Time for the first double-feature of the Angry Video Game Nerd series, in time for Halloween 2006 we have the NES games Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. These videos were produced as a double-set of episodes, and feature some of James’ top-notch storytelling condensed into nerd episode length.
First up is Friday the 13th, the game based on the film of the same name. This game spawned the “useless weapons” trope in AVGN episodes. While Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde had it’s pointless staff, Friday the 13th took the useless weapons to a point of true annoyance by having the rock fly at a useless arc, something that would be more common in later games James would cover as the AVNG series went on.
Mike Matei plays Jason in these scenes.
The episode is, as I mentioned above, an exercise in storytelling, where Jason is basically holding the Nerd hostage, and all he can do without being attacked is to compliment the game: this, of course, goes against his nature to criticize “shitty games.”
This video marks the first appearance of Jame’s good friend Mike Matei, although you only catch a gimps of him through the mask (which is autographed by the actor who played Jason in the movies, as a fun little aside). Mike would go on to portray many characters in later episodes, and does the title art for each episode, but we will talk about him more as time passes.
Back to the game, James’s comments on the game are pretty spot on – while short, his review does capture the annoying nature of the game itself, and all his complaints are quite valid to me, from what I have played of the game. His rant about the Game Over screen is amazing, one of the best moments in the series, and the remainder of the review really stands out as extremely classic in AVGN history.
The game itself is pretty scary too… not in the way it should be.
The ending, of course, sets us up for the next game in the pair of videos, Friday the 13th, which we will be coming to sooner, rather than later time time. Stay tuned.
(It’s worth noting I do believe the original version of this episode used film clips, but due to the nature of YouTube and Copyright, James took these clips out for this version of the episode, so the original version on screwattack.com would be the most “pure” version, with this one being the DVD-revised one. Take it for what you will, I prefer to share these YouTube ones since they format nicely in WordPress.
Final Rating: 3.5/5
The episode is funny, and tells a nice little story, but, maybe due to my lack of owning this game as a kid or my general “meh” reaction to most movies, A good episode, but not one that grabs me as much as the next one does.