Virtual Boy - Angry Video Game Nerd (AVGN)

He'll take you back in time To play those shitty

game

s that suck. I would rather have a buffalo. Getting a dump of diarrhea in your ear. He'd rather eat the rotting ass of a roadkill skunk and wash it down with beer. He is he. The angriest player. Have you ever listened? He is the

angry

Nintendo

nerd

. He's the Atari Angry, Sega Nerd. It's the

angry

video

game

. Neeeerrrrrrd! It's the mid-90s. Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis were the two big competitors. The 16-bit Era was coming to an end while next-generation Consoles were on the way. The Sega Saturn, the PlayStation and the Nintendo 64 were ready to appear on the scene.

Graphics were improving and

video

game companies were accelerating their technology to an endless end. During the continued delay of the Nintendo 64, Nintendo announced a new product to fill the time and continued its successful line of handheld gaming systems starting with the Game & Watch Games and Gameboy. The product, originally called VR 32, would become known as Virtual Boy. It made use of 3D technology where each eye saw two separate screens and created the illusion of three-dimensional depth. Virtual reality seemed like the way of the future. Just the idea of ​​feeling like you were in the game was an AWESOME concept.

But instead, it turned out to be the great motherlode of SH*T. *disappointment* The first problem was that it was marketed as a portable system. Yes, portable...my butt is portable! You could barely find a comfortable way to touch this big, red, ugly piece of shit at home, let alone take it somewhere. For example, you couldn't play in a car or something like that. And, come to think of it, you wouldn't want to play this in public anyway. You would look like an idiot! *trying to play

virtual

boy in different ways* *grabs a roll of duct tape* *sound of duct tape* Why isn't there a head strap?

Let's think about this. This has to be one of the WORST designs for any invention in history! It's basically a pair of GLASSES on a stand! To me, that translates to a pair of eyeballs on legs. The controller is also very strange. It has two D-pads and the battery is attached to them. You can change it for an AC adapter. But when you play at a table, it can come loose and TURN OFF your game! 3D effects are difficult to focus on and strain your eyes. There's even a warning on the box that says it could cause headaches and seizures.

That's great, right? It's like the icing on the shit sundae. Would you like to play BAD games and get a HEADACHE too? But before we say the games are bad, let's take an honest look. Unfortunately, the only way I can record these games is by zooming in the eyepiece. So excuse the guerilla style videography. Let's start with Mario's Tennis. This was one of the first Virtual Boy games to be released. And it's usually the first one most people have played. It starts with Mario hitting a tennis ball directly in your FACE. The 3D effect is quite effective.

But without experiencing the real game you won't be able to see it. Now the main thing that disappointed everyone from the beginning was the fact that all the games are in RED and BLACK! Now, the original Gameboy was in black and white or black and chartreuse, whatever, but the Virtual Boy was supposed to be cutting edge, so it was fair to expect it to be in color. What a disappointment! Now, as for the game itself, it's just tennis, but with a selection of Mario characters. Not bad, but nothing special. The big problem for me personally is what kind of

virtual

reality game is this!?

I don't sit on the court interacting. I would have expected this to be in a first person perspective. The ENTIRE idea of ​​virtual reality is to simulate the game experience as if you were actually in the environment. It's supposed to FEEL like reality, hence the term VIRTUAL REALITY. Here's another one, Galactic Pinball. Well, it's just a space-themed pinball game. The 3D effects are quite superficial in this case. Nothing ever really comes to your face. To use the paddles, you press the buttons on the bottom of the controller, which feels like you're using a real pinball machine, but you hope you can press the button harder to hit the ball harder.

So in the long run it just makes you wish you were playing a real pinball machine. Or anything other than THIS! I feel like I'm getting an eye test! And speaking of that, my EYES are already starting to hurt! If you play this long enough and go blind, you can really become the Pinball Wizard. Well, now we have Teleroboxer. Kind of like Rock'Em Sock'Em Robots. AND HOLY SHIT It's a first-person perspective! THIS is a little more like virtual reality. The gameplay is practically the same as Punch-Out. You can punch the face, punch the body, uppercut, uppercut, duck, dodge and you can use both D-Pads that individually control each arm.

