Fear and Loathing in Vegas Stakes

The picture fades in from black, and the title Angry Video Game Nerd is shown in the style of Ralph Steadman. It runs down revealing a quote that reads, "He who makes a nerd of himself gets rid of the pain of bad games."

NERD (V/O): We were somewhere on the edge of the desert when the shitty games began to take hold.

Raoul Duke is driving while Dr. Gonzo is playing Shaq Fu on Game Boy.

DR. GONZO: Wow. This gamе, man. As your attorney, I'm advising you play Shaq Fu on the Game Boy.

NERD: No morе of that talk, or I'll put the fucking leeches on you, understand? These games are making me light-headed.

NERD (V/O): Suddenly, there was a terrible roar all around us, and all I could see were bats from Castlevania, bats from Zelda, Ninja Gaiden, ALF, Home Alone! Bats in every savage game conceivable by rat bastard psychotics! Bats that camouflage, go up and down, sideways, all swooping and screeching around the car, and a voice was screaming, "Holy sweet Jesus! Were there goddamn bats in Top Gun?"

DR. GONZO: Did you say something, man?

The Nerd pulls over the car on the side of the road. He runs over to the front trunk while still swatting away and opens it.

NERD (V/O): We had 20 LJN games, 10 or more by Color Dreams. We had two sealed copies of Jekyll and Hyde, one of them officially grated. We had over 35 copies of E.T., a Virtual Boy, a Wonder Wizard, a JVC X'Eye, a Dendy Junior, a FM Towns Marty, an Aquarius Mini Expender, an Ameprod TV G10. We had all the hellishly intense games with the most grim graphics, the most chicken shit controls, and sounds capable of shaking you right down to the core of your spleen! With every broken side-scroller, every cryptic "where the fuck do you go?" type of game, and a whole galaxy of multi-fucked bafflers, glitchers, screamers, laughers, and a roll of toilet paper. Also, Pat Contri's guide to the SNES library.

The only thing that really worried me was the R-Zone games. There is nothing in the world more helpless, irresponsible and depraved, than a man in the depths of a R-Zone binge. And I knew we'd get into that rotten shit pretty soon.

The Nerd takes an Atari 410 tape recorder out of the Red Shartrunk and walks to the passenger's seat.

NERD (V/O): Not that we needed all that, but once you get stuck playing these foul, wretched abominations, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.

NERD: Move over, you fucking bastard! Your turn to drive.

Dr. Gonzo moves to the driver's seat.

DR. GONZO: Fine. You drive too slow, man. We got to make it to Vegas.

The Nerd uses the Atari 410 tape recorder and starts speaking to the microphone.

NERD: Time for the journal. It all started 24 hours ago. I was in my Nerd lair, playing casino video games.

The scene flashes back to the Nerd in his basement. He holds up the Vegas Dream and Vegas Stakes games.

NERD: Vegas Dream on NES and Vegas Stakes on SNES. Now, am I missing something here? What's the big idea with playing card games and table games on a video game cartridge when you could play them in real life instead? As long as you're legal age to go to a casino.

The Nerd takes the Vegas Dream cartridge out of the game's box.

NERD: Now, of course, if you were playing them in a casino, you'd be betting real money and, chances are, losing it. But are these games worth the money you'd be losing? Let's check it out.

The Nerd inserts the Vegas Dream cartridge into the Nintoaster and switches it on.

NERD: Vegas Dream begins with... a plane ride? Couldn't the game start in the casino? Do we need to see how the character got there? Does his face have to be shrouded in darkness like a creepy slasher villain? Do the walls have to be bright neon stripes? Could you imagine sitting on a plane, staring at that? Maybe Vegas Dream is a dream, or maybe a drug-fueled nightmare! So you have a choice of blackjack, roulette, slot machine, and keno. If you're already familiar with how those games are played, there's really not much else to say. The blackjack game is blackjack. And it functions fine on the NES except the camera moves back and forth. It's nauseating! How hard would it have been to fit both your hand and the dealer's hand on the same screen?! There's plenty of extra space! The slot machines are well, slot machines. You just drop money in, pull the lever in, and see what happens. Roulette, I find to be the most fun because as roulette goes, you have a lot of options on where to bet. In general, it does replicate some of that addictive feeling with gambling. It's hard to stop when you have that hunch that the next bet could be the one that wins big.

