Well, Christmas is almost here again... already.
The cold weather's kickin' in, the snowfall, the ice,
it's gonna get below freezing, maybe even... sub-zero.
Which reminds me.
Ah, yes! Nintendo 64 end labels! The greatest invention ever!
When Nintendo drops the ball, the fans pick it up!
Here it is: Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero.
This is one Mortal Kombat game that I have never played before.
But how could that be? It was one of my favorite video game franchises!
Yeah, in the nineties, Mortal Kombat was the fucking tits!
Everybody was obsessed with it!
When it came to fighting games, Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat were as essential as food and water.
I'll never forget my first time seeing the original game in the arcades.
I distinctly remember catching a glimpse of it between the shoulders of bigger kids crowding around it.
I was impressed by the graphics, the realistic human figures,
and shocked by the excessive blood and gore! It was awesome!
It was one of the games to inspire the ratings system.
When it came to home consoles, nobody knew what to do.
The Genesis version had a code to unlock the blood,
while the Super Nintendo version left it out altogether.
But starting with Mortal Kombat II, it was blood for all!
How to do the finishing moves and how to unlock secret characters was a daily school bus and lunchtime conversation.
You could be the most geeky, socially awkward kid in school,
but as soon as you'd show up passing around Mortal Kombat codes, you were the ultimate hero.
There was a mystique to these games. It was all about secrets and rumors,
such as a swearing code and a nude code.
One time somebody printed out a move list which they got from connecting their computer to their telephone line.
It was like science fiction shit, but it turned out to be an early form of something even bigger than life itself...
... called the Internet.
As I remember it, the mid-nineties was the peak of Mortal Kombat fever,
which led up to Mortal Kombat Trilogy in '96.
It combined everything you wanted from the first three games.
With new generation game consoles like PlayStation and N64, the games were getting closer to arcade quality,
and that's what we all wanted: To be able to play the arcades in our own home.
And then in '97 came Mythologies: Sub-Zero.
So why haven't I played this one before?
Could it be that I was distracted by Mortal Kombat 4, which came out close to the same time?
Or was it because I heard that it was very different from all the other games?
All these years I've been trying to get around to playing it,
because anything Mortal Kombat related, you gotta play it!
It can't be that bad, right?
Oh, w-w-w-w-wait, wait, wait-- what the-- what the fuck?!
GAH!!
Okay, you have to press B to turn around.
In all the other Mortal Kombat games you automatically faced your opponent,
but here, every time you jump to the other side, it's one extra button you gotta press!
This is like Karate Champ bullshit!
I can understand why this might be necessary,
because unlike other Mortal Kombat games where you fight your opponents one at a time,
here you're fighting multiple enemies,
so if you find yourself in-between two of them, you might need to turn around.
Sometimes it turns automatically!
Yeah, you never know!
So after you jump, you'll hit the button, only to find that you turned yourself the wrong way.
Alright, well that ruins the whole game!
Game sucks! Case closed! Should I just end the video right now?
Or could the game get even worse?
Obviously, you play as Sub-Zero.
I suppose if the game caught on, they would have made a whole Mythologies series
starring all the different characters, and I think that is what they were intending.
Well, I'm glad they didn't quit their day job.
[Sub-Zero screams]
The day job being real Mortal Kombat.
There are some RPG elements: When you fight enemies you earn experience points,
gain inventory and learn special moves, like Sub-Zero's trademark ice projectile.
But being so familiar with the other Mortal Kombat games,
it comes off as more of a tease that you don't already have it from the start.
Auugh! Now they're gonna start doin' that shit!
Alright, wait for it... wait for it...
Uurrgh!
Now I'm on a ledge.
W- what do I do here, jump?
[Sub-Zero screams]
Of course not.
Oh, you just drop down and bounce off the awning.
Yeah, okay.
Your mother, your mother! Mngh!
Oh god, there's too many guys!
What?! More of these?!
Okay... okay... easy does it...
Unngh!!
[mumbling] Oh, get the fuck outta my way--
A ha ha! Yeah, did you see that?! I fuckin' squashed that bitch!!
Fuuuuck!!
Run run run run run run RUN--!!
FRRGGHH!!
Ooohhhh!!
Okay, strategy: Run and stop.
Nope! Naw, naw, naw!
Can't run! Can't walk! Can't fucking do anything!!
Nargh!
Mrg!
Mrrgh!
Narggh!
Argh!
Nrgh!
Uurrggh!!
After you make it through by some miracle, you'll fight Scorpion.
It's a one-on-one battle, and looks just like traditional Mortal Kombat.
It LOOKS like it, but trust me, it doesn't feel like it at all.
If only you knew, if only you were the one holding the controller right now, you'd know exactly what I mean.
Here, take it.
Yeah, I know. You would if you could.
But trust me. Don't.
If I was jumpin' off a bridge, would you do it too?
