I thought I’d take a bit before we get into Season 3 of Angry Video Game Nerd episodes to express just why I’m reviewing all of these episodes, as well as touch on a few other points on James and the Nerd series that are worth me saying here.
The very short answer to the main question is “because I think it’s fun to do” and really, it is. It’s kind of absurd as well – reviewing a review series, but it makes sense when you think about the fact that the show isn’t actually a review series, but an entertainment program with review elements.
The Nerd is a character who reviews games in his own universe, and in his own context. While the Nerd’s opinions on a game might well match those of James, he has been known to “up-sell” how bad a game is to make a more interesting episode.
That all being said, I’m looking at the videos from a standpoint of entertainment. While, yes, I will touch on the review aspect (while often throwing in my own thoughts for contrast, where applicable) I mainly wish to focus on where one can enjoy the episode. If it is a more review heavy episode, I’ll have more to say on the review, verses if it’s one that’s far more focused on the storytelling or comedy elements, I’ll probably hit on that a bit more than addressing the review itself. It just depends on the episode in question.
Going back to the overall reason why I’m doing this, I enjoy it because I enjoy these episodes. I genuinely like the series, and have since 2009 or so. It’s fun and nostalgic. It’s absurd at times, serious at others, but all around something I can just sit back and enjoy. Sad to say there isn’t too much on YouTube I can do that to as readily.
The idea to review episodes came to me in early 2017 as a way to enjoy the series in a different way – watch it with a more critical, analytical mindset. That alone sounds stupid when you think about some of the episodes and what they contain, but that’s the fun part of it – taking something not so serious and looking at it more, well, seriously.
Of course, I don’t take it overboard, I have fun with the reviews and studying the episodes, the evolution of the character and James’s career and, where you can see it in the episodes his own life changing as time passes. It’s much like any TV show in the past, as time moves forward so do the people involved, and the program itself, and it’s fun to capture the ebb and flow of quality and personal enjoyment of the series and, when it’s all done, really see where the high and low points were.
Lastly, it helps as a good test bed for me to explore just how I want to do reviews of both conventional and online media going forward. I just haven’t gotten around to those reviews yet, but they are coming.
As one final aside, I just want to point out, if it hasn’t been made clear above, that I don’t take the AVGN reviews too seriously at all, beyond how he and other YouTube game reviewers tend to influence popular opinion. That, however, is its own article to come soon enough, but to put it simply, I don’t consider random YouTube content creators, no matter how popular they are, to be any kind of authority on anything, and neither should you. Again, that’s another article for another time.
AVGN Season 3 reviews will begin sometime this upcoming week. As always, stay tuned, or whatever.
https://www.xadara.com/article-series/angry-video-game-nerd-episode-reviews/