This way you can block with one arm and hit with the other at the same time. Not bad. And the 3D effects are great. Especially when your opponent knocks you out! *KNOCK OUT* Next... Red alarm. Well, red is right. Every game should have had red in the title. It's basically a flying game like Star Fox. Do you remember what the graphics look like in Star Fox? Everything was a polygon. But imagine that in red and black without any shapes represented. Everything is just a WIREFRAME! It looks like a game that hasn't been finished! Worst of all, it's DISORIENTING!

If only there was some kind of TEXTURE, you could see where the limits are, but without it, you're just flying around with a bunch of lines! Often, I think I'm flying into an opening, but then I find them HITTING against the wall! Watch this! Where am I supposed to go!? *don't know where to go* One thing that's cool is that you can change the camera angles. I choose POV because, after all, isn't this supposed to be virtual reality? Unfortunately, Red alarm and Teleroboxer are the only two Virtual Boy games that have this feature. Next up is Wario Land.

You take control of Wario with one basic objective: reach the end of each level. Along the way, you must find keys to open doors, collect treasures, and fight enemies. You stomp on them, throw them, or lunge at them. There are also parts where you can jump into the background, OBVIOUSLY trying to accommodate the 3D gimmick. But it's actually a good game. Fucking good! But there's just one problem: he's on VIRTUAL BOY. Next we have Panic Bomber. It's a puzzle game, and a decent one, I might add. Basically, things fall down and you have to match three of a kind in a row in a column or diagonally.

The match pieces disappear and you get bombs. When a lip bomb drops, you can use it to blow up the other bombs. Now I have a question. Why in the HOLY MOTHERFUCK does this need to be on VIRTUAL BOY!? It's a PUZZLE GAME! This is the kind of stuff that belongs on Gameboy. Not only is there NOTHING remotely based on 3D or VR, but you can only play it alone! Aren't puzzle games more fun when you have friends to play with!? Well, the Virtual Boy actually had an extension port for a multiplayer cable. It would have been used to link two Virtual Boys much like the Game Boy did, but the only problem is that they NEVER released the cable or made any games that supported it because the Virtual Boy SUCKED so hard that it REMOVED before such a thing could exist. released!

Next, we come to Mario Clash. Every Nintendo console had its own definitive Mario title, and hopefully this one will be decent. But what you get is basically a remake of the original Mario Brothers Arcade from 1983. Each level is just one screen and the goal is to eliminate all the enemies except the Koopas. You stomp on them and use their shells to throw them at other enemies. Some of the enemies, like the ones with three spikes on their back, need to be killed from a distance. So it's basically the Mario brothers who are in the background and foreground.

What bothers me about this game is just one simple problem. THEY CHANGED THE BUTTONS! B jumps and A throws projectiles. How did they screw up the controls of a Mario game? WHY CHANGE what we grew up with!? WHY CHANGE what has been FIRMLY planted in our brain since CHILDHOOD?! There's also an extra stage... and look what we have here! TEXTURE. It's nice to see a fully rendered floor for once! Overall, Mario Clash is not bad, but it is repetitive and lasts 99 LEVELS. Probably making it the LONGEST Virtual Boy game. And since it causes eye strain, it shouldn't be finished in one sitting.

Next up, Nestor's Funky Bowling! Any Nintendo Power subscriber knows who Nestor is, and this is probably the only game in which he has participated. All I can say is that it's bowling. That is what it is. But I don't know what's FUNKY about it. It's just a regular game of bowling with the same ten pins OVER and over again. The animation of Nestor's reactions is quite fun to watch. But other than that, there's not much to say. Well, next is the Virtual Baseball League. You bat, you run, you throw, you catch, you run, you throw. It's BASEBALL.

The music is great and you get a nice 3D effect when it shows the countryside. It's like you're sitting in the seats, almost like a Virtual Reality feeling *AHEM*. When it comes to hitting, hit detection is a little awkward and when you're in the outfield it's like you need a microscope to see the players. It's such a strange feeling controlling goblins the size of ANTS. Kind of like North and South on the NES. Now let's do Vertical Force. This is a 2D shooter, something like Galaga, 1942 or Archetype. It is a genre that is CLASSIC. As classic as a good old television screen.

