Normally I would follow the proper order of releases for Angry Video Game Nerd episode reviews, but seeing as today is, well, Christmas, I felt it only proper to jump ahead and cover the 2007 Christmas Episodes – An Angry Nerd Christmas Carol.
This was a pair of episodes released in December 2007 which follow the classic holiday story of “A Christmas Carol” but with the Nerd replacing Scrooge. Christmas is still key, of course, but the idea here is how it relates to the Nerd and games, and how he has such a negative outlook on them on a whole, yet continues to play them.
Note the top hat!
Part 1 focuses on the Nerd playing Home Alone 2, on the NES. While not generally considered a terrible game, it’s also not considered good by any means. Below average, you could say. The episode follows traditional Nerd style, finding flaws with the game and cracking the usual jokes, standard fair, but pretty well done here, given the odd nature of the game – it doesn’t quite play like anything else.
Of course, eventually he reaches his limit with the game, but instead of just taking his frustration on Home Alone 2, he grows frustrated at all games, eventually getting himself knocked on the head with a Master System copy of Double Dragon causing him to see a ghost…
The less said about Home Alone 2, the better.
Yeah, this is where the fun happens, and things change from a normal Nerd episode to something special.
In Part 2, we have the Ghost of Christmas Past (played by Stuttering Craig of screwattack.com) showing the Nerd his past holiday experiences of gaming frustration and rage – this is actually real footage of James when he was a kid, in one clip playing Round 42 on the PC, some footage of when he first got his NES, and later when he would get Mario 2, those clips showing his frustrations.
Shaq-Fu. That is all. Thank you.
These are followed with him getting his Super NES in about 1991 or 1992, which leads to the Ghost of Christmas Present (played by Handsome Tom of screwattack.com) showing the Nerd doing reviews currently – in this case, him playing the absolutely horrible Shaq-Fu on SNES. This is of course used as the main review of this episode, and is equally as good as the Home Alone 2 review in the prior episode. Just addressing that the game even exists is one of those things that’s hilarious.
This leads us to the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come which the more observant viewer will recognize as Dracula from Castlevania 2 (who oddly looks more like Death than Dracula, but let’s not go back over old territory.
“Remember the Nintendo Wii? Yeah that’s what they called it!”
This spirit shows the Nerd as an old man, doing a retrospective on the Nintendo Wii. Ironically, the commentary he makes about the Wii is pretty accurate to how I feel about it today or, hell, did back in the day. Anyway, James reacting to himself as an old man is pretty funny – it’s like he doesn’t want to accept that he is going to be doing this for the rest of his life. Of course, this was filmed in 2007, so this is back when the Wii, and the games shown, were new, so this joke worked better back then that it does now, but still, it does work.
In any case, by the end we have the Nerd come back from his sleep to Christmas day, and following the classic story, he has a change or heart and decides to only play good games… for about 2 minutes.
Final Rating: 4.5 / 5
While I feel these episodes are often forgotten (I tend to skip them often) it’s a quite enjoyable interpretation of the Christmas Carol story. Well done, with nice guest appearances (for that time, anyway) and all in all, well, it’s solid. The reviews are on the short to normal side, but pack in quite a bit, and the supporting content is an enjoyable difference. It’s just nice for the holiday season, really.