The Nerd wins a big bet in the game.

NERD: When you win, this game's kinda cool. But when you lose, it sucks. In an attempt to make the game a little more interesting, other characters will approach you and you're given a choice how to respond. For example, somebody spills a drink on your jacket and offers to take it to the cleaners. If you say "Yes", she steals your wallet, which is explained on the news! Okay, first of all, how much of an idiot would I have to be to leave my wallet inside my jacket that I give to a stranger? And second, how slow of a day in the news could it possibly be for that to be on the fucking news?

The Nerd inserts the Vegas Stakes cartridge into the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

NERD: Well, let's see what eight more bits has to offer. Vegas Stakes on Super Nintendo is in the same vein. It begins with a group of people in a car. I don't really get the point and all you hear is this strange, ominous car engine. It's rather unsettling. When you arrive in Vegas, you have a choice of which character you can bring to you to the casinos. I'm sure there's some reason, but I haven't seen these characters interact very much. Especially Zack Morris from Saved By The Bell. Considering he's a teenager and all, he should probably stay in the hotel room.

NERD: Anyway, let's talk about the casino games you can play. You can select blackjack, slots, roulette, craps, poker, or even exit the casino and go to a different one where you can play pretty much the same games, but with different dollar amounts. The graphics are much nicer than the NES version. In roulette, you actually see the wheel spin. In slots, the watermelon actually looks like a watermelon, and not a severed crocodile dick. Just like in the NES version, you meet characters who might take your money.

The Nerd notices a character in the game who resembles the actor Lance Henriksen.

NERD: Wait a minute. Is that Lance Henriksen? Lance Henriksen is telling me to bet on red? Should I trust him? It is Lance Henriksen.

The Nerd bets on red and the roulette wheel starts spinning. The ball lands on black.

NERD: Wow, Lance Hendrickson's an asshole! Somebody comes up to you and asks if they can hang around you. The options are "Sure, why not" or "Beat it, you loser". Damn! There's no option to dismiss the person politely? Might as well have, "Fuck off, asshole" and "Witness your loved ones die in hell as their bloody remains get shoved up your ass by Satan as he tears your spine out through your dick while he..." Okay, that's enough.

NERD: I said "Sure", and then a while later, it says, "You felt a bump when the loser walked past you." The loser. Because that's all they are is a fucking loser. Even the narration is rude! And then, of course, you get robbed.

The Nerd loses $682 dollars in roulette.

NERD: Everybody pickpockets here, left and right. I mean, don't casinos have security cameras everywhere? Well, because of this lame-ass security, I quit!

The Nerd throws the controller.

NERD: No, I don't.

The Nerd picks up the controller.

NERD: When you lose in poker, the winner says, "One day, I'll write a book on how to become a millionaire. I'll put you in the chapter called Sweet Losers." Wow, what a fucking asshole! And what's up with Johnny? One minute he looks like a normal guy, and then all of a sudden, his face twists into the damn Joker! Well, that's some freaky shit.

NERD: Of course, there exists a ton of casino themed video games. There's all those unlicensed NES games from Panesian like Hot Slots and Peek-A-Boo Poker, which are nothing more than your regular casino games with occasional nudity thown in. There's also Casino on Atari. Um, yeah.

NERD: Yeah, that's some stone age shit right here. One of the better ones is Caesar's Palace where you can walk around the casino. Yeah! Kinda like a overly elaborate menu screen. What do you want to play next? Well let's just walk on over. In the NES version, you can even go to the bathroom!

NERD: A video game character that needs to go to the bathroom. Wow, I mean, I mean it makes sense! Mario's got to be holding some titanic turds by the time he gets through, but here finally comes a game that address this human bodily function. Otherwise, what am I going to explain about all these games? I mean, what, am I going to go all the rules of blackjack and just get all into it? I'll just sound like an instruction manual! So I really don't know how to review these games any further. So, I'm sorry. I'm just at a loss here.

Dr. Gonzo appears wearing a red Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses. He sits down next to the Nerd and talks to him.

