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Angry Video Game Nerd Ep 145: Sonic The Hedgehog (2006)

Powalski

Banned
James always surprises me with the consistent high quality of his output. Another great video.

Congrats to him on having another daughter on the way too.
 

entremet

Member
Yep. I enjoyed this episode but it's clear James isn't as enthusiastic as he used to be. I don't blame him. Sometimes you lose your passion as you've moved onto other things.

The AVGN torch has basically passed on to Mike Mattei's and Let's Play they do. That's fine. Things evolve.
 
This is a sponsored video, so that may be why he doesn't seem as passionate or as enthusiastic as usual. The videos where he is are the ones where he grew up with the game and they frustrated the hell out of him when he was a kid.

Still, since we're on the subject of Sonic 06, has their ever been a development article done on it? It's one of those games where it's hard to understand why it was ever released as the only thing it really seems to get right i the music. Everything else is horrible. I just can't understand how a major development team could ever want their name attached to a game like that. It's basically AAA shovelware.
Even in games he didn't experience before making an episode he can be really enthusiastic. The Power Rangers episode is an example. One of the best in years.
 

Lothar

Banned
I still remember watching his review of the TMNT NES game ages ago. I didn't realise he was still doing these.

He also does a James and Mike Play episode ever Monday if you don't know about those.

Recently he did Dr Mario https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k04YXRcYVrA and
Garfield https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ-_kb6zONk

I like those more than the recent AVGN episodes. I think he has more fun doing those.

Depending on the game, if it's bad or frustrating enough, it can be just like a AVGN episode.
 
Difference between James and other people who do the angry schtick is that James actually has charisma on screen and is clearly over the top to be humorous, versus all of the avgn clones who took the "angry" part but ignored the humor part.

I'll be honest, I don't laugh as much as I used to at his videos as I've gotten older but I still watch every new one and go back to old ones because James knows it's a joke character making jokes, while similar characters gloss over what makes avgn really work.
 

Admodieus

Member
How does this guy get respect but Angry Joe doesn't?

Not to give the wrong impression, I don't care for the angry gamer shtick regardless of whom it's coming from but Joe seems often much more insightful when critiquing a game and gives games a pretty in depth analysis.

Neither are funny, but of the angry video game people on YouTube it doesn't make sense why people shit on his content and lash out when people post it and yet AVGN is so revered? Is it because he was one of the originals? Nostalgia?

AVGN (or Angry Nintendo Nerd, as he was originally) was kind of a pioneer in the space and was probably the equivalent of many people's first Youtuber (even though he didn't use Youtube at the start). I also find his videos a lot easier to watch because he usually goes into calm detail about what the game's deficiencies are, saving the angry hyperbole for truly outrageous aspects
 
Interesting to see that this is a sponsored episode (by Full Sail University of all things?)



He started doing these videos in 2004. In the 13 years since then, he's gotten married, had a child, bought a house, built an old school video rental store in his basement, and probably had a bunch of other life events happen to him as well.

He used to do these biweekly, then monthly, and we are now down to 4-5 episodes a year. It's not a priority for him, but he continues to do it because he gets to have fun for the Haloween episodes, and because it's how 99.9% of his fans discovered him
I love the videos where he does tours of his game room and his video collection. His entire basement is basically one giant homage to the early 90s.
 

Renekton

Member
Difference between James and other people who do the angry schtick is that James actually has charisma on screen and is clearly over the top to be humorous, versus all of the avgn clones who took the "angry" part but ignored the humor part.
Actually how major personalities did the AVGN schtick (retro rage humor)? I can only think of Irate Gamer and Spoony, and Spoony was the closest despite vastly different game genres.

Spoony Street Fighter

AVGN Street Fighter
 

CronoShot

Member
I haven't seen AVGN in a while, but that seemed kinda forced. And apparently he just discovered green screen.

Still, it's very cool that he still does them.
 

