I’ve been a big fan of the Angry Video Game Nerd since he was known as the Angry Nintendo Nerd. He does a lot of research for anything he reviews, especially movies, and he does a great job of editing videos to make them entertaining. Plus, I like him for the same reason that I like the comedy of Lewis Black: what’s funnier than watching someone swear and complain about stuff?
Now, for the record, I’m not a video game master. I still find it difficult to beat World 8 of Super Mario Bros., and there are lots of games that I have never beaten, and never will. You know that friend you have who just kicks ass at video games and can beat any game that you’ve ever seen him play? That’s not me.
That said, I’ve been playing video games for over 20 years, so I don’t suck at them. Eye hand coordination and reflexes have never been a problem for me. I expect everyone else to be better than me at any game that I don’t own, and I expect to be better than them at any game that I own and they don’t. Do you get what I’m saying here? I’m a remarkably average veteran video game player.
Not long ago, the AVGN finally relented and reviewed Superman 64. In the emails he put in his previous video, people were mentioning the game in the same sentence as E.T. for Atari 2600. That game is the worst game ever, so Superman 64 must really suck!
So, the AVGN starts his review and talks about how hard it is to fly through the rings. I finally decided to play the game about 10 minutes ago to see if it was really as bad as he says. Um… he had trouble with the rings?
I mean, okay, I ran out of time the first time because it took me a while to figure out that B makes you fly. After that, I just cautiously flew through the rings without any trouble. The control is a bit sensitive, but the N64 controller’s joystick is even more sensitive. I mastered the art of controlling tiny degrees of tilt while playing Super Mario 64 (the first game that came out), and I mastered flying through rings with an N64 controller when Star Fox 64 came out. I can make the tiny adjustments to keep Superman on course very easily, and when I’m off target, I just let go of the gas to give me the time to correct my aim. Within a minute, I was flying through rings with no trouble at all. It’s so easy, I was just astonished that anyone who has been playing video games for as long as the AVGN would struggle with it.
It’s true that you can only miss three rings, but who cares? I rarely miss any, and if I accidentally miss one, I just move on to the next one. You’re allowed to miss a few! I beat every ring level with 30 seconds to spare. The ring levels just aren’t difficult. Period.
So, after the first ring level, I definitely wouldn’t have known what to do if I hadn’t seen AVGN’s review. You have to pick up both cars and toss them away. Since I knew that, I finished the level on the first attempt. Then I started the second ring level, but I was standing on the ground and it took me a while to figure out that you have to press Z to start (and stop) flying.
So, I beat another easy ring level, and then I had to pick up another car. Of course, I assumed that you’re supposed to toss the car, but this time you’re supposed to protect it and bring it to the finish line. Oops. Oh well, I completed it on the second attempt. The first time I played the third ring level, I went the wrong way and went over my miss limit. That was when I noticed that there’s an arrow that shows you which way to go in the bottom right corner of the screen, and navigating was never a problem again.
After the third ring level, you have to beat up four guys on a rooftop. I can only assume that AVGN gave up before he got this far, because he had asked if Superman ever gets to use his awkward punching action. They all go down with one hit (they should!), and then there’s another easy ring level. The ring levels are incredibly easy. The levels between the ring levels are the ones that take some skill.
So, now I’m asked to blow away three tornadoes with my ice breath. There’s a tiny ice breath power-up at one point in the level. Why the hell do I need a power-up? This is one of Superman’s basic skills! The ice breath power-up is really small — MUCH smaller than those giant rings — so you have to fly really slowly to grab it. Once you do grab it, you have a graph that looks like it’s powering down for about three seconds, which I thought meant that it had run out, but it was actually powering up! So, I couldn’t figure out how to make him use his ice breath in the first few tries, so I gave up. Then I came back to the game and noticed that, when you pause the game, there’s an option to read the story and learn the controls. Ice breath is C up. This is a clear case of what we computer technicians call RTFM: Read The *@#&ing Manual! Sadly, when you buy a game secondhand, there usually isn’t a manual, but newer games like N64 games often have instructions within the game. So that was my mistake. Once you know what the buttons do, blowing out the tornadoes is yet another easy task. All of the levels are easy, but they’re so pointless and boring.
