31 Days, 31 Screams: Resurrection- Day 23 (Even More Angry Video Game Nerd Halloween Episodes)

Another year and another one of these. What can I say? James Rolfe loves the spooky month just as much as I do. Hell, he's done a version of this same thing I do in October for over a decade called Monster Madness. The man's a horror nut, and it shows through in his AVGN stuff right around the time of spooky month. In later years they got less and less overtly horror themed, just focusing on spooky games and stuff, but I've managed to pull three from his back catalogue that I can find some things to say about. Really, that's the goal here. To say something interesting about the videos Rolfe puts out as this character. I think we can manage that, so let's start with...

I haven't actually seen this movie. It sounds a little too hardcore and gnarly for me, and I can only imagine what it must have been like back in the 1970's to see it. Equally, I'm not haunted by it like I was with Jason or Freddy, so despite Leatherface being one of the early slashers (maybe! As I say, haven't seen the movie, so take these claims with a grain of salt) he's kind of a tier below your Jasons or Freddies or Myers. What we have here is, I can only guess, a microcosm tribute to the film framed in game form. We have an old man with a banjo selling bad games, and some foul banter between him and the Nerd, and then our game review. With Atari, there's not much to talk about. You kind of get what you're immediately presented with, and what we're presented with is a macabre but crude representation of playing as a slasher villain killing girls. It's a very short review with some exaggerated grievances, and then the rest of the video is skit stuff. As it has to be, since the review part would be short otherwise. Talking Atari though, the Halloween video that follows this (which we covered) also has extended skit action involving the Nerd escaping the slasher du jour. The weird fanboy hippie guy (is that Mike Matei in a wig? I can't tell) also manages to bring up ET, which is an interesting invocation in light of the movie that came out seven years later. Well, then we get some weird... torture porn? Where the torture is a shit Atari game? It's gonzo and wild, but then the ending ties back into the flaw of the game and highlights how absurd it is by showing it in real life. Cute review, but far more interesting to me is...

Now we're talking my turf. I find this video very interesting, and not just because it's a game and a series I've busted my own soul over trying to clear. No, for all that the AVGN should be taken as exaggerated parody, a fuckin' nerd getting way too mad at old shit that doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things... a lot of what he says here is actually on point. In a lot of ways, it functions as a perfectly reasonable breakdown of the how and why of Ghosts n Goblins being that ridiculously hard. Level by level, things are broken down and explained in a way that makes sense. It's a totally functional critique, albeit with some hyperbole. There are certain actions the Nerd takes in game that have me scratching my head; chief among them his insistence on keeping the knife as long as possible in Stage 6. Buddy, just get the shield. It doesn't fire as fast but it will block shit. You'll learn how to handle it. The reaction to having to beat the game twice, and its mistranslated ending, is golden. As I've said some time before, James Rolfe humor is best when it cuts away to his visual reactions of incredulity at the bullshit before him, and not any fucky rants. Case in point, the ending of this is a pretty limp swearfest that doesn't do much for me. Still, this impressed me by how accurate it was. What have we saved for last?

Oh, creepypasta and found footage. Okay. This is a more recent AVGN video, and one I remember as a segmented weekly thing done in 5 parts when it was new. You can see how Rolfe is trying to play around and make a short horror film out of the whole thing, taking the myth of Polybius and running with it. His history lesson and rational debunking of it all is quite thorough for such a succinct look. (If you're interested in a deeper dive, I'd suggest this if you have an hour and change to spare.) Then the slow descent into madness as the Nerd plays the damn thing, making sure never to show it because it could probably fuck with your head if you saw it. It's quite interesting to see his descent, first in calling the game average, then amazing, then realizing it's got a hold on him and wants nothing more than to be seen. To spread. Polybius is a malicious idea given life, and it compels the Nerd in subtle ways to be seen. In many ways it's a microcosm of the Nerd's bad game experience, a nemesis more fitting than any costumed character. A shitty game that makes him play it. It's a far more horrific thing than being tied to a chair and playing Atari, and the final breakdown and ending of the events is wild (though jumpscare heavy, come on now Rolfe.) That will do it for Nerd talk this year. Next year? I dunno, the bear video?