AVGN Adventures 1 & 2 Deluxe PS4 (Digital) Review

 

History of Angry Video Game Nerd:

Yes, it's time to take you back to the past at year 2006 where the internet is the thing. Stuff like flash animations, web games, and of course the video service platform such as YouTube that became popular at the time thanks to numerous funny fail compilation, parodies, memes, and all the cool stuff from the mid-2000s.

There's one of the channel that caught my attention such as "JamesNintendoNerd" which is been renamed as "Cinemassacre" in later years, so I've discovered the channel to see what's all about and yes it is a internet gaming review webseries stars James Rolfe as the Angry Video Game Nerd which he was also known as Angry Nintendo Nerd for his first debut in "The Karate Kid part II" NES Review.

He plays the character role that deals with the video game title were known to be the worst ever made or are identified through overall low review scores lists from various gaming publications or journalists.

Stuff like Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Karate Kid part II, Superman 64, Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, Sliver Surfer, Bugs Bunny's Birthday Blowout, Action 52, Plumbers Don't Wears Ties, and Nintendo's shitty Philips CD-i games were heavily criticised for poor controls, bad graphics, and numerous glitches left the game unfinished and downright unplayable.

He was well known for his comical gaming reviews that involves nerd himself raging at the bad game with screaming and ranting that leds him to tearing the game's cartridge or CDs in pieces, drops numerous of f-bombs, beating the f**k out of guy dressed up as Bugs Bunny, and taking shit on the Atari Jaguar CD base to let out his frustration is what made him one of the recognisable internet celebrities that his series have been extremely influential in popularizing and pioneering internet reviewing.

Outside of the AVGN webseries, Rolfe also created multiple series on Cinemassacre channel such as Board James, Rental and Retail Reviews, James & Mike Mondays, and You Know What's Bullshit.              

Due to popularity of his webseries, he still continues to work on more AVGN videos as today, as well as selling merchandises, seasons DVDs and Blu-rays, and of course it has video game title based on his character called AVGN Adventures was originally released for PC, Wii U and 3DS in 2013, and then was later released on the PS4, XBONE, Switch, and PC as AVGN Adventures 1 & 2 Deluxe in 2020. 

AVGN Adventures 1 & 2 Deluxe PS4 (Digital) Review:

AVGN Adventures 1 & 2 Deluxe is a 2D side-scrolling platform game was released in 2020 for PS4, XBONE, Switch, and PC, which was developed by FreakZone Games and published by Screenwave Media, and it packs with three remastered games such as AVGN Adventures, AVGN Adv.2: ASSimilation, and a new third chapter titled AVGN in Tower of Torment: The Final Chapter.

At last I can finally get to play an AVGN games on my PS4 packed with three games to play featuring enhanced visuals, multiple save slots, more accessibility options, new unlockable player skins, improved level design, and more awesome stuff added in the game.

I've spent over 5 hours of playthrough aiming to get a best possible completion in every levels out of all three games, so guess what? is it amazing game or is it a f***ing pile of dogshit!? Let's find out and see if the remastered version does anything better to offer than the original counterpart.

So without go further do, let's start the f***ing review.

Presentation

The first game starts off with nerd himself and his friends were playing a shitty game together till suddenly his friends were sucked into TV screen, while AVGN successfully escaped into basement but that long-ass arms came out of TV, grabbed him by the balls, and pulled him inside into the shitty game land filled with the horrible games the Nerd has played over the decade.

In second game, it follows after the event of the first game where entire world been transformed into a shitty game, while everyone became pixelated monsters. A foul-mouthed Nerd wakes up in his room and discovers something went wrong, as he sets off for his adventure to save the world. 

It did had a very good opening sequences with slide-show style cutscenes which parodying the infamous NES title such as Cheetahmen which AVGN has already covered the game on his reviews, so check it out on his video. 

Going back to this review, after being sucked into the shitty game land, Nerd was infuriated by the annoying ass-firefly named Naggi, a parody of Navi from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, doesn't shut the f**k up because it keeps patronising him through the tutorial which causing him to shoot with the NES zapper gun. YEAHHHH!!! KILL THAT F****ING FLY!!! HOW DID YOU LIKE THAT YA LITTLE SHIT!!!

