The Nerd quotes from The Angry Video Game Nerd

The Nerd

This game is yet another one of those "Where the fuck do I go?" kind of games. I ran around for 20 minutes like a chicken with its head cut off and barely accomplished anything.

The Nerd

I know what you're thinking, did he fire six shots or only five? Well to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I... kind of lost track myself. But being this is a Konami Justifier, the most powerful light gun in the world, it would blow your label clean off. You gotta ask yourself one question. Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya? Punk?

The Nerd

(meditating to ethnic music) ... Oh, hey. I've just been meditating to summon the power of the Chosen One to give me the patience and the courage... to play today's game.

The Nerd

This game is what you get if somebody ate every badass dual-pistol wielding, trench coat-wearing late '90s action movie cliché, then barfed it out, ate the barf, and then dumped their ass into a piss-and-shit-stained bus station toilet, and then they took that rancid concoction, and somehow printed Xbox discs made out of it! 99 Dragons, made out of 99 percent bullshit!

The Nerd

But ooh boy, let me tell ya, I haven't even started playing yet, so let's pick up the Duke here, this big-ass tank fuckin' controller, and let's get started. 'cuz it's gonna get fucked...

The Nerd

I understand the game was developed under a very short time, but somebody had to pop this in at least ONCE and say; "This controls like ass."

The Nerd

(on the cutscenes) Oh, and the lips barely move, so I can never tell if they're actually talking, or it's some kind of inner monologue. (As he speaks, the Nerd's mouth is intentionally out of sync with his voice, parodying this.)

The Nerd

(waiting for a platform to take Drake to the top of a building) O-oh, come on! I could build a sculpture of a horse takin' a shit, out of horse shit, in the time it takes to get up there!

The Nerd

This is where the problems in the game REALLY mount up, and it just... builds inside you with all this RAGE, and you become... just BOILING SO FUCKIN' HOT! It's not like you're in Hell; you've become Hell! Bad people die, and they go into you!

The Nerd

(fighting a boss) And before I know it, I'm dead! What the fuuucck?!

The Nerd

So you defeat the boss, you rescue your master, and now you gotta go down into the subway, and... (gets hit by a train and dies) HAAAAAAAAAAGHHH!!! WHAT THE FUCK?! Thi-I-I-I-I can't fuckin' stand this. I-I would cheat, but, they didn't even program cheat codes! But how could they, if they can't even program a fuckin game?! (stammers and briefly meditates)

The Nerd

I have a confession: I totally missed out on the Tomb Raider craze.

The Nerd

Full disclosure, I saved all my money for a Nintendo 64, so I missed out on all the PlayStation games that everybody talks about like Metal Gear Solid, (Castlevania: )Symphony of the Night, Final Fantasy VII, and, yes, Tomb Raider. In the mid 90's and early 2000's, Tomb Raider was one of the biggest game franchises. Every year, we got a new Tomb Raider game. I can see why people liked it. It revolutionized 3D platforming, the same way Super Mario 64 did. The puzzles were fun, the settings were cool, the music was atmospheric, and the action was top-notch for the time.

The Nerd

Seemed like the only thing bigger than the games, was its star, Lara Croft.

The Nerd

Lara Croft was basically Indiana Jones for the '90s. You thought Indy was badass? Lara goes from fighting wolves and dinosaurs, to mummies, and eventually, skinless Atlantean demons straight from a Clive Barker movie. Oh, and bats. She also fights bats. Can't forget those.

The Nerd

Lara Croft's popularity took the world by storm. She was the first female game protagonist to get this kind of attention. Her fame transcended the games, and she ended up being on the cover of magazines, and even the spokesperson for products. I'm not kidding. She was in car commercials, soda commercials, and an ad for Visa! Seems like the world was obsessed with Lara Croft. Even in the early episodes, when I always had that (The Legend of) Zelda poster, on the other side, Lara was here all along.

The Nerd

I'm not sure why everyone was into Lara Croft, but I can guess a couple of reasons. These days, she still appears in games, and even had a few movies based off her. Her fame might not be as big as it was back then, but it's clear she will still be kicking ass in video games for a long time.

The Nerd

But they can't all be hits, and that's why I'm gonna go on a journey to find the worst Tomb Raider games ever made! Now you gotta pack, because when you're dealing with shitty games, you gotta really be prepared for these! [he packs several firearms into a backpack] Because these games, who knows how bad they're gonna be?! I mean, we might find some vile fucking crap here! So, you gotta bring all the necessities here!