The only 3D part is that you can switch between two different altitudes. So it's like 2d 3d. Sometimes you have to fly up or down to avoid obstacles, but most of the time you can stay where you are. Anyway, the 3D effect isn't even that deep. This is another PERFECT example of a game that doesn't need to be on the Virtual Boy. Next up is...Golf. That's just golf. Of all the games with this title, I prefer Golf on NES. You choose your club, line up your shots and that's it. The very IDEA of playing an 18-hole course makes me SICK!

The graphics are decent, but they DANGER being in green and black instead of RED and BLACK. Well, it would be nice if it was in color. But let me tell you, if there's ONE COLOR I picture when it comes to golf, it's ANYTHING but RED! Next we have Tetris 3D. Now, anyone familiar with Tetris will immediately understand the concept. The blocks fall and you have to put them together without leaving gaps. Every time you fill an entire row, they disappear and the only difference is that it's in 3D. But that means it moves a lot slower because there's a lot more space to fill.

The A and B buttons flip the blocks in the second dimension, while the right D-Pad flips them in the third dimension. The left D-Pad moves the pieces to where you want to place them. And it works quite well. 3d Tetris and Teleroboxer are the ONLY TWO Virtual Boy games that use both D-pads to do something different. Until the blocks fall, they are transparent and have little shadows that help you know where they are going to land. Also, the design keeps moving, so they basically tried everything they could to keep you from getting confused. But still, it's a little difficult to know what you're doing.

The 3D look isn't even very unique. They could have made a game like this on ANY other console at the time. While Virtual Boy places parts of the graphics in front of other parts, the blocks here are just two-dimensional shapes drawn to give the FEEL of the third dimension without ACTUALLY doing it. It's like you're just drawing on a piece of paper. THERE, that's 3d. I'd say stick with regular Tetris. Well, now we save the worst for last. It is the world of water. Now, let's stop for a moment and analyze this, shall we? *fast, deep breath* Water World... on VIRTUAL BOY!

It's like VOMOTING on a BUNCH OF SHIT! Alright, here we go...Ocean presents Water World. How ironic. Well, as for the graphics, too bad they couldn't use the color BLUE! I mean they had TWO OPTIONS for water. It could have been RED or BLACK. Well, at least they chose black because if it were red we would call it Blood World. Either way, it looks like SHIT! IT LOOKS LIKE SHIT. The objective of the game is to simply shoot everyone and rescue people. It's basically a remake of Defender. There's really no goal other than getting a high score, which really helps as it doesn't save any data.

There's actually a 9-player mode which I HONESTLY find hard to believe. Can you IMAGINE passing the Virtual Boy around a room to EIGHT other people? I'd rather drink Kevin Costner's recycled urine water! Water World is Virtual Boy's ONLY movie-based game and doesn't it seem like a perfect match? It's a PERFECT analogy. An OVER BUDGET, OVER EXCELLENT movie turned game into an OVERPRESSIVE ANAL ATOMIC BOMB OF A CONSOLE THAT EXPLODES WITH DIARRHEA!! Well that's it. The Virtual Boy wassuch a failure that he DIED in less than a year. Yes. And I didn't choose these games. These are all of them.

I just reviewed all the Virtual Boy games that will be released in North America. That's how it is! I have this piece of shit's ENTIRE game library in my ONE HAND. With the exception of Jack Brothers, which is rare, expensive, and probably not worth the JACK SH*T! Now, to be fair, most of the games are fine. But they're the same kind of games you might as well play on a regular TV screen! I mean, they tried to take advantage of some 3D elements, but this WAS NOT CALLED 3D Boy, it was called *hits virtual boy* VIRTUAL BOY!!

And they didn't even TRY, they didn't even TRY for a virtual reality concept! What I needed were some first-person shooter games. How to CONDEMN! That would have been amazing! Now it's been about 10 years. Technology has improved, but no one really gives a shit about virtual reality anymore. And maybe that's for the best. *EXPLOSION* *dramatic music* IT LOOKS LIKE SHIT.