After the annoying ass tutorial, he continues to battle through the stages and trying to reunite his friends to find the way to escape from the shitty game land. 

We all know AVGN is our favourite internet character because what makes him so recognisable is that he wore a nerdy shirt, a pocket pouch, has power glove, a filthy mouth, and he will tear these games down with the NES Zapper is what makes his role so great in his own web series.

He also has a friends featuring in the game such as Mike Matei who is close friend and assists James Rolfe in making a majority of his AVGN videos, but the Nerd character has never been confirmed to know Mike.

Then you have guitar guy named Kyle Justin who is a composer behind AVGN theme song has a common gag that he died and being decomposed behind AVGN's couch are fully resurrected as walking living skeleton welds with his acoustic guitar.

Lastly you have a big pooping fart named The Bullshit Man is one of James Rolfe's original characters for the You Know What's Bullshit?! series who constantly calls out the stuff that he hated the most in society like printers, pennies, wire hangers, pens, and other bullshit.          

The all three games also has bosses that was based in the AVGN episodes such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Berenstain Bears, Cybermorph's Skylar (A.K.A "Where did you learn to fly?!" bitch), Big-red demon (from AVGN's SMB 3 review), Bimmy and Jimmy, Dracula, Nerdy Turd, Darth Vader with Dalek's body, Bugs Bunny, and of course the wise-cracking old fart Fred F**ks resembles the actor Gilbert Gottfried are also featured in the AVGN's Life of Black Tiger review.

The presentation of the levels are parodying the video game series such as Assholevania is basically Castlevania stages filled with navy blue sky, spinning chained spikeballs, zombies, ghosts, knights, and death blocks.

Happy Fun Candy Time has every single of happiness with bright and smiling stuff everywhere and many colourful environments.

Future f***balls 2010 is the futuristic layout stage has named references to Street Fighter 2010 filled with city's dark skyline, purple jellyfish, mounted laser beams, jet-packed astronauts, R.O.B.s, and of course sliver surfboard.

Blizzard of Balls is a Christmas theme stage filled with Christmas trees, slippery snow, ice decorating, defecating reindeer, and snowman angels.

Thy Farts Consumed is a Doom-alike hellish level with fire spewers, flying flaming skulls, bloody ghost faces, and huge-ass shark rode on ocean of lava.

Boo! Haunted House referencing AVGN's Nightmare on Elm Street episode with pitch black areas, witches, pumpkins, and bats. 

Browntown is a sewer themed levels which borrows the elements based on TMNT for NES.

Monster Madness is the level based on James's Halloween-themed movie review where the levels mostly in black and white filters.

Board James is a board game themed level based on James's series of the same name filled with lot of board games related stuff. 

Nerd Gaiden is the Japanese-style stage when the Ninja Gaiden meets Hong Kong 97.

I got to say the whole presentation is remarkably faithful to the original source material thanks to numerous of references and elements matches to game's description, has all original characters, and making story and dialogue being very close to AVGN's content with funny humour and insane trash-talk profanities.

Sadly unlike the original version, the remaster releases had completely removed the features due to licencing issues. The cameos in first game were being replaced with future Nerd from the second game, which mean you will never get to see Craig and Chad from Screwattack, Angry Joe, Pat the NES punk, and others in the remaster releases.

Speaking of missing cameos, it also replacing Doug Walker's Nostalgia Critic with Fred F**ks as a boss characters in AVGN 2, so that's quite a bummer.

Overall, it has humorous story and dialogue, original characters, and many popular references. 

Gameplay

You will have selection of any of two games, while one of them requires to beat both of games to unlock final chapter.

After selecting one of the game, you will start off with the tutorial to learn how to play the game. You move around with the d-pad button or left stick, you use jump button to jump on the platforms, holding the d-pad or left stick down button lets you crouch, you have NES zapper as a basic weapon to shoot down the enemies by hitting the shoot button while holding the right or left trigger then move around with d-pad or left stick allows you to aim and shoot in different direction, but you'll have an option to set auto-fire function on which really helps so that you don't have to continuedly mash button with your sticky thumbs so much while playing it.

