It has been far too long of a time since we took a look at an Angry Video Game Nerd episode! Time to pick up right where we left off with the AVGN review of Seaman for the Sega Dreamcast!
Even back in August of 2000 when this game was released we all found it quite strange. I never knew anyone who owned a copy so I only read about it magazines, but man, it was…. different. Basically a take on the “virtual pet” idea it took it to another level of absurdity and, as we all know, I love absurdity; when it’s done correctly, and it’s hard to tell if Seaman really does it right or not. It’s also a bit hard to tell if this episode does it right or not, but we’ll get to that.
So, by popular request the Nerd takes a look at Seaman. Obviously, the name being what is, a few jokes of that nature are thrown in, but only a couple. After taking a moment to go over the Dreamcast, the system being the last console produced by SEGA, and making a few humorous observations about it since it is far past the Nerd’s time (I especially love the joke of him checking the time on a rotary phone) he gets to the game.
It’s honestly a relatively proper review, in typical Nerd style. He plays the game and explains the mechanics as best he can, all the while being more and more surprised by what the game has to offer — not always in a good way: notably, the wild plot, and the fact the narrator for the game is the then-recently-passed Leonard Nimoy,
A thing about the game that the Nerd discovers is that it’s very repetitive, and boring. It’s designed to be played for a little bit of time every day — otherwise, you would play something else, only coming back to it the next day to do all the basic chores again and see if anything else of interest has happened. After all, it is a virtual pet game — that’s how those are played!
As James realizes he simply has to wait, he decides he might want to play a game on the Famicom Disc System: Explosive Fighter Patton. Why? Because, much like Seaman, people told him to. The actual reason is that, in an episode of the Let’s Play series James and Mike Mondays they played the game and discovered what the Nerd finds — the now legendary phrase “…INSERT TO FUCKING BOX” line. Yep, what amounts to an NES game dropping the F bomb. Ya gotta love Engrish.
Anyway, getting back to Seaman, the Nerd discovers that Seaman has died. Obviously, given the time and effort it takes to play this game he’s a bit pissed. He gets the idea to move the clock backwards, but the game doesn’t allow that. However, it does allow you to skip time forward. This allows him to progress more quickly, but still via an annoying start-and-stop process of playing, saving, changing the system time, playing, saving, changing the system time, on and on. Hey, it works.
The Nerd discovers dust buiding up around him, but he shrugs it off. After two Seaman mate and the Nerd winds up talking to it like it’s a therapist, he begins to appreciate the charm of the game… before the now Frogman tells him to “buy another Dreamcast.” Yeah, it’s a simple joke the devs put into the game, but one James decides to take to the extreme in yet another insane rant much like the one he did in Beetlejuice. This results in him turning the clock forward so much that he’s nothing but bones — he was actually jumping through time! In the end, it the Dreamcast itself turns time back and we see the Seaman viewing the Nerd in much the same way that we view it.
Final Rating: 3.5/5
While I don’t hate this episode by any means, and do find a bit of charm to be had in it, it hasn’t had the same lasting effect that some other reviews have. I can’t quite put my finger on it, as all the elements are there. Maybe it was just the game, as Seaman has a very… drab.. look to it. It’s kind of unpleasant, and I guess maybe that brings the whole experience down for me? I don’t know.
I should end with bringing up that this episode, I think, marks the beginning of the downfall of AVGN. Why do I say this? Because this episode had, I believe, the first case of James using the “retro” word in a production video. It’s not something I can recall him having said before, and I can only presume with Mike Matei helping with the scripts and by 2017 the word becoming synonymous with “old” (which it simply isn’t) it worked its way in to be more “with” the trend of gaming culture at the time. A change I see as a major downfall, but I won’t get into here. It suffices to say this, in retrospect, seems to be the first hint of things soon to change forever in the Cinemassacre universe.