Angry Video Game Nerd Episode 10: Top Gun – Episode Review

10 episodes in already? Making progress, aren’t we? Right, on to Top Gun, a flight simulator based on the famous movie of the same name. James does a fine job on ripping into the game here, and I feel his frustrations on being able to land are genuine – or at least, they were when he recorded or when he was a child.

A main focus is the “up up down down” on the landing – this comes from the fact that people who aren’t “flight savvy” so to speak, don’t understand that up and down don’t mean up and down on the d-pad, they mean forward and back on a flight stick – the same logic as inverted aim on FPS. It makes sense, but isn’t really explained in the game. It probably is in the manual, but as we all say, who reads the manuals?

Intense concentration when trying to land the damn plane!

The editing and general spoofing are great here, with the nerds over-reactions running high. James shows off more of his odd cinematic skill in the TV destruction scene, and seemed to be back to his normal form in this episode, with much more energy and better commentary on the game.

The coverage of Top Gun: Second Mission is also a bonus, extending the review by another few minutes and showing off a much better game, but at the same time showing a game that is just plain difficult.

Top Gun, aka fly around, shoot things, and crash constantly.

Final Rating: 4.0/5

The Top Gun episode is solid enough, and is certainly one of the better remembered and more loved episodes from the first season. It’s funny, it’s well put together, the review of the games is well done but not too in depth, and it seems James had much more fun making this episode than the last two, and that helped the video quite a bit.