If you getting sick of with the tutorial you don't want to you just simply kill the annoying little shit (Naggi) with your NES zapper so you don't have to follow the instruction and skip to the finishing line.

After tutorial is done, you will have an stage selection similar to Capcom's Mega Man, while the stage selection in second game are kinda like you see in Super Mario Bros 3, so your goal is to get pass through the level and defeat the boss to beat the stage which is quite straightforward for 2D platformers.

Aside with the main goals, you can also re-visit the same stage you already beaten for stuff like beating stage with perfect results without multiples deaths, obtaining all Nerd's game cartridges similar to Kong letters from Nintendo's Donkey Kong Country series, and finding all missing friends being located somewhere in the level which unlocks them as playable characters that you can able to switch each of them by pressing the shoulder buttons.

You have Mike Matei has ability to jump higher and uses light-saber as a close-range weapon, Kyle Justin uses guitar which shoots wavy projectiles and has faster running speed, and of course The Bullshit Man has ability to double-jump and shoots with his higher-damage shit's projectiles, so it is cool to have any of playable characters has different unique abilities which adds the elements of the game depending on how good these characters plays in the game. 

Speaking of adding elements, in second game where you had to collect all upgrades can be located in the levels, similar to Mega Man X series, that powers the Nerd's ability such as wall jumping, charge shot, more powerful shots, punching, ability to see invisible block that Nerd can walk on, and floating in mid-air for a few seconds.

What makes the game quite challenging is that every each of levels has different settings and patterns where you need to avoid hazardous obstacles and getting hit by the enemies. Stuff like hazardous objects like flying fireballs, constantly appearing spikes, plasma beams, and that f***ing death blocks instantly kills you in one hit, as well as hard to kill enemies.

There are some useful power-ups in the game such as beer which replenishes the health, 1-ups gives you an extra life, rocks thrown in a high short always come in 25 sets, super scope that rapidly fires the projectiles until he is hit, game graphic glitch gremlin used for glitching out the game freezing everything for 5 seconds, and that badass super mecha death christ 2000 B.C. version 4.0 beta f****ing kills everything on screen YEAHHHHH!!! TAKE THAT MOFO!!!

Then you will have Nintoasters serve as checkpoint which is useful because you don't have to start back at the beginning.

Most of the level had really great segments such as hovering on the sliver surfboard, sliding down the snow hills with dead santa, rode on big-ass shark swimming on hot steamy lava, riding on cart wheels, switching gravity ups and downs, evading big-rigs monster truck came out of nowhere, jumping on logs from waterfall, walking through the pitch black dark areas, changing black and white filters into colors, swimming through the underwater sewers with electrifying weeds, being able to reach at the end of the level without getting hit by the plasma beam scrolling down the screen, and there's mother lode of things in the game adding a huge variation of game's design.

These games are amazing thanks to precise controls are much easier to learn with no issues whatsoever, the playable characters has its own unique abilities with suitable playstyle, the level design fills with many obstacles and enemies that requires to memorise patterns, the upgrades works really well which benefits the Nerd's overall abilities, has cool power-ups, great segments, and has redeeming replay values.       

I got to say the boss battles is awesome that keeps the player's feel engaging with the game thanks to multiples mix of mid and main bosses in each levels that adds up satisfying experiences or MORE LIKE IT'S A REAL PAIN IN THE ASSSSS!!! THAT I'M GETTING AN ASS-HANDED BY THEM IN NUMEROUS TIME!!!!

The game does have an difficulty options such as easy and normal is quite a basic for casuals with more lives and continues, where as harder ones such as old school reduces player's firing strength, stronger enemy's health, and lacking numerous of checkpoints and saves while retaining decent amount of health and lives which is totally fine with more experienced player.

Even worse, WHY THE F**K DID THEY ADD MORE HARDER DIFFICULTIES WITH ONLY ONE HEALTH, ONE LIFE, AND NO CONTINUES IF IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO BEAT THE WHOLE GAME WITHOUT GETTING ONE HIT DEATH!? WHAT THEY WERE THINKING!!!

It's perfectly fine with the old school and hard as balls option which is acceptable, but why having one credit champ that left the game so unforgivingly to torture ourselves while trying so hard to not get killed with one hit, so who ever come up with the idea is an asshole.

