Part of what got me back into the Virtual Boy awhile back was the AVGN episode about the VB, where he reviewed every US-released game, to make the point that it only lived long enough for 14 games. Obviously his schtick is to talk about what makes games so bad, but watching that episode really made me want to get into the VB.

I’m sure we’re all familiar with it but here’s a link if anyone isn’t:

It turns out he has a lot of positive things to say about a lot of these games. He mentions the Virtual Boy in lots of other episodes as a benchmark example of really bad games, but it turns out the vast majority of his complaints are about the awkwardness of the console itself, that the display is monochrome red and black, and that the games aren’t all good fits for a “virtual reality” console, even if they aren’t bad by themselves. At the end of the episode he says “To be fair, most of the games are okay, but they’re the same kind of games you might as well be playing on a regular TV screen.” You can tell which games he doesn’t have any complaints about, because he falls back to “why is this on Virtual Boy?”

I even wrote down some of the best things he said. He says “not bad” an awful lot. He gives due credit to the games that fully use both D-pads, and the games that make a “virtual reality” attempt. Sure, he doesn’t have anything good to say about the lower-end games, but overall it makes me want to fire up the VB every time I watch it.

Wario Land
“It’s actually a good game. Damn good.”

Panic Bomber
“It’s a puzzle game, and a decent one I might add.”

Jack Bros
“Instantly it reminds me of Gauntlet, and that’s not a bad thing.”
“For such a rare game, it’s not half bad.”

Teleroboxer
“This is a little more like virtual reality!”
“It’s not bad, and the 3D effects are cool.”

Mario Clash
“What bothers me about this game is just one simple problem” [A and B feel like they’re swapped]
“Overall, Mario Clash isn’t bad”

Mario’s Tennis
“The 3D effect is actually pretty effective”
“Not bad”

Well, not exactly the full US library, because he got his Jack Bros. copy in Japanese. But all he wanted to care of is how the gameplay is like. This is most likely because of the expensive pricing of the US version, whereas the JP version costs less money.

His video on the Virtual Boy is actually how I found AVGN and became a fan after that

StinkerB06 wrote:
Well, not exactly the full US library, because he got his Jack Bros. copy in Japanese. But all he wanted to care of is how the gameplay is like. This is most likely because of the expensive pricing of the US version, whereas the JP version costs less money.

It’s still essentially the same game, just different text lol.

That AVGN episode is what made me aware of the console’s existence and got me hooked on it and eventually led me here.

I must have been the only one to not like it, I know it’s just a schtick but his reasons for hating it were kind of lame. It’s not really all that bad but it sucks because the internet says so? That’s sorta what I got out of it, the main argument of games not being built for ‘Virtual Reality’ is bullshit. It’s just an immersive 3D game console, it would be dumb to only make extremely specific games for it. There’s so many other directions game developers could go with it, the main focus should only be fun.

It’s cool to see that it actually got more people into the console, though. I was already heavy into VB collecting when I saw it and as you can tell didn’t view it quite the same =P

The bad news is that the Tiger Games episode makes me want to play a Game.com and at least try an R-Zone. 😀

retronintendonerd wrote:
That AVGN episode is what made me aware of the console’s existence and got me hooked on it and eventually led me here.

Heh… I’m a bit reversed from that. My interest in the Virtual Boy caused me to find and watch that AVGN episode, and then I became a fan of the AVGN.

I generally do not like his videos at all, but I will have to give that one a watch, especially if he is not bacshing on it a whole ton. I like the oddball systems and my favorties are the VB and the Jaguar, and he completely trashes on the Jaguar in his multiple videos which is what got me not to enjoy his stuff.

AVGN was not what got me into VB at all, I got it brand new for Christmas the year it came out, had the performance bag, and every game I could find by searching around through Walmart. I think I had 12 of the 14 games at the time. I believe the only ones I didn’t have back then were 3D Tetris and Neste’s but I remember having Waterworld (and hating it) and Jack Bros. and thinking it was too hard. So I played the majority of my time with Galactic Pinball and Golf actually.