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Virtual Boy - Angry Video Game Nerd (with Jack bros) - Cinemassacre.com

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    It's the mid '90s. Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis were the two big competitors.
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    The 16-bit era was coming to an end, while the next generation consoles were on their way.
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    The Sega Saturn, the PlayStation, and the Nintendo 64 were ready to hit the scene.
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    The graphics were getting better, and video game companies were racing their technology to a never-ending finish line.
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    During the ongoing delay of the Nintendo 64, Nintendo announced a new product to fill the time,
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    and continue their successful line of portable game systems, beginning with the Game & Watch games and the Game Boy.
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    The product, originally dubbed "VR32", would become known as the Virtual Boy.
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    It made use of 3D technology, where each eye would see two separate screens and create the illusion of three-dimensional depth.
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    Virtual reality seemed like the way of the future. Just the idea of feeling like you were in the game was an awesome concept.
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    But instead, it turned out to be the grand motherlode of shit.
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    The first problem was that it was marketed as a portable system.
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    Yeah, portable! My ass is portable!
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    You could barely find a comfortable way to play this big, red, ugly piece of shit at home,
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    let alone bring it somewhere! Like, you couldn't play it in a car or something like that!
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    And...come to think of it, you wouldn't want to play this thing in public anyway! You'd look like an asshole!
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    Why isn't there a head strap? Let's think about this.
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    This must be one of the worst designs for any invention in history! It's basically a pair of goggles on a stand!
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    To me, that translates to a pair of eyeballs on legs.
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    The controller's really weird, too. It has two D-pads and the battery pack is attached to it.
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    You can swap it with an AC adapter, but when you're playing on a table, it can come loose and shut off your game!
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    The 3D effects are hard to focus and they strain your eyes. There was even a warning on the box that said it could cause headaches and seizures.
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    That's great, right? That's like the cherry on the shit sundae!
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    How would you like to play bad games and have a headache, too?
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    But, before I say the games are bad, let's take an honest look.
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    Unfortunately, the only way I can record these games is to zoom into the eyepiece. So, please excuse the guerrilla-style videography.
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    Let's begin with Mario's Tennis. This was one of the first Virtual Boy games to be released and it's usually the first one that most people have played.
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    It starts out with Mario hitting a tennis ball right into your face.
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    The 3D effect is actually pretty effective. But without experiencing the actual game, you can't see it.
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    Now, the main thing that disappointed everybody right from the beginning was the fact that the games were all in red and black.
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    Now, the original Game Boy was in black and white, or black and greenish-yellow, whatever.
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    But the Virtual Boy was supposed to be cutting-edge, so, it was fair to expect it to be in color. What a letdown.
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    Now, as for the game itself, it's just tennis, but with a selection of Mario characters.
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    Not bad, but nothing special. The big problem for me, personally, what the hell kind of virtual reality game is this?
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    I don't feel like I'm on the court interacting. I would have expected this to be in a first-person perspective.
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    The whole idea of virtual reality is to simulate the experience of the game like you're actually in the environment.
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    It's supposed to feel like reality, hence the term, "virtual reality".
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    Here's another one, Galactic Pinball. Well, it's just a pinball game with a space theme.
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    The 3D effects are pretty shallow on this one. Nothing ever really comes up in your face.
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    To use the paddles, you hit the buttons on the bottom of the controller,
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    which feels like using a real pinball machine, but you expect to be able hit the button harder to hit the ball harder.
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    So, in the long run, it just makes you wish you were playing a real pinball machine instead, or, anything other than this!
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    I feel like I'm taking an eye exam!
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    And speaking of that, my eyes are starting to hurt already.
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    If you play this long enough and go blind, you can really become the pinball wizard.
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    Okay, now we have Teleroboxer. Kinda like Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robots.
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    And holy shit, it's a first-person perspective! This is a little more like virtual reality!
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    The gameplay is pretty much the same as Punch-Out!. You can punch to the face,
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    punch to the body, hook, upper cut, duck, dodge, and you can make use of both D-pads,
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    which individually control each arm, so you can block with one arm and punch with the other at the same time.
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    It's not bad, and the 3D effects are cool, especially when your opponent knocks you out.
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    Next up, Red Alarm. Well, "Red" is right. All the games should have had "Red" in the title.
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    It's basically a flying game, like Star Fox. Remember what the graphics looked like on Star Fox?
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    Everything was a polygon. But imagine that in red and black without any rendered shapes whatsoever.
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    Everything's just a wire frame. It looks like a game that hasn't been finished. Worst of all, it's disorienting!
