It’s time for the 2011 Holiday episode of The Angry Video Game Nerd, and in this case we have the third and, so far, final installment of “Bible Games” — games produced with Christian themes targeted towards religious audiences, with virtually all of them, by the nature of their subject matter, being (ironically) unlicensed by Nintendo or other system manufacturers. They are quite the wild subject to go over, and somewhat fun to collect – I have quite a few of them myself — and in this episode James mostly covers some loose ends, like Sega Genesis versions of many of the games we’ve already seen, and takes a final look at one of the early Bible Games James felt he skimped on covering.
As a side note of interest, this is the first episode of AVGN to be filmed in proper 1080P Full High Definition. Thankfully, he still keeps the game footage in proper 4:3 and, tastefully, without doing any strange effects to the outside of the image. The only time he ever did that was in the R.O.B. Episode, with the TV acting as a border, which was well done for that episode.
We start with a look at what is literally The Bible for Game Boy. The King James version, to be specific for those of you who are versed in this kind of subject. Anyway, it isn’t just the entire text of the Bible but also a few minigames — namely “hangman” style word games and a matching game. You can, of course, read the entire text of the Bible and even search for words in it. James, of course, uses this as an opportunity to search for “Ass” (read, Donkey in this context) with the usual childish drive the Nerd is known for. Hey, you don’t watch this stuff to see him take things seriously now do you?
Next up we have Caltron 6 in 1, as it’s known among the community. James goes over the somewhat odd story of this game and how a simple sticker makes the game skyrocket in value. Past that, some time is spent talking about the other 5 games on the cartridge before stopping at “Adam and Eve.” It’s basically a Balloon Fight / Joust style game, which has nothing really to do with the actual Biblical story from Genesis — it’s literally just a name thrown on, which the Nerd pokes fun at, as one would expect. It’s funny to hear him take it so seriously and come up with an alternate story for Genesis, but hey, that’s why we like the Nerd; he takes this crap way more seriously than he should, which is the core joke of the series (and the joke with these reviews, but that’s another story.)
Next up we have a look at the Genesis versions of some old classics like Spiritual Warfare and Bible Adventures. He actually spends a good bit of time on Bible Adventures for the Genesis, complaining about aspects like the music not stopping when you pause, or the even more odd nature of the Noah’s Ark portion of the game. To be fair, if you have read the source material, the 7 of every animal for the second level makes sense; at least, strictly adhering to the text — otherwise it makes no sense, but that’s another topic entirely….
Lastly, he goes all the way back to King of Kings on the NES, to cover one game he skimped on properly talking about in the original episode. That game is Flight to Egypt.
Beyond getting to make a reference to the “ass” joke from the opening of the episode, he spends the end of the video doing the usual criticism of the game, which is an odd one. You can only collect health if you properly answer a Bible question, you always seem to be climbing up a mountain, attacking and defending yourself sucks, it’s a typical bad game.
The Nerd is incredibly disappointed by the ending. He says he’s heard rumor that you’re supposed to see a screen that say “Give your heart to Jesus” which he isn’t about to play through the whole game to see to see that, but say he will give (his) heart to Jesus… by ripping it out and calling for him! Yeah, quite the WTF ending, but given James’ horror roots, it makes sense, and was quite a shocker in the best of ways.
Final Rating: 4.5/5
It was great back in 2011 to get this as the Holiday episode. The Bible Games episodes were some of my favorites, and it was nice to see James finish up some otherwise unfinished business with a few classic reviews, and touch new ground with the Genesis versions and the Game Boy game.
The overall look was amazing as well — far gone are the grainy 360P videos of yesteryear — from now on, the Nerd was coming at us in full HD and while this wasn’t necessary, it was welcome in the long run.
This episode also marked the end of the incredibly short 6 season of the Angry Video Game Nerd, and following this episode filming of The Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie would begin. It wouldn’t be until the Summer of 2012, 6 months later, that James would come back with another new Nerd episode, but it would be well worth it.
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