Season 3 was hosted exclusively on GameTrailers, until a year later when they were re-released on YouTube.
The Nerd goes into the transition from the 16-Bit generation of gaming onto the newer generation (from Genesis and SNES to N64 and PS1), where he mentions about the Virtual Boy (originally called the VR32) that came during the transition to succeed the Gameboy brand with the promise of virtual reality gameplay and 3D effects that can be taken anywhere and observed within the eye pieces. The product ended up in failure and was discontinued indefinitely. The Nerd then observes the system itself and finds it completely impractical as a portable console due to its faulty design, including how the battery pack is attached on the controller (which can be replaced with an proprietary AC adapter) but can be easily removed when it's pressed against the table. Despite this, he does give the console a fair shot (although in order to record it, he had to zoom into the eye piece* ).
As he looks into each game, he is immediately disappointed at the lack of colors, seeing how the system only outputs red and black, which lacks variety and is really harmful to the eyes. He also doesn't like how games like Mario Tennis isn't really a virtual reality game, but more of a standard game that happens to be on virtual boy. This becomes a pattern as just about every game on the system doesn't make any attempt to behave as a kind of game where you feel like you are part of the environment. The exceptions include Telero-Boxer and Red Alarm, which one is a first-person boxing game, and the other offers a first person view as an option. He is favorable to other games, namely Wario Land and Puzzle Bomber, but complain about the fact that they're on virtual boy at all. He also doesn't like how other games are just impractical for the hardware, such as Mario Clash, which has about 100 levels, and Golf, where you have 16 holes to play on. Both of which should NOT be on virtual boy due to how long these games can last, and can be real harmful for your vision. Some games don't even provide a proper 3D effect, such as 3D Tetris. He also notes that there was originally suppose to be a link cable to connect both virtual boy systems for two player games (namely Puzzle Bomber), but was never released due to the console getting discontinued.
The last game he plays is Water World, the only movie-based game available on the system. While it does play similar to Defender, it is rather sickening to the eye, very repetitive, and is the dullest game out of the whole library. Afterward, he explains that the system flopped in less than a year, and then showed that he has the entire library of games in his one hand, showing the lack of support for the system. He did mention that he left out Jack Bros since he doesn't have it, and assumes that "it's rare, it's probably expensive, and it isn't work jack shit."
In the updated version of the review, he does end up including Jack Bros thanks to a fan having donated the game. He finds that the game plays similar to Gauntlet and is very fun to play through, and does have some interesting 3D effects. Otherwise, it's another game that should not be on virtual boy.
The Nerd go on further about how while the virtual boy did make attempts to show off some 3D effects, he insists that the original purpose of the hardware was to immerse the player in the gaming environment, as if they were really there, but focused too much on the 3D aspects instead. He concludes the video noting that in spite of the years since, no one really cares for VR anymore, and maybe it's for the best.
The Nerd mentions how The Wizard of Oz is such a well known movie phenomena that it got a Super Nintendo adaptation. He had some high hopes initially considering it's on Super Nintendo, so it couldn't possibly be that bad. As soon as he turns it on, he is baffled by the poor demonstration at the start up screen (whoever played Dorothy ends up jumping into the water and dying). With how poorly the introduction of the game was presented only further made the Nerd skeptical, and it gets worse from there.
The Nerd decides to review a good game for once: Super Mario Bros 3. He recounts all the good memories he had for this game, even going so far as calling it the best game for the NES. He recalls that the game was hyped before it was announced, transitioning into a review of a Universal film called: The Wizard.
The plot of the film is about a little boy named Jimmy who wants to go to California to plant photos inside the Vinny the Dinosaur statue. His older brother breaks him out of a mental institution and run off to reach California. The divorced mother hires a man to find her sons, whereas the father and the eldest son is competing with him to find them first. The Nerd notes that this movie was more well remembered for its product placement overshadowing the rest of the film, with its heavy focus on displaying various NES games, making references to them, and even showing off the Play Choice-10 cabinets (essentially the NES at the arcade). The Nerd even notes that not only the introduction of Lucas was awesome, but being that he owned all 86 NES games (actually over 800 today), and proved his credibility by playing Rad Racer with the power glove (even noting that this section of the film could had been re-edited and repackaged as a commercial for the power glove). The Nerd would then mention how the climax featured Super Mario Bros 3, supposedly the first time it was ever revealed to the audience, and even shared some tips that the average player would otherwise never know on their own. While he has concluded that this movie was a mess, it was a fun watch that held its own sentimental quality.
