As a long time follower of the AVGN (Since around 2008) it goes without saying that there will be some duds. However in the post-movie era of the AVGN there have been more duds than wins. This shift in quality from the informative yet strangely grounded pre-movie episodes to the more overacted post-movie episodes has been most noticeable in the more recent seasons. This quality reached an all time low in Season 9 and Season 10 which both relied heavily on the same set-up which, ironically, has the Nerd rambling about how "how long must I do this" and "Its been so many years!" and "I should quit". While it was an interesting way to celebrate the impending 10 year celebration it never felt entirely genuine and only grew more groansome by the third season of the same set ups. And by the 5th time it happened in Season 12's opening episode I felt that this was going to be another batch of mediocre-forced AVGN episodes. However, once James started to release a few "pairs" of episodes on Amazon the quality began to once again return to a nice middle ground between the Pre-Movie informative Nerd and the special effects heavy Post-Movie nerd.
This sense of improvement is definitely evident in the two most recent episodes, "Resident Evil: Survivor" and "Super Hydlide and Virutal Hydlide". Both episodes have a good mixture of new and comical ways to deconstruct these awful video games while still including just enough special effect moments (The RE1 Opening scene in The Resident Evil episode) as to make the episode creatively satisfying. Both episodes even have enough content as to not feel too short which also helps the season feel the most cohesive in years. It's nice to actually have a good couple of laughs from AVGN instead of just a few mild winces. Hopefully this quality will continue to climb.
This sense of improvement is definitely evident in the two most recent episodes, "Resident Evil: Survivor" and "Super Hydlide and Virutal Hydlide". Both episodes have a good mixture of new and comical ways to deconstruct these awful video games while still including just enough special effect moments (The RE1 Opening scene in The Resident Evil episode) as to make the episode creatively satisfying. Both episodes even have enough content as to not feel too short which also helps the season feel the most cohesive in years. It's nice to actually have a good couple of laughs from AVGN instead of just a few mild winces. Hopefully this quality will continue to climb.
