1/28/2008 - Spider-Man : One More Day Review

If you have an ongoing comicbook series that has run for over 40 years, eventually you are going to run out of stories to tell or the storylines will tend to repeat themselves or they will just become mediocre. You may ask how that can be with only one issue coming out a month and a whole army of writers over a period of years. Well, in the case of Spider-Man comic, its popularity led to various spin-off series such as Spectacular Spider-Man, Web of Spider-Man, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Ultimate Spider-Man, etcetera, etcetera. In the course of one month, there can be as many as 4 Spider-Man issues coming out each with a different writer, but each having to maintain continuity with each other!

Over the years Peter Parker has been through it all and matured through real-life trials and crises. He's made it through high school, college, fallen in love with different women, and eventually married Mary Jane Watson. There have been many "ground-breaking" changes and revelations involving Spider-Man, such as the "true nature" of his powers, the possibility that he was just a clone, and his unmasking before the world. Each of these plot twists were met with great resistance from the readers, with much criticism that the changes to Peter were out of character. I can't blame the writers to much, because as I've stated above, it's hard to be original when writing stories that fit within a 40 year history.

I do have to side with the detractors of the current storyline, though. Most comic book fans know about Marvel's editor-in-chief Joe Quesada's distaste for the marriage between Peter and Mary Jane. He claims it limits the kind of stories that can be told about Spider-Man. So with one fell swoop, he dissolves the marriage. But how does he do it? Do they get divorced? Does Mary Jane die? No. Instead, the marriage is erased from existence because Peter makes a deal with the devil. Okay, so Peter does it to save Aunt May from death, but still... a superhero making a deal with the devil? What kind of example does that make for kids? When does a deal with the devil ever go well? Didn't they watch the Ghost Rider movie?

This development has made a lot of fans angry. And you wouldn't like it when comic book readers are angry. :) The Angry Video Game Nerd has made a living out of geeky rants about bad video games, but we all know it's just an act. If you want to see a real angry nerd, there is no better example than this review of the Spider-Man: One More Day storyline.

11/21/2007 - Past Favorite: Dragon's Lair

I state in my profile that I got addicted to YouTube after watching the videos of the Angry Video Game Nerd. What really got the ball rolling was this video review of the game Dragon's Lair for the NES. It was made by a prolific video blogger (who calls himself Jedite) at a time when video game reviews on YouTube exploded in popularity. Jedite now produces a regular feature on his YouTube page called "Q & A" where he answers any question you pose to him about video games. He is such a dedicated gamer that these Q & A's are almost always spot-on factually, and they're entertaining as well... for some reason it's fun to watch a geek rant about his favorite subject.

Jedite's most popular video, however, remains this one, and it's easy to see why. Dragon's Lair for the NES is notorious for it's frustrating difficulty -- and it's not a kind of difficulty that is rewarding like Contra. Jedite spends the entirety of this nearly 5-minute video trying to get past the first level. Needless to say he does not make it, but his attempts and profanity-laced reaction is worth the price of admission. When I first watched this video, I laughed so hard that I had stomach cramps the next day.



Because of the popularity of this video, numerous requests have been made to James Rolfe for his take on the NES game. Just yesterday, The Angry Video Game Nerd finally released his review of Dragon's Lair. It has truly come full circle.

11/7/2007 - Nerd Trapped in Balloon

We nerds get a bad rap sometimes. Actually, make that most of the time. It's not that we're anti-social. It's just that expending any more energy than is necessary just to be "part of the group" is somewhat illogical. I mean, we serve our part in society by thinking out of the box, being innovative and inventive, and pursuing our interests with disregard to social norms. We're not necessarily smarter than the rest of the population, but I think we give higher priority to our intellectual pursuits than most others. We come in all varieties. For a good example, go watch the movie "Revenge of the Nerds". I think it's one of our good qualities, actually. On the other hand, some nerds do give the rest of us a bad name. Especially when they film their exploits for everybody to see:

10/17/2007 - TRAILER - "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" - Angry Video Game Nerd

October is definitely my favorite month of the year. The summer heat in Arizona begins to dissipate. The year is winding down. And it's Halloween time! That's right, it's the time of year when I can watch horror movies all month and not be considered weird. It's not that horror is my favorite genre, but as a guilty pleasure, it can't be beat! I've become so desensitized, that I watch horror movies now to appreciate it as an art form, rather than as an attempt to get grossed out.