Nah. This is jumpin' off a bridge.
And I'm not happy.
Afterwards, you get a cutscene.
This is where I should mention that the game was also on PlayStation.
It's very similar, but the most noteworthy difference is that on the N64,
the cutscenes are just still images and text,
but with the PlayStation version, since it was a CD-based console, it was able to have full-motion video and audio.
"I am Scorpion. You killed me in cold blood!"
Um...
Just stick to Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.
Okay, what the hell am I supposed to do here?
O- o- oohh!
The fuck?
Oh geez, I just outran the screen!
Gotta give some credit for the 3D or 2,5D backgrounds.
Another basic problem is that to jump, you press Up.
In any typical Mortal Kombat game or any tournament fighter, that's normal,
but in a platforming jumping game, Up is fucked up!
Sometimes you intend to step back, but your thumb slides across Up and you jump by accident!
[Sub-Zero screams]
The entire Level 2 is all about hopping these platforms.
C'mon, you son of a bitch!
Aw, fuck! [Sub-Zero screams]
Ugh! Get out of my way, I'm just trying to--
Oh, okay. That makes it easier.
For many of these jumps, you have to wait to ride the wind current.
Or not.
Okay, should I jump then?
Ugh! [Sub-Zero screams]
Sometimes the wind comes right away, but other times you have to wait for it.
And then there's times when you have to jump blindly! A leap of faith!
And then there's times when...
I don't even know! [Sub-Zero screams]
[Sub-Zero screams]
[Nerd screams]
[Sub-Zero screams]
[Charlie Brown screams]
[Sub-Zero screams]
As if that's not bad enough, then you have to start jumping on these... spoons.
You don't have much control over your jumps, it's always the same arch from wherever you last stood.
Once you're in the air, there's nothing else you can do.
[Sub-Zero screams]
Even when you DO land on the spoons, you don't really land on them,
you sort of... magnetize to them.
And I love how abruptly the Continue screen appears.
Watch this.
Wow. They didn't waste any time.
Unlike Symphony of the Night, where it takes like three fuckin' hours!
You'll be busy fighting, and then all of a sudden this screen comes up and you might accidentally hit "No"!
But it doesn't matter anyway, because I've been using passwords to skip ahead,
and even then, the game is impossible! It's one cheap deathtrap after another.
Oh, come on!!
That is low!
And it's a real fair fight when there's all this shit on the screen!
Foreground obstructions! Real classy.
Also, it's one of those where-the-fuck-do-I-go type of games,
yeah, you know, the kind that make you say "where the fuck do I go?"
How about down here? Nope, another dead end.
Okay, what do I do now?
What.. oh! Oh! OH! OH!!
Grrgh!!
[manic laughter]
I hate this!!
Wh-- where do I jump? Where do I ju--
I can't kick this gu-- I can't ju-- ! The jump kick doesn't-- !
The jump kick never fails like this!!
Aaahhh!!
Fuuuck!
Shiiit!!
Fuuck!!
[Sub-Zero screams]
[GASP!]
I didn't know there was a Transformer in the game!
It's Blaster!!
Aaah! Owww!! O-ho-ho!!
FUUUCK!!
No wonder I haven't played this one before! This is anal sauce!
Hope you enjoyed that episode.
I've something to tell you for fans of physical media
who want to own the first 100 Nerd episodes in your collection.
We now have Angry Video Game Nerd Volume X out on a Blu-Ray.
So you can see what we did there: we had volumes 1 through 8, now it's X, like Mega Man.
This is the same stuff, just so you know,
all these episodes were previously released on DVD, so there's nothing new here,
the reason you would get this is if A: you don't already own them,
or B: if you wanna watch the first 100 episodes in one marathon,
which would be about 19 hours, you could do that, it's possible.
So, it's 100 episodes on one disc, about 19 hours,
and in addition to that there's a second disc that comes with it, that's about 7 hours of bonus material.
These are the bonus material-- the bonus content from the previous DVDs
that goes up to a hundred, it stops at episode 100.
They're in standard definition because they were shot in standard definition,
and the reason they're on a Blu-Ray is to be able to fit so many of 'em.
Blu-Ray discs are a lot more expensive to manufacture than DVDs,
but I think by cramming so many into 'em, it's a lot more cost-effective.
So this would be if you wanna own the episodes on fewer discs.
It's on Amazon.com right now, you can get the link in the description below and all the details there.
And for those who don't own Blu-Ray players, we are planning to get the old DVDs back in stock,
there could still be AVGN Volume 9, that's still possible if you want it,
and we are gonna put the newer episodes out, the ones that were shot in HD will be on Blu-Rays in the future.
So we have a lot of work to do, the focus lately has been on getting all these videos done,
which we just did, you could see there's been a lot of videos on the site recently and on YouTube,
So I hope you enjoyed all of them, what we had this year, and look out for all-new stuff in 2016,
Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year!