‘AVGN Adventures’ Will Take You Back To The Past

AVGN Adventures is almost everything you could expect it to be.

If you don’t know what AVGN is, it’s an acronym for Angry Video Game Nerd, a web video series starring James Rolfe. This gamer is notorious for taking on some of the worst games you have ever seen in history, specializing in nostalgic games and occasionally some newer titles. His “thing” is that he acts angry for the camera and starts spewing swear words almost randomly, and drinks beer to show his frustration over games that are poorly designed or just so difficult that you would never see the ending no matter how good you are.

The story behind the game is that James Rolfe is having a late-night gaming session and somehow ends up in a game he’s reviewing, armed with his trusty super gun. That’s about how far the story goes, and we don’t really need much more than that, as the classic action and tight controls take over from there.

That said, AVGN Adventures is exactly the kind of game you might expect from James Rolfe. Now available on Steam for $14.99, the game gives you eight-bit graphics and gameplay reminiscent of the kinds of games the Angry Video Game Nerd usually reviews, and even keeps the difficulty just hard enough that you will be challenged even on the Medium setting. Do not go in expecting a cake walk, as the difficulty is right up there with Keiji Inafune’s Mega Man series.

Of course, seeing as AVGN Adventures features some rather harsh language in the same vein as what James Rolfe usually uses, you might not want to let the kids play it. If that isn’t an obstacle, you might just want to give AVGN Adventures a try. Four difficulty settings and a handful of stages to choose from will keep you entertained for hours if you have the patience to stick with it.

Along the way, AVGN Adventures features running text commentary in true Angry Video Game Nerd style as annoying video game cliches happen around the digital James Rolfe, such as blocks that don’t appear until you’re close to them, or a persistent firefly that’s a blatant parody of Navi from The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time. You will also encounter cameos from “Motherf***er” Mike Mattei and pick up beer bottles laying around the levels, solidifying the authenticity of this game based on the web series.

If you don’t mind the random vulgarities used by the Angry Video Game Nerd and you enjoy a good hard romp through classic eight-bit style gameplay, go ahead and give AVGN Adventures a try.