DR. GONZO: As your attorney, here's what I think you need to do. In order to review these games properly, you're gonna have to get into the right mindset. First, you're gonna have to dress the part. Sunglasses, hat, Hawaiian shirt. Just like Raoul Duke in Hunter S. Thompson's book, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Dr. Gonzo holds up the clothes and book, and he hands them to the Nerd. He addresses the book cover.

NERD: The book cover, based on the movie starring Johnny Depp, based on the book.

DR. GONZO: We're gonna arm ourselves to the teeth, get a convertible, a tape recorder, and all the shitty games to harness that old-school Nerd anger.

The Nerd is seen wearing the Hawaiian shirt. He puts on the sunglasses and hat, and holds a fake cigarette to his mouth as he impersonates Raoul Duke.

NERD: You're right. Covering these games in any traditional sense would be absurd. We gotta do it pure Nerd journalism.

DR. GONZO: Damn right. We gotta go to a place where we can see the real casino games, where we can smell the cigarettes and whiskey. We gotta go to Las... Veg...

The picture abruptly cuts back to the Nerd in the passenger's seat of the Red Shark, playing Shaq Fu on Game Boy.

NERD: ASS! This Shaq Fu game is ass, man!

DR. GONZO: Chill out, man! Play this.

Dr. Gonzo hands the Nerd the Retro Duo Portable console.

NERD: What's this?

DR. GONZO: Retro Duo Portable. Plays Nintendo and Super Nintendo games on the go.

NERD: We can't play this. This is Donkey Kong Country.

DR. GONZO: Right. Bad games.

Dr. Gonzo takes the Road Runner's Death Valley Rally game cartridge out of his shirt pocket and hands it to the Nerd.

DR. GONZO: Here. Take one dose of this.

NERD: Road Runner's Death Valley Rally? I love the Road Runner cartoons!

The Nerd inserts the game cartridge into the Retro Duo Portable.

NERD: It looks beautiful, man! Colorful graphics, fast speed action, faithful to the cartoons. Even has the Coyote falling animation. How long do I have before I start flipping out?

DR. GONZO: It'll be a miracle if you make it much longer.

NERD (V/O): At first, the game seemed great. You just let that Coyote bastard chase you. He will follow. Seems simple. But then the benevolent bullshit reared its ugly head to say, "Pleased to meet you. Hoped you guessed my name."

NERD: What is this shitload of muck?

NERD (V/O): In only a few minutes, the game changes from a fun, fast-paced speedrunner, to a slippery platformer and "where the fuck do you go?" game. Your speed is either fully running or standing still. Two-gear diarrhea. You must repeatedly tap the D-pad to maintain a medium, non-hazardous speed.

NERD: I just want to run! I'm the fucking Road Runner, goddammit! Why are all these platforms in the desert, anyway?! These controls are shattered, man! You must move as slowly as possible. Oh fuck, man! I need the momentum to get up the hill. Sweet Jesus! Go back! Get up there! Hop up! Like a bunny! I'm stuck in a valley! Come on, come on. What the fuck? This drags the anal sauce to the back of the brain!

The Red Shark passes by Spider-Man as the Nerd keeps playing the Retro Duo Portable, and Spider-Man flips them off.

DR. GONZO: Let's give that boy a lift.

Dr. Gonzo switches the Red Shark into reverse and backs up next to Spider-Man.

SPIDER-MAN: Hey! Thanks for the ride!

NERD: You sure about this? I am playing Road Runner's Death Valley Rally. Is that... up your alley?

Spider-Man looks at Dr. Gonzo.

DR. GONZO: I'm just admiring the shape of your skull.

SPIDER-MAN: Uh, okay?

NERD: Well, get in!

The Red Shark continues to drive on the desert highway. The Nerd looks at Spider-Man and the cuts to Dr. Gonzo playing the Virtual Boy while driving.

NERD (V/O): How long could we maintain, I wondered, before one of us starts raving at this poor guy about lousy game mechanics, bats, and medusa heads coming down the car? No point. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.

NERD: You want to play a... Tiger Electronic handheld game?

SPIDER-MAN: Um, no.

NERD: How about, uh, Game.com?

SPIDER-MAN: Huh?