Returning to the Super Mario Bros 3 review, he praised the game for how drastically it improved its gameplay, giving multiple paths, the numerous power-ups available, how you can stack power-ups for later, and especially how the two player mode has a balance of cooperative and competitive aspects to it (where two players can attempt to complete the game faster, or compete over coins and turns, etc). The Nerd did note that the game can get tough and unfair at some points, and started to notice some satanic references. He starts to take several clues from the game and pieces together that this game is possessed. Despite liking the game, the cartridge itself comes to life and starts to torment the Nerd, projectile vomiting at his face and taunting his mother as the Nerd tries to exorcise it (ala the Exorcist). He ends up summoning Super Mega Death Christ, who comes in to destroy the cartridge with a lot of guns and missiles.
The cartridge now busted, the demon starts to come out of it, starting an epic battle between it and Super Mega Death Christ. It starts possessing different video game consoles and accessories to sic it on him, only for the Nerd to quickly intervene with his new gear* . As all out war ensued, the end result was the two of them obliterating the demon and all its minions. As the two rejoice, SMDC pondered loudly what all that stuff the Nerd is wearing, with him saying "Oh. All this shit? I'll tell you all about it."
The Nerd decides to go over each NES accessory that was featured in the previous episode (except for the power glove, which had its own episode). He starts with the zapper. He went through three different zappers, which gave various results (one didn't work, and two of them tend to alternate when they work). He also uses the Super Scope for the Super NES, but also finds it to be unreliable, despite being wireless and relying on a sensor bar for functionality. He has mentioned that the inconsistencies with the light guns is due to him using a flat CRT display.
The Nerd would then go on about the Miracle Piano, finding it to be a functional piano, sans the metronome (present only from the TV), and even finding its packaged game to be entertaining. He then tries out the Power Pad, using it to play World Track Meet, and mentions how it is fun to use, but can be really noisy due to all the stomping. He then complains about the Speedboard, which is nothing more than a piece of plastic that you can mount the NES controller to supposedly make it easier to tap the buttons faster (which he adds that if he needed that, he would just use the NES Advantage or NES Max, both of which have turbo functions). With the Laser Scope, which is a headset with NES Zapper functionality. The zapper part is activated by voice instead of a trigger. The headphones can also be used for the in-game audio.
The worst of em is the Roll & Rocker, as the Nerd was unable to find a game that actually made it work. It is designed to have it control the D-Pad by tilting on it, but the functions are inconsistent. Also, the only way to use the other buttons is if you plug in a regular NES controller, making the whole point of the accessory moot.
Finally, he goes on the U-Force. Similar to the Power Glove, it is motion controlled based on the movement detected by its own sensors. Despite the similarities, the Nerd actually finds it to be very functional and interesting to use. Especially of note that it also has plastic accessories that somehow make the games even more functional with it (such as the power bar which makes punching in Punch-Out easier, and a flight-stick that's literally just a stick with fake buttons... which works perfectly fine)* .
In the end, the Nerd has noted that he did miss one accessory, but he concedes that he cannot cover every single one. Then he puts on a very familiar hat, with fitting music, and the like "You know what's next."
The Nerd gathered some video games based on the Indiana Jones trilogy... then stops and realize that (at the time of the review's release) that it can no longer be called a trilogy, much to his excitement as a new movie was on the way. He celebrates by reviewing Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark for the Atari 2600.