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    If only there were some kind of texture, you'd be able to see where the boundaries are.
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    But without it, you're just flying around with a bunch of lines! Often, I think I'm flying into an opening,
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    but then I just find I'm butting against a wall! Look at this! Where am I supposed to go?
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    One thing that's cool is that you can switch camera angles. I choose the POV because, after all,
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    isn't this supposed to be virtual reality? Unfortunately, Red Alarm and Teleroboxer are the only two Virtual Boy games to have this feature.
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    Next up is Wario Land. You take control of Wario with one basic goal: reach the end of each level.
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    Along the way, you gotta find keys to open doors, collect treasures, and fight enemies.
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    You stomp on them, throw them, or dash into 'em.
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    There's also parts where you can leap into the background, obviously trying to cater to the 3D gimmick.
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    But it's actually a good game. Damn good. But, only one problem: it's on Virtual Boy.
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    Next, we have Panic Bomber. It's a puzzle game and a decent one, I might add.
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    Basically, things fall down and you gotta match three of a kind in a row, in a column, or diagonal.
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    The matched pieces disappear and you get bombs. When a lit bomb falls, you can use it to blow up the other bombs.
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    Now, I have one question. Why in the holy mother of fuck does this need to be on Virtual Boy?
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    It's a puzzle game! This is the kind of thing that belongs on Game Boy!
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    Not only is there nothing remotely 3D or virtual reality-based, you can only play it alone.
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    Aren't puzzle games most fun when you have friends to play with?
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    Well, Virtual Boy actually had an extension port for a multiplayer cable.
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    It would have been used to link two Virtual Boys, much like the Game Boy did.
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    But the only problem, they never released the cable or made any games that supported it,
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    because the Virtual Boy sucked so hard, it was retired before such a thing could be released!
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    Next, we're up to Mario Clash. Every Nintendo console had its own definitive Mario title.
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    And this, you would hope, would be decent.
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    But what you get is basically a remake of the original 1983 Mario Bros. arcade.
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    Each level is just one screen, and the goal is to knock out all the enemies,
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    except for the Koopas, you stomp on them and use their shells to throw at the other enemies.
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    Some of the enemies, like the ones with the three spikes on their back, have to be killed from a distance.
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    So, it's basically Mario Bros. with a background and foreground.
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    What bothers me about this game is just one simple problem. They swapped the buttons!
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    B is jump and A throws shells! How did they fuck up the controls for a Mario game?
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    Why change what we grew up with? Why change what's been firmly planted in our brains since childhood?
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    There's also a bonus stage, and look what we have here: texture! It's nice to see a floor that's fully rendered for once.
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    Overall, Mario Clash isn't bad, but it's repetitive. And it goes on for 99 levels,
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    probably making it the longest Virtual Boy game. And since it causes eye strain, it shouldn't be finished in one sitting.
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    Next, Nester's Funky Bowling. Any subscriber to Nintendo Power knows who Nester is,
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    and this is probably the only game he's ever been in. All I can say is it's bowling. That's what it is.
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    But I don't know what's so funky about it. It's just an average bowling game with the same ten pins over and over.
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    The animation on Nester's reactions is pretty fun to watch, but other than that, there's not much to say.
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    Okay, next is Virtual League Baseball.
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    You bat, you run, you pitch, you catch, you run, you throw, it's baseball.
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    The music is pretty cool, and you get a nice 3D effect when it shows the field,
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    kinda like you're sitting in the seats, almost like a (ahem) virtual reality feel.
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    When it comes to batting, the hit detection is kinda awkward,
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    and when you're in the outfield, it's like you need a microscope to see the players.
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    It's such a strange sensation to be controlling sprites the size of ants, kinda like North & South on NES.
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    Now, let's do Vertical Force. This one is a 2D shooter, kinda like Galaga, 1942, or R-Type.
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    It's a genre that's classic. As classic as a good old TV screen.
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    The only 3D part is that you can switch between two different altitudes, so it's kinda like 2D-3D.
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    Sometimes, you gotta fly up or down to avoid obstacles. But most of the time, you can just stay where you are.
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    The 3D effect isn't even that deep anyway. This is another perfect example of a game that doesn't need to be on Virtual Boy.
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    Next is...Golf. That's it, just golf. Of all the games with this title, I'd stick to Golf on NES.
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    You pick your club, you line up your shots, and that's about it. Just the idea of playing an 18-hole course on this makes me sick.
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    The graphics are decent, but they beg to be in green and black rather than red and black.
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    Well, it would be nice if it was in color, but let me tell you, if there's one color that I imagine when it comes to golf, it's fucking anything but red!
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    Next, we have 3D Tetris. Now, anyone who's familiar with Tetris will immediately understand the concept.