After one more turn through the rings, I finished the level and was given the option to save my game. The second level starts Superman off in some kind of facility, and I have to walk through rooms and beat up a couple of robots. Eventually I get a passcode for the canal which I’m supposed to use on the computer. Which computer? There’s a computer on every wall in the level! You know what? I don’t even care. This isn’t a Superman game. I can’t find the energy to care any more.
So, I’m confused. Am I just really good at this game, or is the Angry Video Game Nerd not very good at video games? I realize that he’s playing a character, and his job is to exaggerate the negative aspects of the games he reviews. There’s a section on his FAQ called “That game’s not that bad, you’re whining about it, just because you suck at it!“. His response:
Remember this is for comedy. Sure my gripes with the games stem from truth, but they are exaggerated. The whole point is to play bad. If you want to see somebody play good, go watch a speed run. If you take my reviews seriously, you are missing the whole point. Think for yourself. I may actually like some of the games I’m complaining about. I only focus on the negative. Some of my complaints may be legit and others far fetched. To this day, I still get long winded emails bitching about my Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest review, describing every last detail why they disagree with my video. Meanwhile, I’m just laughing my ass off. It was just a quick little video I made one night when I was bored, just for a little joke, and there’s real “Angry Nerd’s” getting mad about it, which is sad, pathetic and hilarious! The same people probably believe that I go around in real life, wearing a white pressed shirt, stuffed with pens in the pocket, and saying “fuck” all the time and talking about buffallos taking diarrhea dumps.
So of course, I know that he’s exaggerating about how awkward the flying is, and he’s absolutely right about how boring and repetitive the levels are. The game is notorious, after all. Still, to be funny to someone who remembers the game, he has to hit on the right points and gripe about the right things. He went on and on about how hard it is to complete the ring levels within the time limit, and showed himself missing too many rings over and over again. That has never happened to me, so it probably hasn’t happened to anyone else who played the game. Learning to fly took all of 60 seconds, and I can breeze through all of the rings with 30 seconds to spare, so why can’t he? If he can, and he knows that everyone else can, why spend so much time talking about it? Far be it from me to tell the AVGN what’s funny, but if your complaint doesn’t have at least a certain amount of truth to it, it’s not that funny. Well, maybe if it’s funny in an ironic way, like when a standup comic complains about something that nobody hates, like chocolate or democracy or pizza. But this doesn’t sound like an ironic rant. James Rolfe (the man who plays the AVGN) seems to really think that he’s complaining about something that was a major frustration to players, and I don’t think he’s right.
Now, everyone makes mistakes, so I certainly forgive him if he miscalculated on this particular rant, but actually, maybe there is an explanation. I assume that the AVGN uses emulators to record his video game clips (as opposed to pointing a video camera at a television), so he was probably using some other controller with his N64 emulator. I have an Adaptoid, so I play N64 games with a real N64 controller. The level of precision needed for any N64 flying game would make flying almost impossible without an analog control stick. The N64 joystick is incredibly sensitive, measuring 360 degrees of angle and a single percentage point of tilt. If you use a real N64 controller, flying is a piece of cake.
Anyway, he’s not wrong that this game is bad. Yes, you sometimes get stuck in walls, but you can easily get out by pressing Z. Still, that shouldn’t happen. The levels are boring and they certainly aren’t fun. In the first level, every stage alternates between an easy ring stage, and then a short stage where you have to pick up cars, or beat up bad guys, or blow away those stupid tornadoes. Are there any levels in this game that are fun? If there are, I’ll never know.
Anyway, this game definitely sucks, but it’s also definitely not hard. In fact, the stages are insultingly easy once you learn the controls, which I could have done right away just by reading the instructions. I think the AVGN missed the mark on this one, and I just felt like I should defend this horrible game for some reason. So now I have. And now we can all go back to enjoying the AVGN’s videos with no hard feelings.
Quotation from James Rolfe is © 2008 The Cinemassacre Productions
Tags: Angry Video Game Nerd