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Angry Video Game Nerd

Wow, that's quite a story. Everything about the CD add-on was a disaster.
Yeah, The Highlander for Jag CD certainly does look like an atrociously bad game. That post does give some good reasons why, but still, the results are what they are.

And on that note, even Jaguar fans rarely defend Blue Lightning... the Lynx original is said to be better. But Battlemorph and Hover Strike? Those are mentioned as some of the better Jag CD games, and looking at videos I can see why.

On another note, the Jaguar CD is the video game platform with the shortest North American first-party release length of any released console since maybe one of the worst failures of the second generation. That is, the Jaguar CD only had first-party games released for it for a couple of months. Released in fall 1995, last first party game December 1995, one final third-party title January 1996, then discontinued as Atari went under. Now there were two more third party games in '97, mail/online order only of course, but those were post-discontinuation. Even systems like the Virtual Boy and 32X were supported for longer, and have larger (overall, worldwide) libraries.

Keep in mind, the Jaguar had a really shitty controller. That probably didn't help things out.
Sure, but that's no excuse for bashing a game hard just because it's a genre you don't like... he did the same thing to Cybermorph in the Jaguar video, so this did not surprise me at all, but it's unfortunate that he can't at least acknowledge that those games are't supposed to be rail shooters, and are supposed to be deeper, more complex experiences. Sure, he doesn't like that, and it's perfectly fair to dislike them for it, but to say that they're awful games just because of their genre... at least say "I don't like this, but some people might."

Can I tell you how much I love your avatar?

Also, I agree wtih your statement here. The games just seemed less obvious than things on other platforms.

But seriously, that draw distance makes the game anti fun.
The avatar goes with the username. :) But yeah, I cover most of this above in this post... but yes, if I ever manage to get a Jaguar/CD, I definitely want to play Cybermorph, Hover Strike, and Battlemorph. I do agree that that draw distance is definitely too short, but hopefully you get used to it with time...

(As for legitimately bad Jaguar CD games, Highlander doesn't interest me all that much, but Blue Lightning... maybe. As for carts, I'm interested in trying some "bad" games like I-War, Checkered Flag, and Club Drive too.)
 

maharg

idspispopd
Battlemorph's draw distance and popup is easily enough to make it a bad game. Obviously they overreached with the tech, and it shows. When walls pop up in front of you so quickly you might not be able to turn away from them in time, that's a fundamental problem with your game.

I don't think the comparison with Starfox was intended to say that it should be a rails shooter btw. Just that Starfox made it much clearer what to do and was a contemporary game. All those games seemed to suffer from "wtf do I do next" problems, which were fine on the NES and even to some extent the SNES, but by 1995 players were expecting a bit more in-game help to decide what to do.
 

Cheerilee

Member
Battlemorph's draw distance and popup is easily enough to make it a bad game. Obviously they overreached with the tech, and it shows. When walls pop up in front of you so quickly you might not be able to turn away from them in time, that's a fundamental problem with your game.

I don't think the comparison with Starfox was intended to say that it should be a rails shooter btw. Just that Starfox made it much clearer what to do and was a contemporary game. All those games seemed to suffer from "wtf do I do next" problems, which were fine on the NES and even to some extent the SNES, but by 1995 players were expecting a bit more in-game help to decide what to do.

Actually, I guessed just from watching them play and noticing how the ship transforms, that the game has a throttle control. There's even an onscreen speed indicator. The first thing they did (after they figured that part out) was hold down the "forward throttle" button until they reached max throttle, and then they took their fingers off the control (you can tell because they lost all of their speed every time they crashed, and then it took them a couple moments to remember to turn the throttle back up to max again), and then they bitched about the ship going too fast.

Also in regards to the "wtf do I do next" problems, there's a map in the corner with obvious things marked on it. I don't think they even tried to read the map.

Same with Hover Strike. They just drove around randomly, ignoring the map and mocking old 3D graphics (which do suck), and then once they accidentally found an enemy, they decided to play around with spinning the tank in circles again to make fun of the low framerate... again. I really don't think they even tried to give the games a chance. They just wanted to laugh at shitty games.

With Blue Lightning, they said "Hmm... seems like Top Gun/Afterburner." And then instead of finding out how it actually compares to Top Gun/Afterburner, they bitched about loading times and unskippable cutscenes (which I agree are bad things), until they discovered that you can shoot trees on the ground, and that they explode like shooting ground targets, at which point they lost all interest in the game and just laughed at shooting trees.


James was also wrong about Atari Jaguars being stripped for their shells and painted white to make dental cameras. The casting molds were sold to the plant that produced them, because casting molds are expensive and can be recycled, so they were put on a shelf. Then a maker of dental cameras needed a plastic shell, and designing their own would have been too expensive, so they asked to see which used molds were available, and picked the Jaguar one off the shelf because the sizing was good for them. Apparently if you look around factories, you can find all sorts of neat things like that. But they usually just get used to make Chinese knockoffs, not anything interesting. Anyways, the dental cameras are made of all-new white plastic, not old repurposed Atari plastic painted white.
 

Cheerilee

Member
It's still a problem even if it only happens at max throttle.

I don't think that's fundamentally true.

Mario 3 lets you run at a speed that would be (because of the 4:3 screen area) quite reckless if you didn't know where you were going. It might even be impossible for a first-timer to play Mario 3 while running all the time. It would be ridiculous for a modern gamer to say that that's a drawback, and that Mario 3 needs 16:9 support, or that it would be better if someone took the run button away. Those "improvements" would be kind of game-breaking.

