his agreement with the Nostalgia Critic.

The Nostalgia Critic reviewing a video game, per his agreement with the Nerd. Kyle Justin cameos performing an alternate of the AVGN theme. The video ends with the Critic reinstating the feud.

Rolfe later listed the Nostalgia Critic at #2 on his list of the top 10 unwanted guests.

10. Complaining about the huge AC Adaptor for the ColecoVision (Double Vision Part II)
09. Getting confused as to why Superman has to go to the stock market (Superman Part I)
08. Listening to the pause music (Battletoads)
07. Literally dropping "F-bombs" (CD-i Part III)
06. Complaining about the irritating voice in the Connect-the-Dots game (Bible Games II)
05. Fighting the Joker (Batman Part II)
04. Getting shocked to see the game he is playing say, "Kill all babies" (Bible Games II)
03. Playing "The Count" on the Commodore Vic-20 (Dracula)
02. Shouting profanity into the LaserScope (NES Accessories)
01. Fighting the possessed NES cartridge with Super Mega Death Christ (Super Mario Bros. 3 & The Wizard)

The Nerd Makes a brief cameo.

Rolfe reviews the new Ghostbusters game for the Xbox 360 as himself. The Nerd briefly appears at the start, but Rolfe explains to him that he is not needed for the video, as this Ghostbusters game is actually good, so he leaves.

10. Ranting about the "beginners trap" (Super Pitfall!)
09. Questioning why Simon would eat a "porkchop" he just found lying inside a wall (Castlevania: Part I)
08. Complaining about a scene where the boss in the game orders the woman to remove her clothes (Plumbers Don't Wear Ties)
07. The Famicom turning into Optimus Prime (Transformers)
06. Defecating on the Atari Jaguar as if it were a toilet (Atari Jaguar: Part II)
05. His rampage at the end of the review (Moonwalker)
04. His failed plan to rack up a ton of lives (Terminator)
03. Destroying the game (Winter Games)
02. Fighting Bugs Bunny (Crazy Castle)
01. His rant about the bad Godzilla games (Godzilla)

In episode 116 of AVGN, (Wish List Part 1) the Nerd mentioned that Sonic 2 made him buy a Sega Genesis.

Framerate: Genesis wins
Console Design: Genesis wins
Backwards Compatibility: SNES wins
Native Controllers: SNES wins
Game Boxes: Genesis wins
Graphics: SNES wins
Sound Quality: SNES wins
Games: SNES wins

SNES wins over Genesis 5-3. Even though Rolfe still enjoyed both consoles and feels that they helped shape the console industry, he felt that the SNES naturally had improved over the Genesis due to technological advancements of a later time, with a more notable library of games for good measure (for the most part).

February 18, 2013 (YT)

An unfinished review. Included on the AVGN Volume 6 DVD.