The Nerd is confused at first as he discovers that Indy does not move. He soon learns that Indy can only move with the second controller (along with using items), where as the first controller scrolls through the inventory and can drop items to pick up later. The Nerd finds the game to be quite complex for its own good* . He would complain about a lot of Guide Dang It! puzzles and solutions to progress in the game, as well as odd item combinations to achieve a completely different item (such as combining an hour glass with a rope to make a grappling hook). As the game starts making more sense to him, the Nerd finds the overall objective to be cumbersome to get to and concedes that finding the real lost ark would be easier. He would then say "this is one of the few games where you can actually beat, whereas most of them are about getting a high score [...] the way you have to feel around walls and shit, kind of like Indiana Jones. <beat> Well they got me there."
The Nerd then moves on to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom for NES (based on the Taito release), but discovers that there are two versions of the game, except the differences are really minor, save that one is unlicensed and the other is officially licensed for the NES. As he plays the game, he finds that he is unable to kill anyone with the whip, but does gain an inventory of weapons, which to equip requires the use of holding start and the D-Pad. He finds the overall level design to be a complete mess, as it appears to be designed as a birds-eye perspective as you descend from a mountain, but actually finds that it's un-decisive as to if it wants one or the other. The level design and annoying enemies soon drove him to hate this game. Before he moves on to the Last Crusade, he decides to remove and replace the Temple of Doom cartridge in the style of the infamous boulder scene, and even disembowel its heart.
In the extended version of the review, he would review Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade by Taito. While he does find the game to be annoying to play at certain parts, he does appreciate how faithful it is to the film and admits that it is playable. However, he never intended to cover this game as he reveals that the one he remembered playing is a completely different game. As it turns out, there are two versions of the Last Crusade for NES, published by Taito and Ubisoft respectively. Despite looking very similar, the entire game is different. So he moves on to the Ubisoft version of the game, the one he actually remembers playing when he was younger.
While the Nerd does find the graphics on Indy to be decent, he notes that everything else looks dull and monotonous, similar to that of a Gameboy game (even showing how the game gear version had more colorful visuals* ). The game does not provide him a whip to use, leaving Indy to punch as his only attack. He also finds the level design to be even more flawed, with shallow water somehow harming Indy, and some of the jumps being too difficult to pull off. He also finds the boss to be incredibly tedious with a really long life bar yet having a very simple pattern. After being that stage, he does get the whip, which has the Nerd realize that the game is indeed following along with the movie, but finds the continuity inconsistent as the same adult Indy sprite is used regardless of the level. This left the Nerd complaining that the game should had either follow the movie, or give him the whip. He comes across another boss, who is just an Indian shooting from his bow, but also has a very long life bar. The boring boss drove the Nerd to remove the cartridge and whip it.
The Nerd is upset by the last two bad NES games, but does bring up a really good Indiana Jones game: Indiana Jones: The Greatest Adventures, for Super NES. He notes that the game plays much like the Super Star Wars games, except it condenses all three Indiana Jones films in one big package. He does enjoy the action style game play, how the game faithfully follows the movies, and gets amused by the liberties the films take (such as how the end boss is the skeleton of the villain of Last Crusade).
"It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's a shitty game!"
The Nerd decides to load up Superman for the Atari 2600. As he gushes about how awesome Superman is, he is immediately disappointed when he finds the game to be barren. The objective is that Clark Kent finds that a bridge had been blown up because of Lex Luthor, so he has to go to a phone booth to change into Superman. The player has to collect pieces of a bridge and carry off bad guys to jail. The Nerd's major complaints consist of how dull and redundant the game is, with nothing exciting going on at all.
Soon, he moves on to Superman on NES. On top of the odd introduction screen (with the statue of liberty talking to Superman), the Nerd finds the graphic design to be weird, as in all the characters are small but all the furniture is big. He also finds the controls to be an issue, where up is jump, and down is used to go through doors. He is also left unimpressed when he turns into Superman, which does give him access to different abilities, but also finds how the game is a mockery due to how Superman has to use a subway for transportation. The Nerd eventually faces a boss, which the game calls the Zod Gang. Then his mind starts going all over the place once the plot of the next stage was to discover why stock prices had fallen. The Nerd argues that a child shouldn't have to know anything about stocks and presumably gave up trying to make sense of the game. In the end, he throws it out of the window.