Lothar

Banned
Difference between James and other people who do the angry schtick is that James actually has charisma on screen and is clearly over the top to be humorous, versus all of the avgn clones who took the "angry" part but ignored the humor part.

I'll be honest, I don't laugh as much as I used to at his videos as I've gotten older but I still watch every new one and go back to old ones because James knows it's a joke character making jokes, while similar characters gloss over what makes avgn really work.

Another difference might be that he's self deprecating. One of my favorite bits he's done (that he showed in this episode) is scream into his pillow because of his rage for a game. That's clearly intended for the viewer to go "What the hell is wrong with this guy?" You're supposed to be laughing at how stupid and dorky the person making the review is. That's the main joke. I don't think that's the case for Spoony and Angry Joe.
 
5 years ago Sonic 06 wouldn't have been a retro-game. It would have been a current generation title. At the time, AVGN wasn't even doing games from the 3D era.

Also, he was kinda MIA doing the movie for almost 2 full years and Mike took over Cinemassacre during that time.
 

Spman2099

Member
Is it just me or does Rolfe seem like he's worn out in this episode? I mean, he's be doing this for like a decade now, so I would expect it. Maybe it's been like this for a while now; it just seems really noticeable this time around.

My dislike for the AVGN's style of "comedy" has been stated before on this site, as I do think he is a one trick pony character, and I do find his jokes to be incredibly juvenile, but this video makes me feel pretty bad for Rolfe.

I regularly watched some of his earlier stuff when he was a weird, unique, punk rock style voice on the video game scene. One of the things I liked about him was that he was talking about games that I had never heard of, or targeting very specific criticisms that I hadn't seen expressed so explicitly. So, even after the humor wore out its welcome, as humor that is primarily composed of poop jokes tends to do, I still kept watching. This video, however, has almost none of that insight left. It is a retread of all the same complaints people have had about a game that nearly everyone complains about online.

More and more, it feels like the AVGN exists not because Rolfe has any interest in the AVGN, but because not making an AVGN episode means leaving an easy source of revenue on the table. Honestly, I think the James and Mike Mondays shows tend to be far more interesting. However, the views difference is huge between the AVGN episodes and Cinemassacre's other content. So it makes sense that Rolfe looks tired and worn down, I am sure AVGN would a draining, unrewarding show to make.
 

rrs

Member
'Bout time he touched this game. It's a bad game, no doubt about it, but I think he was fairly constructive in his swear-filled critique.

The game is bad but at this point, it's one of those guilty pleasure / Mystery Science Theater type of games that you can just stare in awe at just how silly it is.

The only things I didnt like from this review were:

- He didn't show off enough material from that game;
- He didn't make any major new gags out of said source material;

The loading jokes were stale 3 months after the game's release. The whale for example was a good joke, now that I think about it more, what was really the point of that killer whale? And despite a lot of the glitches, much of Sonic's game time is automated.
I feel this is the problem, the game doesn't make for a good episode of the nerd and feels kinda rushed at times
 
James mentioned he had a lot of fun making the Power Rangers episode. If I used the AV Club grading scale, the Power Rangers episode would be an A and this Sonic one a B-. The one with Keith Apicary would be like a C- or D+.
 

PillarEN

Member
Hahahaha the dude who says "welcome" but keeps and talking and gesturing like he's giving a fast freestyle. Incredible.
 

Dremark

Banned
He started doing these videos in 2004. In the 13 years since then, he's gotten married, had a child, bought a house, built an old school video rental store in his basement, and probably had a bunch of other life events happen to him as well.

He used to do these biweekly, then monthly, and we are now down to 4-5 episodes a year. It's not a priority for him, but he continues to do it because he gets to have fun for the Haloween episodes, and because it's how 99.9% of his fans discovered him

I'm well aware, I've followed him from a couple of episodes in. A lot changes over time and admittedly most of his more recent episodes have been better than the few years prior (and the movie) an idea can only be done so much before it gets stale (and James had the honor of many people helping to run the idea into the ground too).

