#avgn

(open with AVGN perusing his shelf) Shitty games... shitty games, shitty games, so many shitty games. You know what? Let's try a change of pace. Let's try a COMPUTER game instead. Yeah, a computer game! PC! And not that kind of PC. I mean a personal computer. (the nerd walks to his computer room) Yeah, this is the shit. Hey... what's that? (close-up on a copy of Fallout: New Vegas on his desk) Fallout? Oh, yeah, I remember! (footage of Fallout 1) Today, most people probably know Fallout from Fallout 3 or 4, or the TV show. But I remember the original Fallout, and that was the shit. Its isometric gameplay, deep roleplaying, retrofuturistic setting, and dark, satirical sense of humor made it stand out among a pretty crowded field of CRPGs back in the day. But don't ask me about Fallout 2. I never got out of the damn temple.

But Fallout: New Vegas? I must have missed this one. But it's supposed to be by the same people who made the original, so... I think I've got high hopes. Or it could just be a master class in ass. Well... no place like Vegas to take a gamble like that.

(opening cutscene) So first things first you get a loooooong ass cutscene about the world and the characters and all that. I hate it when games do this. Used to be they'd have it all in the manual, yeah, remember manuals? And you could read it on your own time. But instead you have to sit through all this shit. This is when you get your first look at this guy in the checkered suit, his name's Benny but you don't find that out until later. (close up on Benny) Look at this guy. Who dresses like this? He shouldn't be in Vegas, he should be standing at the finish line at a NASCAR race! Or at a ska concert! But anyway, he shoots you in the head and you wake up and you want to find him. Game begins. That's it, that's your motivation. No saving the world, no big prophecy, just lean, mean, straight-to-the-point, fuck-you-in-particular revenge. I like it. And so you make your character, you go through the tutorial, all that crap, whatever. I gave myself 10 Intelligence and 10 Charisma... (cut to the Nerd looking directly at the camera and frowning, then deadpan) just like in real life. (beat, and then the Nerd winks).

But enough pussyfooting around. Now that we're in it, let's talk about the first mission in the game, "Ghost Town Gunfight." Some asshole wants to kill some other asshole and so you need to talk to a bunch of other assholes and you WILL be running back and forth all over town for this shit, it WILL waste your time. But the worst part is this old motherfucker sitting on the porch who has dynamite but he just REFUSES to give it to you! (gameplay clip of easy pete saying "nope. too dangerous. blow yourself up. blow the whole town up.") the town's about to get leveled by escaped convicts but this old guy will NOT give you this dynamite unless you JUST SO HAPPENED to build your character in JUST THE RIGHT WAY to pass the skill check. (footage of james being really bad at the game) so i don't get the dynamite and the gunfight kills half the people in town. (clip of sunny smiles saying "Those bastards got Ringo in the end, after all. At least he went down fighting.") he went down because this old fucking man wouldn't let us use his dynamite! i wish these game designers would have passed a skill check to make a better fucking game! And there's a LOT more of this game to see. (sotto voce) Ringo got off lucky, death this early would be a mercy.

After that bullshit, you can go basically anywhere you want, so I went north. But I didn't get too far before I got killed in one hit by these giant fucking lizards! (slow-mo of the Nerd's character getting killed) Daaaaamn!!!! But seriously, what's the point of an open world RPG if you can't even go where you want to? And don't even fucking try to go slightly around or else you'll have to deal with these fuckers. Cazadores. They're fast. They sting like a bitch. They poison you. And you can't do fucking shit. I'd rather deal with the bee from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. So anyway, that way's fucked, so you have to go the other way. The looooong way. Remember what I said about this game wasting your fucking time? They give you a radio that you can listen to so you can pass the fucking time but it's all old country songs and big band music. The original Fallout games had Tool in them, yeah, they literally did, look it up, would it have killed them to have some fucking Metallica songs or something? Why am I fighting zombies and mutants to Johnny fucking Guitar? Actually, I take that back. (faux tearing up) That song gets me right here, y'know? (gameplay footage of the Nerd using a Ripper to gruesomely slaughter ghouls as "Johnny Guitar" plays, until the game suddenly freezes and crashes) Oh. It crashed. Now I'm REALLY gonna cry because my last save was fifteen fucking minutes ago! Yeah, this game crashes a LOT. This game crashes more often than a piss-drunk driver on the interstate. This game crashes like it's its job, and it's NEVER off the clock. So get used to it and save your game - a LOT.