Convinced that all Superman games are bad, the Nerd does bring up several myspace posts and e-mails that caught his attention. A huge, numerous amounts of requests for him to review Superman 64. After a minute of going through roughly half a hundred posts, the Nerd politely concedes and announces that his next video will be on Superman 64.
The Nerd announces that he'll finally cover the game everyone has asked him to do. Superman. On Commodore 64. He briefly looks over the commodore 64 computer system before putting the game on. He is annoyed by the load times in the game, in which each load time takes up between 15 seconds to a minute and a half. When he does get to the game, he does find it to be enjoyable, playing more like a vertical and horizontal shooter. Later on, it does get more annoying, as the Nerd ends up quitting on the third stage due to being unable to progress thanks to being knocked back by several enemies with no recovery time.
The Nerd does recall that the game everyone wanted him to do is, in fact, the N64 version of Superman. He decided to do it only because he likes you a lot. But don't take that too seriously. The Nerd does clarify that the actual title of the game is simply called Superman, but does mention that due to Nintendo's habit of assigning 64 to a lot of the games made available to the console, he is not surprised by this association. When he does get to the game, he finds himself annoyed by the objective, that being to fly through a series of rings (only allowed to miss up to two), but finds the task to be really difficult due to the overly-sensitive flying controls and the really strict time limit. When he is able to complete it, he is blind sided by a text box that basically tells him to stop a car from running a civilian over, but because the box came and went quickly, he wasn't able to comprehend the objective, and when he failed, he had to start over from the first part. When he did complete this part of the game, he is redoing the first part again in a different stage, and then redoing the second part, and then decided to quit when he finds that the first part repeats yet again.
The Nerd is so angered by how poorly Superman 64 was handled that he goes into an anger-induced rant before he takes the cartridge, flies into space like Superman, and throws the cartridge straight into the sun.
It should be noted that this is the last episode that was filmed in the upper floor of James' home before the set was moved to the basement.
The Nerd dresses up as Batman (the Christian Bale version) so that he can do justice to the variety of games he is about to cover. He starts with Batman: The Caped Crusader for the Commodore 64. He gets annoyed by the game pretty quickly due to the awkward control scheme, in which you have to push the joystick in a certain direction, and then the button in order to perform a variety of attacks or access the menu. In the end, he ends up giving up and slamming the game floppy disc to the ground.
He would then cover Batman for the NES, and talks about how much of a great game it is, being a fairly simple side-scrolling platformer game similar to Ninja Gaiden. The game is fun to play, although it is quite hard. He also looks over the sequel, Batman Returns for the SNES. While it is a simple beat em up, it is quite satisfying to play. He then talks about the Sega CD version. It looks visually amazing for its time, but the driving sequences proved to be too monotonous and difficult to sit through, so he ends up quitting before throwing the disc to a wall* . He then talks about the Atari Lynx version of the game, but finds it difficult to see what you are doing due to the poor graphic quality, and how the game is too difficult for the platform of choice. The Nerd then goes onto the New Adventures of Batman & Robin for the Super NES. It is another beat em up game with platforming elements, but he does find the game to be fun and does appreciate some of the trickier elements of the platforming, deciding that this game is good.
The last game he covers is Batman Forever for the Super NES. He finds that the game is incredibly similar to Mortal Kombat in play-style (even noting that Acclaim, who published Batman Forever, handled the Mortal Kombat ports around the time of this game's release). He finds the play-style to be more of a hindrance than intuitive, as well as how the controls to perform certain actions are needlessly complex (such as up slightly before select to shoot a grappling hook up, and down and R to jump down a platform). He soon gets enraged at how awful the controls were before deciding that this is the worst Batman game he's ever played. Right after that, the Joker appears (Cesar Romero ver., played by Mike Matei) and decides to subdue the Nerd and force him to play more bad Batman games.
