This is a bit of a special AVGN episode. It was released 10 years after James had originally recorded the original “Bad Video Games” video on Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, and acted as a bit of an anniversary video on that front. It also was the last episode before the AVGN Movie, and equally acted as a bit of lead in to that, with the way it ends.
Additionally, it the subject matter of the episode is one of the strangest games the Nerd has taken a look at yet, and the crazy thing is, it’s only part of a larger game which was developed but never released for the Sega CD: Penn &Teller’s Smoke and Mirrors. It’s basically a compilation of minigames which are designed in one way or another as jokes with Desert Bus being, quite simply, the most sinister of them all.
James goes over the back story pretty quickly, wasting no time in getting into the main subject of Desert Bus. He explains the premise — drive the 360 miles, all in real time, at a top speed of 45 miles per hour.
That’s it. That’s the whole game. You have to steer or risk running off the road and having to be towed back to the starting point in real time as well! Yes, it’s truly a sadistic game, to put it simply, and that’s what the focus is here – on the sheer insanity that this actually exists! Honestly it’s kind of ingenious, albeit very cruel.
Really the Desert Bus section speaks for itself – it’s a solid look at what the Nerd considered to, in the end, be the worst game ever. It’s so bad, in fact, that it causes him to feel his decade of effort has been a complete waste and he should retire.
He goes to his wall of NES games, pulls out the game that started it all (Castlevania II) before putting it back and quickly pulling out a game beside it — a hacked version of the game known as Castlevania II Redaction.
He decides put it in and give it a go, as the last game he’ll play. Here we have a basic recap on what is fundamentally flawed with the original Castlevania II followed by examples of how the Redaction version fixes those flaws, give or take.
The Nerd takes this as a sign that his effort wasn’t in vane and that he must continue doing what he does. This is what leads into the AVGN Movie, with the Nerd saying he needs to get out and do something bigger – that something being the film, which had been delayed for a while at this point — it was originally supposed to come after the Spielberg Games episode, but that didn’t happen. The film would release in the Summer of 2014 to mixed reviews.
Final Rating: 4.5/5
This is an oddly familiar feeling episode. It’s certainly in what I consider “new Nerd” territory, having that distinctive look and feel of the mid 2010’s AVGN episodes, but the care taken with the game Desert Bus and the addition of the Castlevania II Reaction section, and that great buildup for the movie, really comes together.
The episode really works, to me, simply because of the idea and the time surrounding it — it’s been 10 years of the Nerd, the AVGN Movie is about to be released, things can only get better from here!
They wouldn’t, but at least the energy, the hope, and the fun has stuck around.