Finally off the trio of Ghostbusters themed episodes, James takes on a set of Spider-Man games this 24th episode of The Angry Video Game Nerd.
Coming off of the slightly longer format of the previous episodes, James keeps this one down to 10 minutes – a “standard” length, you could say, for a Nerd episode. He manages to cram quite a bit of content in, both in form of the “review” as well as a bit of character acting. Kyle Justin, friend of James and creator of the shows theme song, guest stars as Spider-Man, just hanging (no pun intended) in James’ room as if it’s nothing unusual. He helps give his opinions on these terrible games, and provides a chunk of the expected comedic relief and crude humor.
Kyle Justin plays Spider-Man in this episode.
On the subject of the reviews, James covers Spide-Man games for the Atari 2600 (showing off the wireless controllers while he’s at it), the NES (showing the NES Model 2 for the first time in his series as well), the Game Boy (also a first in the series) and, at the time certainly the most recent thing for him to look at, a game on the Game Boy Advance (played on a DS Lite, both of which are also, of course, new to the series). Heck, when you think about it this episode has quite a few firsts, and I think might be one of the earliest to show off items purchased with funds from the series, rather than just things James and Mike already owned. Certainly by this time money was being earned to a decent degree.
Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister 6 on the NES.
It should also be noted James seems to have taken some time to really make this episode shine: Spider-Man being on the ceiling required James to put all his posters upside-down for filming of that scene, the costume certainly cost, and much like the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street reviews, storytelling elements, even the simple ones shown in this episode, certainly take time to plan out, film, and edit into a review. Even the game image being added onto an image of James’s actual Game Boy in editing is a nice touch.
Final Rating: 4.0/5
What can I say, the episode is funny. It’s short, and not one I would want to watch all the time – it has an early YouTube quality to it that has both a charm and an amateurish look to it, but when you watch, it’s still an enjoyable episode. The jokes are solid, the game content speaks for itself (in a typical Nerd style of hyperbole) and, as with many episodes, you can tell there was some fun had with the video at the end – that Spider-Man theme cover is something else.