With the Nerd all tied up and holding an NES controller, the Joker inserts the NES game: Batman: Return of the Joker, for the NES by Sunsoft. The Nerd finds the game to be much more straight forward than the first NES game, playing much closer to a simple side scrolling platform game, only now Batman is equipped with a special bat-gun, which puts the Nerd off that Batman is now going around shooting people. He also finds the game to be absurdly hard thanks to some unfair elements in level design (such as a ceiling trap that falls down very quickly the moment you step under it. Stupidity Is the Only Option here. Otherwise, he does find the music to be really good, even if one of the tracks remind him of a song from Mega Man 2. He also commented that all the bosses, except the Joker, are really easy to beat. In the end, he doesn't consider it a bad game, which prompted the Joker to force a Gameboy in his hands, and the game, Batman: Return of the Joker, for Gameboy.
The Nerd finds the game to play much like the first NES game, except now you have a grappling hook. Once again, he likes the music, but the title screen reminds him of Mega Man 2 once again. Unfortunately, the faulty level design (considerably worse than the NES game) and the cumbersome controls that make wall jumping surprisingly difficult to do, and sometimes makes Batman draw the grappling hook instead, made it impossible for him to pass the first level. He remarked that this game had to be made by the Joker himself.
The Joker decides to taunt the Nerd before making him play Batman: Revenge of the Joker, for the Sega Genesis. The Nerd did appreciate the visuals present, and remarks that the game is a remake of the NES version of Return of the Joker. However, some elements of the game changed, such as Batman being able to kick, and boxes now take more hits, but go down quicker with the kick. What holds him up is the nigh-invincible gargoyle statue that shoots projectiles, and require a seemingly countless amount of hits before dying (the Nerd was unable to determine how many, so he assumed the gargoyle just dies whenever it wants). After encountering a few more, he finds himself unable to pass the first stage again. Having had enough, he goes into his rage-breaking point and manages to break out of his bindings. He then proceeds to fight the Joker.
As the two exchange attacks in the style of the Adam West Batman series, the tone soon shifts as the Nerd fights back harder, beating down the Joker to the ground, before taking all the Batman games he hated and, quite literally, shoving all of them up Joker's ass.
The Nerd finds the cut-scenes to be quite cheesy, similar to that of the Super Mario Bros Super Show. While the graphics and sounds are acceptable, he finds the general gameplay to be very disappointing, being that you are in a hotel and you have to shut all the doors in order to progress. Somehow, this ends up being more frustrating than it sounds due to the doors constantly reopening in random spots. While he doesn't really find the game to be awful, in fact he compared it to arcade games in the early 80s and considers the game to be good in that regard, he argues that this isn't a Mario game that anyone would expect considering the time period and advancement in gaming at the time. He also mentioned how there was originally going to be a direct sequel to Super Mario World for the CD-I, but it was canceled in favor of this game. "End of story."
From the start, there is not much hope for this game being decent in any way: the game begins with animated cutscenes that have gone on to be the stuff of internet infamy, featuring a depiction of Link so corny and annoying, it puts his American cartoon counterpart to shame. Not helping matters is the instruction manual; only ten pages long and offering the barest minimum of information, in comparison to the NES titles' lengthy and descriptive booklets.
The game only appears to use two of the three buttons on the CD-I's controllers, regardless of what model of controller you use. Jumping is accomplished by pressing up on the D-pad, which can be exhausting after some time, and can lead to accidental jumping when simply trying to move to either side. As for the face buttons; one attacks with a sword, and a second is for everything else, from opening doors to opening the player's inventory to using equipped items. This proves to be a pain in the ass; the inventory is brought up by pressing down to crouch and the correct button, but being in front of a door causes you to go through the door regardless of whether you're crouching. In addition, players had to stand in a very exact spot to enter doors, lest they accidentally use their equipped item.
In order to collect items, players had to strike them with their sword, much unlike previous Zelda games where you could collect items by merely walking into them. Since players need ruppees very badly in this game to get items needed to progress, this quickly becomes tedious. These items include bombs for killing tough enemies and blowing up boulders (which can take as many as ten bombs to break), oil lanterns for lighting darkened areas (which are frustratingly common), and ropes for reaching higher areas (but can only be used once for each rope in your inventory). Since dying forces you to start a stage over from the beginning, and some stages cannot be completed without ropes, this means going back to the store on a nearly constant basis to buy more ropes.
