Welcome to the year 2010! Well, at least 2010 for the Nerd! Yep, this was the first episode of The Angry Video Game Nerd for 2010. Still part of Season 4, sure, but the first new episode of a new year and, depending on who you ask, a new decade.
The episode opens up by addressing this — following a montage of all the episode title images up to this point, we see the Nerd going to check his mail, only to step out into a digital mess of game elements run amuck. He questions this, only to quickly realize what year it is, 2010, and that this was what the world was supposed to look like according to the game we’ll be looking at today, Street Fighter 2010!
Following a reference to Back To The Future II (set in 2015) establishing a future that wouldn’t come to pass, James finally goes ahead and starts up the game. Given the name, he presumes it’s going to be a normal Street Fighter game, but this isn’t the case — instead the game is an action platformer, feeling more like Mega Man and Ninja Gaiden than anything else, but it’s still unique.
The first thing James addresses is how the control in the game is — a little confusing and more advanced than it should be, one could say, with a bit of a focus on the fact that you press down to fire up at an angle. Yeah, one of those kinds of odd games.
Confused by how this is a Street Fighter game, James takes some time to read the story. You play as “Ken,” but nothing much else in the game seems to make you think Street Fighter. Turns out the game was given the Street Fighter connection only in the US version, for some reason, with mentioning of the fighting circuit added in and the original characters name changed to make it relate to the fighting game. Wonderful! It’s one of those games, ones changed for reasons that make no real sense.
This is where the episode takes a bit of a deviation, with James going on a bit of an informative monologue about the Street Fighter game series.
He first touches on the original Street Fighter being released on the TurboGraphix-16, this also marking his first mentioning of the system. More properly, the game was released for the CD add-on for the console, but also had its name changed to Fighting Street.
As one might expect, or may be surprised by, this game actually is pretty bad. It makes you think about how good Street Fighter 2, even in its basic form is, compared to this first attempt, and puts in perspective just how the sequel became so successful.
He then touches on Final Fight — another game in the Street Fighter universe, intended to be the second Street Fighter game, but instead it became its own series since it was felt to not be like Street Fighter in any major way.
Before getting back to Street Fighter 2010, James touches on one more game: Street Fighter The Movie; The Game. Yep, a game based on the movie which is based on Street Fighter 2.
James finally says fuck it to obsessing over the title, and gets to explaining the game proper — you are supposed to fight and destroy a target enemy then find a portal which will open somewhere in the level, all of this within a short time limit.
Graphically the Nerd likes the game, but this will only get you so far with a game being “good” when it’s difficult to even attack enemies or navigate the levels, which have all kinds of variety to them. From autoscrolling madness to quicksand waterfalls, and all kinds of crazy enemies attacking you, there just winds up being too much going on at once in nearly every level, and the time limit really puts a crunch on everything.
He does say the game is stimulating and were the controls better, it may well be an underrated classic on the system, at least, until the final stage. It’s a nightmare, a single life to make it through 5 bosses total on a single life, and all in a set time limit.
It’s a nightmare that most every gamer has faced in one game or another; a scenario where you keep playing the same area and get really good, then get so frustrated you actually get bad at the game again. James makes it to the end only to have the timer stop him, but he keeps going, keeps practicing. You have to do it all pretty much perfectly but in the end, he nails it.
Final Rating: 4.0/5
I’ll always have a soft spot for this episode, partially because the day it premiered on ScrewAttack I was sick and had to miss work! That makes it an oddly memorable episode if for that reason alone, but it’s yet another good Season 4 episode. Solid, with a good chunk of gaming history thrown in during the middle. I’d imagine this was partially to pad out the episode, but it was well worth it as it made the whole thing feel more complete.
It was a hell of a way to bring in 2010, and to begin the end of Season 4.