Aaaanyway. Other than the radio, another thing that helps pass the time is that, along your travels in this game, you meet some companion characters to talk to. There's Boone, a sniper, but he's fucking depressing so I don't like him. There's also Veronica, a girl with a big metal fist, and she punches the FUCK out of everything she sees. (Veronica punching things montage) Ughnn! Wham!!! UHNNG EAT IT!!!! Save some for me! Goddamn!! But my FAVORITE has to be Cass. She drinks to forget how much her life sucks and swears a lot. Reminds me of someone I know. But in addition to a human, you can also travel with (pronouncing it wrong) ED-E, a robot. ED-E is cute, he looks like something out of Star Wars and has his own combat and victory music. How cool is tha- and it fucking crashed again. This fucking game.

There's also a bunch of factions in this game that you have to get to know if you're gonna make any kind of choice in the endgame. There's the New California Republic, the NCR, which is trying to annex Vegas and make everybody pay more taxes, which nobody likes. There's Caesar's Legion, their enemy, who basically want to turn the wasteland into ancient Rome with slaves and crucifixions and stuff. Caesar's Legions is hardcore. And then there's Mr. House, who's just some little bitch who lives in a casino on the Strip and makes you do his bidding. Do you think that's what people want out of a video game? Employment!? Yeah, let me come home from a hard day at work, sit on the couch, pop in my game, and relax by doing what some rich guy tells me to do. Fortunately, if you don't like any of these guys, you can just kill them and it doesn't matter. (cut to the Nerd killing Mr. House with a grenade launcher) You can do things YOUR way if you want thanks to Yes Man, who'll help you no matter what. That's what I would do, because FUCK those guys. And it's not like an angry internet reviewer starting his own country in the middle of the desert has never gone poorly before.

But the best part of the game is when you finally find that Benny fucker and you can deal with him however you want. You can get the evidence you need to expose him to his front desk guy, and then he'll give you your weapons back, or you can just go in guns blazing and kill everybody there. Me, Cass, and ED-E just did that. (Benny saying "What in the goddamn?") Here's what's in the goddamn! UGhhhhhn!! Die you piece of shit!!! (the Nerd smashing Benny to death with a golf club, until the game crashes again) Oh COME FUCKING ON! Did I kill him so hard I killed the fucking game too? I can't fucking deal with this shit anymore. There's apparently ways to mod the game to be a lot more stable, but at that point you may as well just play something else! Like the original. Or Castlevania. Or you may as well just take your pants off, lay on your back, get your legs rolled up like an idiot, and spray your own piss all over yourself, and you'd still have a better time than I did trying to get this piece of shit to work!

(Nerd on the couch) This fucking game isn't just bad. This game is HOSTILE. This game just straight up does not fucking work. There's no Glitch Gremlin here, this is just pure and raw chaos. The code for this game is written in fucking Wingdings. The developers must have been on fucking Psycho when they made this. For a post-apocalyptic game, they sure do love ending the fucking world on you every five goddamn minutes! I'd rather FALL OUT of a fucking window than put up with this shit anymore! New Vegas? More like EWWW!!!! VAJ-ASS!! Yeah, I said Vaj-Ass. It's when a vagina and an ass combine and all that comes out is diarrhea and menstrual blood. And I'd still lay down under it like a spigot than keep wrestling with this fucking game. I WANT to keep reviewing it, but it just won't fucking let me. So here's what we're gonna do.

(Cut to outside the Nerd's house. He has created a small makeshift crucifix out of wood and affixed the game disc to it) Degenerate games like you belong on a cross.

(Cut to the Nerd inside of a car) You want to crash my game? How's this for a fucking crash! Ughnnnn!!! (Side view shot of the crucifix getting run over and destroyed by his car, replayed several times in slow motion)

(Cut back to the Nerd inside of his car, driving. He exhales satisfied, then turns on the car radio. "Johnny Guitar" starts playing, and he starts to nod his head emotionally. Cut to outside of the car as it drives into the sunset)