We finally arrive at the holiday episode for 2015 and the end of Season 9 of AVGN. Given it’s the Winter season and it gets cold this time of year, it’s only appropraite that the Nerd takes a look at a bad game that incidentally relates to the cold: Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero for the Nintendo 64. Yeah, not exactly a typical holiday game to be covered, but given this may well have been many people’s Christmas present back in 1997 I would say it works in the same way the holiday wish list games do.
With James now in the new house and in the re-created Nerd room, this is a more basic episode — one static view of the Nerd cut in with gameplay footage. Tried and true, but not anywhere near as dynamic as other episodes, which is fine for this kind of shorter episode.
The episode begins with the Nerd discussing the phenomena that was Mortal Kombat in the early and mid 90’s. This establishes context on just how big the series was, and prefaces how much of a disappointment Mythologies: Sub-Zero really is.
It’s actually quite the cut and dry case of absolutely terrible controls and design. The game looks fine. Honestly, pretty damn good, save for a few foreground object issues, which is the only visual complaint the Nerd makes. No, it really is all in the gameplay: See, much like Batman Forever, the game uses the Mortal Kombat gameplay style for a platform adventure / brawler game, which just doesn’t work! Game controls for a one-on-one fighter just don’t transfer over to platforming, or fighting more than one opponent at a time. Compare that to Smash Bros. which does that kind of gameplay perfectly.
Back to the Nerds comments, the game is just truly frustrating to play. Positive elements seem to be there, with RPG elements, but when the level design is confusing and control is near impossible, there’s just no fun to be had here, and in only a few minutes the Nerd has had enough, eliminating the terrible game in a classic Mortal Kombat Fatality!
For the last few minutes, James advertises AVGN Volume X, and talks about his positive outlook on 2016.
Final Rating: 3.5/5
This is a nice, albeit short episode. There really isn’t much to say about it. It has a classic AVGN feel and may well be one of the final episodes to do so.
Still, even though Cinemassacre content on a whole in 2015 was heavy, that should have been a clue to more of us James Rolfe fans that something wasn’t quite right; that, beyond Seeman there should have been at least one more higher production quality episode. In any case, that’s that for Season 9 and AVGN for 2015. Next up comes what many Cinemassacre fans will agree was a definitive downturn in AVGN.