This is one of those Angry Video Game Nerd episodes that was seemingly destined to happen. Being the big fan of Star Wars that James Rolfe is, it seemed inevitable that he would spend some time on the multitude of Star Wars video games which have been released over the years, especially in the early to mid 90’s when the series experienced a revival in popularity.
The episode opens with a look at the assortment of Star Wars games made for the Atari 2600; Star Wars: The Arcade Game, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, and Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi. The Nerd touches on how ambitious the Arcade game port was, how Empire focuses on just the Hoth battle, and how strange Return of the Jedi is, looking more like a war on disco than a Star Wars game.
He does touch on the fact that there was another Return of the Jedi game planned, based on the battle against the Empire from the perspective of the Ewoks on Endor, but it was cancelled and never properly released. He ends with Star Wars: Jedi Arena, a paddle controller game based on the training scene in A New Hope. It’s actually a pretty cool game, when you figure it out, but without a manual it’s a strange experience.
We move on to Star Wars for the Famicom. Yep a Star Wars game released only in Japan, and one I hadn’t heard of until this episode was released. It’s one of those “one hit death” kind of games, incredibly unforgiving. It’s honestly a strange thing to see, especially when Vader turns into a scorpion. Yes, you read that correctly — when you fight him inside the jawa sandcrawler Darth Vader turns into a scorpion.
This is as good a moment as ever for a break as the Nerd requests a beer from his beer droid — actually an old wet-dry vac which, through clever editing of stop-motion footage, looks to be a droid out of Star Wars. It’s a pretty nice practical effect, in Cinemassacre tradition, and helps provide a bit of comic relief in the episode.
After he gets his beer (which having been shook up foams all over him) the Nerd goes back to the game, driving the landspeeder to the Mos Eisley cantina — apparently literally driving inside of it!
The game continues with a typical space shooter scene and more platforming levels before he gets a game over. At this point he breaks from the “playthrough” style of review to commenting on the game in general, mentioning force powers you obtain and that he can get further in the game each time he plays, but in the end the game is incredibly difficult no matter what and, without continues, he’s forced to constantly replay the earlier levels to the point of tedium.
We move on to the NES counterparts of these games which, incidentally, were made by JVC and not LJN — one could say this gives us a “new hope” that these games will be decent.
This one is better than the Famicom game — it controls better, for one, but does have an issue of being a bit of a “where do I go” game when it opens. The levels are difficult, give or take – once James knows what to do (grab the lightsaber before the cantina, get shields for the asteroid belt, etc) he can make progress, but once he hits the Death Star the game just gets too damn hard for him.
This leads to another break in the reviews, this time for the Nerd to promote his new game cheating device the “Beat a Game Button!” Yep, just push the button and the game is won. Easy! Actually the button looks like a “Quickshot” brand joypad for the NES and is of course completely fake, but is quite the nice aside in the video. It helps break the monotony of review after review and helps with episode pacing — this is, after all, a 22 minute long Nerd episode.
After this, the Nerd goes back to Star Wars but gets another beer. After insulting the beer droid, it decides to hit him with a beer in retaliation. Gotta have one last joke in before continuing, right?
With Empire Strikes Back the gameplay is somewhat the same, however the Nerd feels the controls still “take some getting used to” especially since you begin the game riding on a Tauntaun. Well, at least it’s somewhat accurate to the film, right? There are some obscure abilities you have available, like a long jump, and you get force power ups in the game, but it still difficult. The Nerd can make it to Dagobah, but no further, saying the “Swamp Stage is from Hell!”
There was no Return of the Jedi game on NES, and this fact is used as a chance to bring up the Super Star Wars games on SNES. James is rather impressed by these and, while he acknowledges the difficulty is still high in these (which were his main complaint about the NES Star Wars games) these control better and have a ton going on. Still, they are difficult, but it’s a fun difficulty; for the most part. They can be frustrating, but you still can enjoy them.
He wraps up with Shadows of the Empire on the Nintendo 64. This game was based on the then-new side story of the same name, which takes place between Empire and Jedi. It was an incredibly hyped game in its day, and is still regarded well. This, however, is also where James ends the video, mentioning some of the games which had come later — starting off legitimately but at the end just making up junk in a nice monologue which only ends when the most unexpected event in Nerd history happens — A buffalo smashes out a window defecates into the Nerd room. This happens completely out of nowhere — no real buildup beyond seeing the buffalo in the window (if you aren’t focused on James’ rant) and then it happens! Well, this is The Angry Video Game Nerd, and it wouldn’t be an episode without some kind of fecal reference.
Final Rating: 4.5/5
What can ya say, it’s James as the Nerd covering Star Wars games. This episode really is made with the idea that you already know (and presumably like) Star Wars as a basis, which works for me, but I could understand some people not that into Star Wars not enjoying it as much.
That being said, it covers a wide assortment of games in what detail they need to be covered in for such a video, has a very steady pacing, and has comedy well written to support the subject matter in question — until the end, which is just plain random.
It’s an enjoyable experience and, given how few episodes were coming out at this time in Nerd history, it was a very welcome episode for its length and quality.
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