Time for another Angry Video Game Nerd episode review, and this time we have The Nerd’s review of Moonwalker for the Sega Genesis! This episode was filmed just a few months before Michael Jackson’s death and as such speaks of him in the present-tense when opening the video, contrasting how many forget that a man who was often the butt of jokes for a time was the top entertainer, with many people still loving his work even today.
Anyway, James goes on to explain quickly how the game is based on an arcade game of the same name and, more importantly, it being an early Sega Genesis title here in US. A big name star helping promote a new, edgy game console? It was a good combination, at least back then.
In retrospect, however, the game isn’t so great. Not bad, but tedious. More of a feast for the eyes and ears with all it’s 16 bit Michael Jackson glory, but for actual gameplay it falls short.
Of course James waste’s no time in making the expected joke about rescuing kids, but consider that such is a part of the Moonwalker film it’s not too crazy a mechanic in the game — it just goes on, and on, and on, and on. Of course, you do have quite a bit of control over Michael (including that one move he did at concerts… you know the one, it makes for a good joke in this video) but that doesn’t make up for bad level design and slow overall progression. The Nerd does like the “Mecha Jackson” invincibility mode but even it is flawed in that you can’t rescue kids while using it.
The review continues discussing boss battles, more flaws in general, before touching on the rather odd fact that Thriller is missing from the game — at least, his version of the game– and then finally the frustration of it all gets to him and the episode ends with a Black or White style ending of him destroying his room before morphing into a cat and walking away, similar to how the “complete” version of the Black or White music video does.
Final Rating: 3.0/5
I’ll be clear that I do generally enjoy this episode quite a bit, but it’s somewhat lacking. It’s only about 10 minutes long, which is fine, but the episode doesn’t really have too much in the normal Nerd style going on – profanity and excessive reactions are a little sparse (relatively) and only in the end does the anger really come out.
At the same time, I have to give the episode credit for being a bit more of a typical review and, while it has fun with the subject matter James does try to not go anywhere too crazy with the jokes — nothing excessive, anyway, and it’s all done in fun as James is (or at least was) a MJ fan. So, it’s sadly about average, but that’s fine. The episode is what it is.