Of course, there's a difference in that Mario 3's controls are very intuitive and it takes serious effort in Mario 3 to be so stupid as to run all the time, and there's already a "controls" complaint against most Jaguar games. But having to learn complicated controls isn't really a fault by itself.

I have no idea if Battlemorph is a good game or not, but it's possible that "giving the player the ability to cross distance at a speed the game engine can barely keep up with" is one of it's best features.
 

maharg

idspispopd
2d and 3d are different on this front. In Mario 3 you can tell when you're being reckless because the edge of the screen gives you a clear idea of the limits of your vision. In Mario 64, which is a somewhat unfair comparison I grant (because it came out later and virtually defined the nature of 3d gaming outside flight sims), you can't run so fast the draw distance becomes an issue, even though there is obviously popup.

It should have at least had fog rather than a million-mile backdrop in front of a 20 meter draw distance.
 

FoxSpirit

Junior Member
Okay, I did it. A complete rewatch of AVGN, I even gave the SMB3 and wizard episode a look this time.
So that was what, around 20 hours nerd? And I feel like boozing up and doing it all over again??

Ah, glorious winter :p
 

BatDan

Bane? Get them on board, I'll call it in.
Since this is probably the appropriate thread.
The Nintendo World Championship cartridges featured in the same episode were featured on the latest Pawn Stars. Pat "The NES Punk" Contri tried to sell them.
He wanted anywhere from $32,000-35,000, but Chumlee wouldn't go above $15,000. Pat refused to sell them that low and left.

Just thought that was interesting.
 

Cheerilee

Member
Since this is probably the appropriate thread.
The Nintendo World Championship cartridges featured in the same episode were featured on the latest Pawn Stars. Pat "The NES Punk" Contri tried to sell them.
He wanted anywhere from $32,000-35,000, but Chumlee wouldn't go above $15,000. Pat refused to sell them that low and left.

Just thought that was interesting.

Pawn Stars is about as fake as when AVGN "smashed" those carts.

Pat got paid to appear on TV with something cool and pretend he was interested in selling.
 

Freshmaker

I am Korean.
Hoverstrike and Battlemorph look like they could be good games, I think that they just hate that kind of game. They're not railed like Star Fox, they're freeroam games with more thought required... don't bash them simply because of their genre. (Battlemorph's draw distance isn't good, but other than that...)

They're very slow moving games. Hoverstrike never had good word of mouth going for it IIRC.
 
I watched that video and enjoyed it last night, but I can't lie. That panel looked pretty bad, especially since most of it was just fans shouting at him to quote the videos.
 

thefro

Member
James & Mike Play SimCity

Funny watching James act like he doesn't know how things work for comedic effect, when he's stated it's one of his favorite games of all time, and he's doing all the Nintendo Power strategies (when he's not messing around).
 
James & Mike Play SimCity

Funny watching James act like he doesn't know how things work for comedic effect, when he's stated it's one of his favorite games of all time, and he's doing all the Nintendo Power strategies (when he's not messing around).

simcity snes is in my top 5 games of all time. it probably has my favorite video game soundtrack ever. it just fills me with nostalgia and serenity. soyo oka is a goddess.
 

krae_man

Member
I tried to go on cinemassacre.com and Firefox gave me a "this site may harm your computer" warning. Googling the site does the same thing:

vLIk3hA.png


did I miss something?
 

Kuro Madoushi

Unconfirmed Member
am I the only one who dislikes Mike?
He needs to tone down trying to be avgn and just focus on his own thing and persona.

Having motherfucker at the beginning of his name was crass and already made me lose respect for him already. I don't think even he liked it since he seemed uncomfortable introing himself as a motherfucker.

Nerd hasn't been the same since the movie as I've been watching his old stuff and it was fantastic and the new videos just kinda show he's tired.
 
I like mike when he isn't trying too hard to be edgy sounding.

I remember loving Ikari warriors, but it hasn't aged well at all. Interested to see what James says about it
 
I must be the only guy who actually like Mike.

He has his own style, albeit a bit different from James but at least he kept us busy while the AVGN film was being made.
 

Yuripaw

Banned
I'm hopeful for some new info about the movie soon. I just wish I knew how it's been coming along. Feels like it's been a while since we've heard anything about it.
 

Yuripaw

Banned
I liked the Angry Video Game Nerd back when he was actually angry. Everything sounds so forced and scripted now. It's just not funny at all.

I appreciate that at least his format is the same, and still funny sometimes. I really hate what the Nostalgia Critic has done to his show with the horrible unfunny skits with the actors that he no longer had work for.
 
James was never angry; he was just in character. He also started using scripts early on.
Yeah, and his character went from being an angry nerd to a guy wearing glasses who looks like he's about to fall asleep half the time. I never said it wasn't scripted, but it now sounds scripted, which is never a good thing. It's pretty sad how the best part of his most recent episode is the theme song.
 

Frolow

Banned
Meh, didn't really like the episode all that much. Felt directionless with half of the whole video just being the guy's lyrics.
 

eXistor

Member
I must be the only guy who actually like Mike.

He has his own style, albeit a bit different from James but at least he kept us busy while the AVGN film was being made.

I love Mike, he seems to come up with funnier stuff than James 99% of the time. A lot of his ideas make it into the AVGN vids as well. His solo videos do see him trying a bit too hard, but when he's just chilling with James he's usually the one on fire, not James.
 

NAPK1NS

Member
This guy recently passed through my town and I got to see him speak live. He's a funny dude, apparently going to have a kid.
 
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