Making one's way through the stages is a chore in and of itself; since players cannot jump down through the level, they need to walk completely off of a pathway to move down, but when contending with enemies too short to hit, this can lead to accidentally jumping back up onto a path you already traversed in your attempt to avoid such enemies. This problem is exasperated by graphics that give little indication as to what terrain is and isn't traversable.
Talking to NPCs requires players to hit them with their sword, not that they would want to; conversing with NPCs plays more of the game's infamous cutscenes with god-awful voice acting.
Your sword attacks have a pitiful range. All too often, you'll take damage just as the enemy gets within range of your sword. Enemies that attack from above and below are even harder to contend with. With no Mercy Invincibility, this can lead to your death in a matter of seconds. Not helping matters is the top of the screen acting as a ceiling, impeding your jumps. By comparison, the boss battles are easy to the point of triviality with the right items, only needing one hit to slay. The Nerd nearly loses it after defeating one such boss and being treated to a cutscene where the boss cries "YOU'VE KILLED ME!" before melting into a puddle of goo with only his beating heart left intact, after which Zelda simply grins and says "Good!"
In spite of the game being an assault on his sanity, the Nerd presses on, since he has made it up to the final boss: Ganon. The CD-I version of Ganon looks absolutely ridiculous, and is also ridiculously easy to defeat; all you need do is throw the Wand of Gamelon at him to win the game.
The Nerd concludes that Zelda: Wand of Gamelon, in spite of its decent music and colorful graphics, is a "mixed bag"; specifically, a trash bag of various disgusting refuse and detritus. To make matters worse, there are still two more CD-I games to review...
Link: The Faces of Evil is practically the same game as Zelda: Wand of Gamelon, except with players controlling Link instead of Zelda. The one major addition to the game is the addition of snowballs and fireballs as items, which are used to defeat some enemies that are immune to all other forms of attack. Outside of these differences (which make inventory management and usage even more tedious), the problems with Zelda: Wand of Gamelon are still present and accounted for.
Next is Zelda's Adventure, released a year after the infamous Zelda CD-I duology. As opposed to the previous games, it uses live-action cinematics and digitized graphics, and is a top-down action-adventure game in the same vain as the mainstream Zelda games. It plays better than its predecessors, yet is still overall mediocre; load times are present and constant, since the game needs to load every time the screen moves, a voice-over constantly talks to you unsolicited in a manner that would make Navi envious, and inventory usage remains tedious. Purchasing items from stores is likewise tedious, requiring players to go into their inventory and select their ruppees to buy items from vendors. Worse still, players can only equip one item at a time, as opposed to two in other Zelda games, and players had to scroll through their inventory to find items instead of them being on one screen.
The save system does not appear to work, and the graphics make it cryptic as to what terrain you can traverse.
The Nerd reaches his wits' end, incredulous at how the Zelda CD-I games could fuck up Zelda so badly. In his rage, he chucks the Zelda CD-I games away, then Hotel Mario, then proceeds to do the same to the CD-I as the episodes end with a montage of the Zelda CD-I games set to a rendition of the main Zelda theme played in farts.
The Nerd is pissed over the flow of Bible-related games that he has in his possession. He begins with Exodus for the NES. While he doesn't consider the game to be awful due to it being a fairly simple puzzle game, he does note how long and monotonous it is, and ends up quitting due to how he had to travel into a maze in one level to collect a piece, but then has to walk all the way back to get to the exit. Afterward, he plays Noah's Ark, which confused him at first considering he knows two games of the same title. That is when he notices the Konami logo on it, prompting him to play the game. He is surprised to find that the game is actually enjoyable, in spite of some of its issues, such as strong enemies and bonus levels that send you all the way back in the level. He then moves on to Joshua, only to find that it is the same game as Exodus, which has him note that both games are actually clones of an original game called Crystal Mines.