James Rolfe, AKA the Angry Video Game Nerd, is also a horror movie buff and it shows... from his side projects with Cinemassacre.com to his reviews of two horror related games last year at this time: Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street for the NES. They were great game reviews that displayed James' talent as a filmmaker. They even included Freddy and Jason!

Well, this October, James is back with two more horror games: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween for the Atari 2600. Even the trailer for his TCM review is great (this is the Angry Video Game Nerd, so be warned for some harsh language):



The opening narration is a parody of the narration from the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre movie... an unforgettable beginning to a great horror movie. The game review even includes a parody of the Chop Top character from Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2! Boy, I can't wait to see his review of Halloween. I hope he has an authentic Michael Myers mask.

Horror movies; video games based on horror movies; reviews of video games based on horror movies; reviews of video games based on horror movies by a nerd; reviews of video games based on horror movies by a nerd who is also a fan of the genre... it doesn't get much better than this.

9/4/2007 - White & Nerdy in Lego

Weird Al Yankovic is simply the best. I remember watching his first parody of a Michael Jackson video with "Eat it", and it was a riot. His parodies are great in three major ways: the lyrics, which are verbally similar to and tonally in sync with the originals; the subject matter, which are always of a humorous nature and which are delved into in the most detailed way; and his performances of the parodies themselves -- parodies of songs are never any good if the performance was only above average.

Weird Al's most recent parody is perhaps one of my favorites mainly because of the subject matter. "White and Nerdy" (a parody of "Riding Dirty" by Chamillionaire) details so much about the geek lifestyle that it's almost a litmus test of how nerdy you are. Even though I'm not white, I can identify with most of the descriptions he gives of nerds in the song. Kind of scary, but hey, it's the way I chose to live my life.

Anyway, while Weird Al's video of "White and Nerdy" is hilarious, this video of the song is even more impressive in that it's done entirely using Lego pieces. I don't know how many man hours it took to create this video, but it really looks like a Herculean effort. It took a lot of dedication to do something like this, but I'm willing to bet that the creator or creators of this video fits the song title perfectly, and as such, this would have been a labor of love.

Past Favorite - nintendo superfan

I've always wanted to be in a next-gen console launch line. It's not really about getting a game system before anybody else or playing the latest games before anybody else. It's all about the atmosphere... the group of people you'll encounter. I liken it to the midnight openings of Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings. Fanboys of any genre are people unlike any other, and fan obsession extends itself pretty well to the video game world. It doesn't matter that these guys pre-ordered their sytems months in advance, they still show up.

I think I can imagine what goes on in some of these launch lines... talking about the upcoming games, talking about some classic games, talking about past launch lines, playing handheld games, playing card games, singing songs. Okay, maybe not exactly singing songs, but if you're going to be in a line for over two days, some crazy stuff will probably happen. I always think I know what kind of characters might be at the front of the line, and this YouTube video pretty much confirmed my suspicions:



At first sight, you might think that this guy makes gamers look bad. He's been up for five days, he has that classic nerd lisp, and he looks like a bum. Even his "friends" are laughing at him. But if you parse his words, he's not one of those overly zealous fanboys who thinks his favorite game system is superior above all others. He's quite diplomatic towards other systems and towards other gamers who aren't early adopters like him. Despite his disheveled appearance, he's quite rational and would probably be fun to hang around with. Laugh at him if you want, but at least he has his 15 minutes of fame.

4/25/2007 - Fun Stuff

Yes, indeed I became addicted to YouTube mainly due to the videos of James Rolfe, AKA the Angry Video Game Nerd. He struck a chord with retro gamers everywhere with his video reviews of horrible old games. Sure, his "nerd" character is a created persona, and he's not an expert gamer, but his complaints about these games are almost always deserved. His videos are slickly produced (he's a Mac user) and they're some of the most hilarious creations you'll ever see in any medium.

A couple of weeks ago, some group of idiots massively flooded YouTube with complaints about his videos, and they started to pull them. In response, James started posting his Cinemassacre videos. You see, James is an aspiring director of genre movies and the AVGN movies were somewhat of a hobby. It's surprising that Hollywood hasn't found James yet, because his work is just brilliant. I can only imagine what he can do with a big budget and 100% of his concentration.

For example, this video was just him goofing around with a camera effect:



James, don't forget your roots, man.