Okay, enough bullshit ranting because the game is still fun to play which I am happy with the results especially being an remastered collection packed with many cool things.

Overall, it has precise controls, solid level design, great upgrades, cool power-ups, great segments, has playable characters, and has redeeming replay values. 

    

 

     

Graphics

The graphics are entirely looking very good in every game. The 8-bit sprite animation looked amazing on the characters, enemies, and bosses does matches and resembles with the AVGN review videos and some shitty games references particularly made by LJN (Laughing Joking Numbnuts).

The stage environments has crispy effects, bright colors, and amount of insane particles scattered around the levels is dead-on fantastic, EXCEPT THAT RED AND BLACK STAGE AT THE END GIVING ME AN F***ING STRAINS FRYING MY GOD DAMN EYEBALLS OFF!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! 

Thankfully you have an accessible option to disable photosensitive mode to prevent flashing and flickering effects, as well as screen shake which preventing dizziness during the gameplay, so thank god you don't really end up start barfing, puking, and pissing all over the places. 

Overall, it has amazing sprite animation, fantastic stage environment, and has accessible option.

Music and Sounds

The music in whole game sounds kick-ass because I love the 8-bit rendition of Kyle Justin's AVGN theme song at the opening title screen just like you hear it from the show. It's also clearly has the best original soundtrack for entire levels and bosses with catchy and upbeating retro-style sounds. My favourite goes to Boo Haunted House, Future F***balls 2010, and Tower of Torment's Crappy Castle 1 (What The F**k?!) because it's like I'm listening to Linkin Park in 8-bit form which adds the excitement of the game.

The sound effects in every level has impressive 8-bit noises for its hit detection, collisions, destructible noises, and etc. really fits the sound design of the whole game. 

Overall, it has kick-ass soundtrack and impressive 8-bit sound design.

Special Features

The second game does have unlockable skins for Nerd such as Board James, Rex Viper, and of course purple-suit based off the cheat code for Metroid on NES if collected all Nerd's cartridges, and of course like I said it earlier it had 3 playable characters to find in the first game.

   

Overall, a solid overall features.

 

Advantages

Humorous story and dialogue

                          

Original characters

Many popular references 

Solid gameplay

Amazing visuals

Kick-ass soundtrack

Disadvantages

Missing out cameos from the originals

ONE CREDIT CHAMP!!! difficulty is unforgiving

Final Verdict

Presentation 8/10 - humorous story and dialogue, original characters, and many pop cultures references.

Gameplay 8.5/10 - precise controls, solid level design, great upgrades, cool power-ups, great segments, has playable characters, and has redeeming replay values.

Graphics 8.5/10 -  amazing sprite animation, fantastic stage environment, and has accessible option.

Music and Sounds 9/10 - Kick-ass soundtrack and impressive 8-bit sound design.

Special Features 8/10 - Unlockable skins and 3 playable characters.

Overall 8.5/10 - As a massive fan of the AVGN videos, this game is totally f***ing rocks thank god it's not a shitty game like most LJN's terrible games libraries back then. The game delivers AVGN's hilarious one-liners, has many pop culture references, and humorous presentation being faithful to the source material. 

The gameplay feels very constructive with solid level design, great segments, and has replay values, the graphics is looking fantastic for its sprites, environments, and has accessible option, and 

it does have the best overall soundtrack fits the incredible action of AVGN's own adventures which makes it a solid 2D platformer.

As the deluxe version, it packed with 3 games in one with enhanced visuals, multiple save slots, more accessibility options, new unlockable player skins, improved level design, and more awesome stuff which benefiting the game's overall which I am happy it turns out to be really great AVGN's games that the fan of everyone's favourite nerd can get a hands on with these complete package.

The digital copy cost around £11.99 from PS Store, Xbox Store, Nintendo eShop, and Steam, where as the physical copy from Limited Run Games website comes with reversible covers gonna cost you around $34.99 which is equivalent to nearly £30 less.

So that's it for the game review and lets have fun singing a most recognisable chorus of AVGN theme song we never forget:

He's the angriest gamer you've ever heard.

He's the Angry Nintendo Nerd.

He's the Angry Atari SEGA Nerd.

He's the Angry Video Game Nerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrd.  

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