The Nerd goes into Color Dreams, a company who is known for making unlicensed NES games, before they would rename their company Wisdom Tree. He shows off a bit of Menace Beach, which was rereleased as Sunday Funday, before going into that version of the game. He makes note that Menace Beach is a bad game, but it is pretty interesting for the fact that there are cut-scenes involving a woman the protagonist has to rescue where her clothes rot away the more you progress, stopping at her underwear. As for Sunday Funday, the Nerd was dismayed at the fact that it includes two additional games. One being a mini game that involves catching fish and throwing them up to an electric eel, with the only connection to Christianity being the bible verses thrown in. The other is simply a karaoke song. In the game proper, it is just the same as the original with the graphics changed (Ninjas are now kids, and Elvis-lookalikes are now plumbers), and the damsel in distress is instead replaced with a teacher who is constantly nagging you to get to Sunday School. The Nerd gets increasingly frustrated as he finds the level design to be seriously flawed to the point that it works against him.
Unable to progress, he decides to "flip the shit switch, [and] turn up the diarrhea dial" as he pulls out a bunch of CDI games. As it turns out, all three of the games are the same, with the only difference being one main game each. The CDI games has a compilation of elementary-level mini-games, scriptures from the bible, cut-scenes that go into the bible, and even karaoke songs. The three main games are as follows: Moses involves navigating a maze in a pyramid; David and Goliath is played out like a board game; Samson is another point and click adventure where you have to take a quiz here and there.
The Nerd, convinced that he has no other games to review in this category, did note that there is a Gameboy cart called the King James Bible, as he heard that it is literally just the bible, and decides to end the review there.
The first level opens to Michael entering the speakeasy from the iconic music video of "Smooth Criminal", which also serves as the level's theme song. The objective of each level is to fight off enemies and rescue all of the children. The Nerd finds it confusing that there are so many kidnappers and so many children hidden in doors, windows, and other parts of the scenery. The Nerd finds it frustrating that you cannot proceed through the level until every child has been found and rescued, made worse by later stages having a non-linear structure, and one stage having both children and deadly respawning bombs hidden in car trunks. Michael's main kicking attack is also ineffective against smaller enemies.
Michael has a slew of other abilities, such as tossing his hat as a projectile, grabbing his crotch, and moonwalking, most of which serve no purpose. Michael has a special attack where he can force all enemies on-screen to dance, defeating them instantly; but using it requires sacrificing half of your health, making it Too Awesome to Use. The Nerd considers it worth it sometimes to see the enemies (human and otherwise) break into dance.
There is an invincibility power-up in the form of a shooting star. There is no way to know ahead of time when it will appear, and it goes by quickly, so it is very easy to miss. If the player is lucky enough to get it, it will transform Michael into a robot capable of flying, shooting lasers, and lobbing bombs. The only downside is that Michael cannot rescue children as a robot and must wait until his transformation ends to proceed through the level as a result.
Each level seems to have different obtuse rules for how to play. One that proves particularly frustrating is the caverns, where there is no indication that walls in the background can be broken to proceed. Another is the streets, where Michael must open manholes, which requires him to do his spinning move.
After finding all the children, the player must proceed to the boss fight. To get to the boss, players are guided by Bubbles the Monkey, who points in the very general direction the player must travel. Once the boss is found, he runs away and sends several mooks after Michael. The Nerd finds it frustrating that he has to jump through so many hoops to get to the final fight of a stage, all while there are no enemies to fight until then, which the Nerd compares unfavorably to Dracula's castle from Simon's Quest. The boss can even damage Michael while being invincible himself, screwing the player if they run into him unexpectedly (which is all too possible, since the game is finicky about where you need to stand to initiate the boss fight). Worse still, dying at the boss fight requires players to wall all the way back to where he appears. This proves frustrating for the Nerd in the graveyard level, since the theme used for the stage is not "Thriller", even if the player uses their special attack on the zombies and makes them do the dance from the "Thriller" music video. Rumor has it that only some copies of the game have "Thriller" in them, and the Nerd is unlucky enough to own a copy that instead uses "Another Part of Me" and "Billy Jean". The zombie boss fights are also frustrating, since the zombies come in such large groups that surviving their onslaught is difficult: not even the special attack is very useful, especially since, as previously noted, it drains your health.
It is at this point that the Nerd loses it, wreaking havoc in his room before transforming into a black cat (ala the music video for "Black and White") and walking away.