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    Blocks fall down and you have to put them together without leaving gaps. Any time you fill a whole row, they disappear.
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    And the only difference is that it's in 3D, but that means it moves along a lot slower because there's a lot more space to fill.
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    The A and B buttons turn the blocks around in the second dimension, while the right D-pad flips them in the third dimension.
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    The left D-pad moves the pieces around to where you want to drop them, and it works quite well.
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    3D Tetris and Teleroboxer are the only two Virtual Boy games that use both D-pads to do something different.
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    Until the blocks drop down, they're transparent and they have little shadows to help you tell where they're gonna land.
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    Also, the layout keeps moving, so they basically tried everything they could so that you won't get confused, but still, it's a little hard to tell what you're doing.
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    The 3D aspect isn't even very unique. They could have made a game like this on just about any other console at the time.
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    While the Virtual Boy does place parts of the graphics in front of other parts,
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    the blocks here are just two-dimensional shapes drawn to give the feeling of the third dimension without actually doing so.
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    It's like if I just draw on a piece of paper. There, that's 3D. I'd say just stick to regular Tetris.
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    Well now, we saved the worst for last. It's Waterworld. Now, let's just stop for a moment and take this in, okay? (deep breath)
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    Waterworld...on...Virtual Boy.
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    It's like puking on a pile of shit!
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    Alright. Here we go. Ocean presents Waterworld. How ironic.
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    Well, as far as the graphics go, too bad they couldn't use the color blue.
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    I mean, they had two choices for the water. It could have been red or black.
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    Well, at least they chose black because if it was red, we'd be calling it "Bloodworld". Either way, it looks like shit.
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    The object of the game is just to shoot everybody and rescue the people. It's basically a remake of Defender.
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    There's not really any goal, other than getting a high score, which really helps, since it doesn't save any data.
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    There's actually a 9-player mode, which I honestly find hard to believe.
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    Could you imagine passing the Virtual Boy around a room to eight other people? I'd rather drink Kevin Costner's recycled piss water.
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    Waterworld is the only movie-based game on Virtual Boy, and doesn't it seem like a match made in heaven?
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    It's a perfect analogy: an over-budget, over-hyped movie turned into a game on a gimmicky, over-priced anal atom bomb of a console exploding with diarrhea!
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    Well, that's it. The Virtual Boy was such a flop, it died in less than a year.
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    Yeah, now I didn't pick these games - this is all of them. I just reviewed every Virtual Boy game to be released in North America.
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    That's right. I am holding the entire library of games for this piece of shit in my one hand,
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    with the exception of Jack Bros., with is rare, expensive, and probably not worth jack shit.
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    It's time for an update, because now, I have Jack Bros., thank you very much!
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    It's like I talk about shit, and somebody sends me shit. So, let's give it a look and make this whole episode complete.
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    Jack Bros., here we go. It's in Japanese, and since this game's story-based, I'm not gonna be able to read any of the text.
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    But the story doesn't concern us, we wanna know how it plays. You get a choice of three characters who look like Halloween mascots.
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    Jack Frost, Jack Lantern, and a skeleton named Jack the Ripper. He's the coolest character,
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    but his attack is just a sword, while the rest of the characters can shoot projectiles.
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    That's real deceiving! It's almost like they planned it that way.
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    Obviously you're gonna pick the fuckin' skeleton, but they give him the shittiest weapon!
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    So it plays like a typical overhead view, where you have to fight monsters, collect keys, and find an exit before time runs out.
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    Instantly, it reminds me of Gauntlet. And that's not a bad thing. For such a rare game, it's not half-bad.
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    But it doesn't utilize the Virtual Boy in any unique way. It goes 3D a little when you drop to a lower platform,
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    but overall it just comes down to the same thing. This should've been on Game Boy. This has nothing to do with virtual reality.
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    I don't feel like I'm there! They didn't even try to make it virtual! Instead, they were just jackin' off!
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    And that takes care of the whole Virtual Boy catalog.
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    Now, to be fair, most of the games were okay, but they're the same kind of games you might as well be playing on a regular TV screen.
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    I mean, they tried to take advantage of some 3D elements, but this wasn't called "3D Boy", it was called "Virtual Boy"!
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    They didn't even attempt, they didn't even attempt a virtual reality concept.
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    What it needed was some first-person shooter games. Like Doom. That would've been awesome!
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    Now, it's been about ten years, the technology's gotten better,
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    but nobody really gives a shit about virtual reality anymore. And maybe, that's for the best.
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    [explosion]
Title:
Virtual Boy - Angry Video Game Nerd (with Jack bros) - Cinemassacre.com
Description:

This video is originally from February 2008. It was later updated for AVGN Vol. 3 DVD to include the omitted Jack Bros game. Now for the first time on YouTube, you can see the completed review.

http://cinemassacre.com/
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Video Language:
English
Duration:
15:34

English subtitles

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