I guess if he can keep the quality of his past 5 episodes up consistently (aside from the episode with Keith) he can keep going, but if I were in his shoes I'd start spacing them out even further or look at closing out the series.

This isn't an attempt to trash James or anything like that, I still like him, I still follow him, but I'm just being realistic here. I'd rather see him go out while he's​ still viewed favorably.
 
As a complement to the Reynholm GIF.

DEMYZT.gif
 

Dremark

Banned
One of the things I liked about him was that he was talking about games that I had never heard of, or targeting very specific criticisms that I hadn't seen expressed so explicitly.

This was always the best thing about his videos. I still think it can work but the problem is that so many games have been done making unique complaints about them are going to be hard.

And yeah when he's tearing apart games like Sonic 2006 that have already been done to death by others, it's going to be a lot harder to make a good video (I haven't seen this one yet, so I am not criticizing it, just making a general statement).
 

Kusagari

Member
The whole episode just felt disjointed; like he was going down a check list of Sonic 06 things to mention.

Load times - check
Sonic looking weird next to human people - check
Sonic's weird relationship with Elise - check
Tails dying in weird glitches - check
Shitty Silver fight - check

It's hard to add something new to a game critiqued and made fun of as much as Sonic 06, but I feel like he didn't even try.
 

Toxi

Banned
The problem with doing a Sonic 2006 review as a humorous character is that the game is at its funniest when it completely breaks a straight-faced Let's Player. Even better if it breaks an entire group of Let's Players.

See the legendary Pokecapn and co. playthrough.
 
James mentioned he had a lot of fun making the Power Rangers episode. If I used the AV Club grading scale, the Power Rangers episode would be an A and this Sonic one a B-. The one with Keith Apicary would be like a C- or D+.

I'm still a little miffed he didn't talk about one of my favorites, the Movie game for the Genesis. It's a fun Final Fight clone, plus the only movie game where you can use the Megazord. Plus it has midi-fied versions of all the Ron Wasserman songs!
 

Lothar

Banned
The whole episode just felt disjointed; like he was going down a check list of Sonic 06 things to mention.

Load times - check
Sonic looking weird next to human people - check
Sonic's weird relationship with Elise - check
Tails dying in weird glitches - check
Shitty Silver fight - check

It's hard to add something new to a game critiqued and made fun of as much as Sonic 06, but I feel like he didn't even try.

Why would you even assume that he read or watched any critique of Sonic 06 before he reviewed it? I haven't seen any. So everything in this video was new and interesting to me.

I would assume he's never even heard of a Sonic on Xbox before he got recommendations for it.
 

Savitar

Member
It was okay, it wasn't bad, wasn't great, it was just kinda....there? He wasn't his fully fired up self and maybe the game being so much "newer" changed things a bit too. Maybe where he was getting paid to do this it affected things.
 

Kudo

Member
Really enjoyed this, good use of green screen and the edits were funny.
I've heard this game was bad before but to this extent, they played it before with Mike but didn't get this far.
 
The early episodes were much more cathartic, because we as young gamers had those same horrible experiences, but couldn't express them to anyone. Games like Sonic and Superman 64 had been exhausted of that long before James could ever get to them. It's like a Youtuber shitting on The Phantom Menace years after the Plinkett video.
 
I haven't seen AVGN in a while, but that seemed kinda forced. And apparently he just discovered green screen.

Still, it's very cool that he still does them.

He's been doing green screen stuff for a good while now. The one that stands out is where the the Nerd goes back in time to warn the older Nerds about a game. I can't remember which one it is, but I'm sure someone here can remember.

This episode was OK. I've seen the Sonic 06 stuff for years, so it really doesn't phase me anymore. On top of that, they did the James & Mike episode where they played the game and touched on some of this stuff.