The Nerd

So, here's Tomb Raider: Chronicles, the fifth in the series, but the first to fail critically and financially. The game opens with Lara's funeral. Yeah, that's right. The last game ended with her dying. The developers were tired of doing Tomb Raider and hoped the fourth game would be the end. Well, maybe if I killed off my character, I wouldn't have to review any more shitty games! Nah, just kidding. Not yet. The game centers around a group of her friends sharing stories of her adventures. After that, we get a loading screen where I noticed something interesting. There's a credit, for Timex. Yeah, Timex, the watch company. What, did they make this game on a ZX Spectrum? Oh, here's why. It's an ad, for a grip-clip watch. Lara uses it in the game to keep track of her time and progress. So, right away, this game just sells out with a product placement! It's like people only do things because they get paid. And that's just really sad.

The Nerd

(Tomb Raider: )Chronicles is just a soulless rehash of the other games and a shameless advertisement for a watch (almost) no one remembers. I don't know what else to say about it, so I'll just quote one of the developers of the game. "Tomb Raider 5 was effectively a load of OLD SHIT. That was the most depressing one for us. We were effectively just doing that for a paycheck because no other team wanted to take it on. So, we had to do it, basically. By that time, it had taken its toll. Three years of hammering it, and we were burnt out. That shows in the product." [chuckles] Oh, my God! This might be the first time someone who made the game reviewed it for me! Huh. [tosses the game into the pool]

The Nerd

So, here it is. The (un)holy grail of shitty Tomb Raider games: (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - The )Angel of Darkness. It was so bad it killed the studio making it and nearly killed the whole franchise. This was the first Tomb Raider game on the PS2. It was gonna usher Lara Croft into a new age with a bigger, better adventure. There would be larger environments, and more stuff to do. It would be a whole new game...or it would've been if the development wasn't such a disaster.

The Nerd

The problems start right at the beginning. The opening cutscene introduces Lara in a dark office where her associate [Werner Von Croy] gets killed by someone offscreen. This is how you open your fun action-adventure game? By ripping off Clue?

The Nerd

Compare this to the first game which opens in an exotic location and has Lara murdering fucking wolves! But then, (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - The )Angel of Darkness starts off with a tutorial, and you better not fuck up because if you die without saving, you start at the beginning.

The Nerd

And I don't mean, "The beginning of the level.", I mean, "The beginning of the whole game." No checkpoints, nothing, so get used to saving.

The Nerd

Save after every puzzle, save after every enemy, and save after every jump. [sighs annoyedly] And the jumping. You would think, since this is PS2, the controls would be better than PS1! [chuckles sarcastically] But you'd be wrong. They're extremely clunky, and that's the reason why you die so much.

The Nerd

You know what would've been nice? A training section where I could practice these new controls without affecting the main game. You know, like the Croft Manor section of the old games.

The Nerd

Now you have to reach a certain part in the game to get a new ability. Climbing this wall will make you be able to climb longer. Moving this box will give you the ability to move two boxes. Kicking a huge metal drawbridge will give you the ability to open a small door. That doesn't even make any sense!

The Nerd

The creators spent so much time figuring out how to make Lara's boobs jiggle, they forgot to make her fun to play. By the way, the camera in this game sucks. It constantly fucks you up and makes jumping difficult. At one point, the camera goes into Lara's head, and it's one of the most horrifying images I've seen!

The Nerd

In the words of one of the people who made the game, "The camera was just a complete pig." [nods his head in agreement] Yeah, that's one way to put it.

The Nerd

So, the whole story is, the game was rushed out, unfinished, it failed, and then Core Design, the company who originally made Tomb Raider, shut down. It was so bad that Paramount blamed it for (Lara Croft: )Tomb Raider - (The) Cradle of Life's low box office.

The Nerd

Oh, and have you ever noticed the Angelina Jolie Tomb Raider movies aren't called Tomb Raider? They're officially called Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life. What a mouthful. Did they just read the movie poster out loud? Might be why it took 15 years to get another feature film, which was simply called, Tomb Raider, unless the real title was supposed to be: Alicia Vikander is Lara Croft Tomb Raider March 16th Experience It In IMAX. But that's probably too much for a theater marquee, right? Anyway, it was the end of an era, but my journey leads to one last game. One almost forgotten like the shit you took last month.

The Nerd

This game is kicking the PlayStation while it's already down. Mainly in the balls.