7/10/2007 - CNASN Game Reviews: TMNT

There's no doubt that the Angry Video Game Nerd has a good thing going. He appeals to the retro gaming audience who have gone through their share of horribly bad video games by simply enumerating all the bad points about them. But by doing so as a foul-mouthed "nerd", he crosses that line from being just a reviewer to an entertainer as well.

His popularity has led scores of others to copy his style and methods, so you can find dozens and dozens of angry reviews of bad video games on YouTube. The myriad of these videos somewhat dilutes the effectiveness of AVGN's reviews, but he always finds a way to keep his new reviews fresh. I still like watching all those reviews, though. And yet, sometimes a non-angry review of a good game hits the spot too. Take this review of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game, for example:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5so3Lx7WWvE (link shown because embedding was disabled)

This one appeals to me because I've played those games many, many times... in the arcade and on the home consoles. These beat-em-ups were designed to take away your quarters, but they did so knowing that everybody would want to do so because the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were such a hot property back then. It's funny how games based on motion pictures usually turn out to be total crap, but games based on cartoons running at the time became classics. I'm not sure why that is... I'll have to think about that one.