I'm not sure this episode is a good representation of what he's been doing lately. The Power Rangers one from last month was better.

http://cinemassacre.com/2017/03/23/mighty-morphin-power-rangers-angry-video-game-nerd/
 

Reversed

Member
The free willy comment felt pretty random.

Otherwise a good video. Should have gone deeper into the game but James is no (that much of a) masochist. :)
 

Inuhanyou

Believes Dragon Quest is a franchise managed by Sony
James is doing sponsored videos now? I dunno how i feel about that..

He and james did a james and mike plays of Sonic 06 already a few years back, it was pretty chill and he really only criticized the loading screens
 
I think the problem with newer avgn episodes is that they are not silly enough, the power rangers episode ending was perfect but sonic was just green screen abuse and everything felt like it was too serious of a review.
 

EVOL 100%

Member
I think it's fair to say he's ran out of steam at this point. A lot of the older videos are still fantastically funny, and you could tell Rolfe was really pouring a lot of effort and time into the videos. Probably because he was channeling his utter rage he felt towards the shitty games he played as a child.

The newer ones aren't as good, but sometimes great ones like the Seaman and Paperboy videos come out.

I still like the guy a lot
 

AHA-Lambda

Member
Man he really just isn't as funny as he used to be...or at least as funny as I remember him being.

This. But then again I was like 10 years younger when i first discovered him, and still thought copious swearing was cool; the schtick is old now.
 

Kain

Member
He's overproducing lately, this is supposed to be about shitty games and half of the episode is of him being goofy in front of a green screen. Which is normal I suppose because he must feel the need to evolve and try new things with the character, but it doesn't appeal to me as much as him ranting about how shitty the Jaguar games were, for example
 
The early episodes were much more cathartic, because we as young gamers had those same horrible experiences, but couldn't express them to anyone. Games like Sonic and Superman 64 had been exhausted of that long before James could ever get to them. It's like a Youtuber shitting on The Phantom Menace years after the Plinkett video.
Would have been funny if he dicked the audience over with the same joke he used in Superman 64 by starting out with a review of Sonic 1 for the GBA (also came out in 2006):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXFMQ_qyZEQ

I don't know how something like this even got approved, but then again it came out in the same year as Sonic 06. Sega clearly gave no fucks about their flagship franchise that year. What's worse is Stealth (one of the designers behind Sonic Mania and the iOS ports of Sonic 1 and 2) made a pretty functional version of Green Hill for GBA with Tails and Knuckles playable, so you can't even blame the GBA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFwxF-7vSrQ
 
This. But then again I was like 10 years younger when i first discovered him, and still thought copious swearing was cool; the schtick is old now.


I find comments like these baffling, as the swearing rants have always been a small part of the humor and run time of an AVGN episode.
 
Mother of god what the everloving fuck happened with this game. I knew it was riddled with bugs and loading screens and terrible gameplay all around, but I thought the visuals were supposed to be good at least. It's embarrassingly ugly from start to finish, and those human NPC... *shiver*. The main hub seems made of tears.

Also the things you have to do in the city to progress, like the captain quest, are unbelievable. This game would have been an embarrassment on the Saturn, how in the hell did this get made and released on the 360 back then?
 

Glowsquid

Member
Also the things you have to do in the city to progress, like the captain quest, are unbelievable. This game would have been an embarrassment on the Saturn, how in the hell did this get made and released on the 360 back then?

Basically, what I've heard the story is

-Sega plans to release Sonic 2006 on the Wii (back when it was only known as Revolution), PS3 and X360 simultaneously

-Sega gets final Wii specs, director of the game realize it would be impossible to do Sonic 2006 on the Wii as originaly envisioned

-Original director fucks off and takes half the dev team with him to make Sonic & the Secret Rings

-Remaining developers have no experience with the x360 or Wii

-Sega rush the game to be released in time for Christmas and the franchise's 15th anniversary

-Sega fires entire QA department before release
 
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