Time to get into Season 3 of The Angry Video Game Nerd, and this particular season starts off rather strong with the Nerd’s review of Nintendo’s first true failure of a gaming system, the Virtual Boy.
The Virtual Boy is quite the unique console, seemingly designed for virtual reality, it really never got much further than a few games in a first person point of view, and the rest being otherwise normal games that happen to be played on the Virtual Boy and had a 3D effect put in, for better or worse.
The opening to the review sets the scene perfectly – I remember the mid 90’s vividly, and James’s description on how the gaming landscape was changing from the 16 to 32/64 bit era is just spot on. Virtual Boy was quite heavily discussed before its launch, so everyone was expecting something major from it, much as we were expecting even more from the Ultra 64, as the N64 console was known at that time. Sadly, it disappointed, and rarely did many gamers made the plunge to purchase it, especially after trying the unit at an in store demo kiosk.
Yep. This is how you play the thing.
After the introduction, James goes right into tearing into the unit. Its physical shape, the odd way you actually use the console, the unique controller (which I actually like) and finally getting right into covering the games.
This is an interesting case, as the Virtual Boy only had 22 games released for it, with only 14 being released in the United States, James has the ability to cover every game that was released for the system here. In the interest of time this also means each review is quick, simple, and to the point, making note of the good, the bad, and how the game either takes advantage of or is held back by the system.
3D effects are hit or miss, the fact that everything is red and black inhibits some games more than it should, and only two games offer a first person point of view, with some other games seeming to have no reason to need to be on the system, yet they are.
I will say I don’t agree with the focus on the system and Virtual Reality – given the released game library the system obviously had no effort put into virtual reality as a focus, and the name seems to be a holdover from earlier in development – looking at it for what it is, with the released titles, it’s not so bad game wise.
Trying to play the games, however? Not such a good time.
Sometime after the original release, James updated the video to include a segment on the final game he was missing from the US release catalog for Virtual Boy, “Jack Bros.” It’s an interesting little horror cliche themed title which looks like a bit of an adventure RPG mixed with dungeon-crawling. Not a bad title, it would seem, but again, it’s on Virtual Boy.
In real life the system looks pretty sharp, but it’s still red and black all the way.
An interesting note is that James shows a Japanese copy of the game – this game was released properly here in the United States, or so sources say, so it’s possible a Japanese copy was simply cheaper than an American copy, and would prove “good enough” for the update video. I don’t know, but it is nice to see this episode completed, albeit quite a few years later (you can see James is in his new house in this additional clip, and that it’s later into him living there as he has added the extra shelves behind the couch, something we don’t see until late 2009!)
Final Rating: 4/5
This is another one of those solid episodes. It really gets to the point of its subject matter, but still contains enough absurd jokes and obscenities to be a Nerd episode. The criticisms James provides on the system seem to fit with what many who have played the system think, and while some of us may have a soft spot or like the Virtual Boy, this, I think, is one of those few cases where we can all agree it was, as produced, a doomed system, and this AVGN episode pretty well covers what needs to be said, give or take.
As always, here’s the episode – the High Quality re-upload with the additional Jack Bros clip. Enjoy!