NERD: Nevermind. Now, listen. This is an extremely dangerous assignment. You know the Road Runner, right?

SPIDER-MAN: Uh... sure?

NERD: He runs fast. That's his thing, but not in this game! Instead, you have to bounce on trampolines to make it to the ledge, and one bounce is never enough! How can you make a character who runs when all you do is bounce on trampolines and hop on platforms? Imagine if Sonic never had the chance to run! These dingbat game designers are abusing a beloved character and humping the American Dream! Do you understand me?

Spider-Man nods.

NERD (V/O): He said he understood, but I could tell he didn't.

SPIDER-MAN: Um, is he okay to drive?

Cut to Dr. Gonzo is playing a Virtual Boy while driving.

NERD: Never mind him. Now pay attention. If you touch a bush, it hurts you. But you can run through a cactus unharmed! Explain that to me! God, almighty! No! It's only the beginning of the game! Why is it so goddamn difficult? Where do I go? I guess down there. It takes a leap of faith, man. Fuck! Those heartless swines give you only three lives? No continues? Those gutless bastards! Fuck this savage piece of engineering!

The Nerd takes the cartridge out of the Retro Duo Portable and throws it in the air. He then takes out the Telstar Arcade light gun and shoots at the cartridge. It explodes into pieces which scares Spider-Man.

SPIDER-MAN: Oh, god!

Spider-Man jumps out of the Red Shark.

DR. GONZO: Hey, man! You scared off Spider-Man!

NERD: Holy shit! That was Spider-Man?

An instrumental cover of "She's a Lady" by Tom Jones plays as the Red Shark screams along the highway past a billboard. Cut to the Nerd playing a game on the Genesis Nomad next to the famous Las Vegas sign. He notices the sign behind him and walks to it, followed by a montage of Las Vegas attractions and locations. The Nerd and Dr. Gonzo arrive in the city of Las Vegas.

DR. GONZO: Whoa. They fixed this place up pretty good after that monster attacked.

Cut to Death Mwauthzyx destroying the Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas, Nevada.

DR. GONZO: You actually saw that thing! Why don't you talk about it more?

NERD: What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

Cut to a montage of the Nerd and Dr. Gonzo playing with various gaming accessories and consoles next to various attractions in Las Vegas.

NERD (V/O): The effects of the games were kicking in, making us behave like the guy in Dark Castle. Total loss of basic motor skills. Blurred vision. You watch yourself behave in this manner, but can't control it, like the LJN Roll & Rocker. Menacing vibrations were all around us. We were heading into trouble, pushing our luck. And I knew, we were gonna ride this torpedo turd to a place where the buffalo shit runs.

DR. GONZO: We forgot! We got to play casino games!

NERD: Oh, right. Let's try... Caesar's Palace.

The Nerd takes out the Caesar's Palace cartridge from his shirt pocket and inserts it into the Genesis Nomad portable console.

NERD: The 16-bit graphics take it a step further than its 8-bit predecessor. I feel more now like I’m actually walking in a casino. This must be what it’s like in Caesar’s Palace. It’s the closest you can get.

DR. GONZO: Or you could just go to Caesar’s Palace.

The Nerd turns around and looks at the real-life Caesar's Palace sign. He shakes his head and keeps playing. Cut to the Nerd observing various casinos and playing casino games.

NERD (V/O): As we observed the various casinos, horrible realities began to dawn on us. Casinos are like video games. They’re designed like labyrinths such as Milon’s Secret Castle with no clear exit. Those gutless bastards want you to stay, to keep spending your money. They lure you in with bright lights, pretty graphics like Road Runner. It looks nice. You can be entranced and once you’re in, you’re stuck... with no clocks or windows to the outside world. You’re teased with near wins and games designed to give you the illusion of control. Casino patrons are the same as video game nerds. You either waste your money on the slots and tables... or a shitty video game. In the retro age, we had no internet to tell us if a game was bad. It was all a gamble, with higher odds to the house. Take, for instance, those heartless swines at LJN, the big proud golden nugget of shit. You place your bets on Jaws, Friday the 13th, and Back to the Future. But chances were you'd roll craps. Was it possible that we’ve gone to such excess that I couldn’t look at any game without seeing an interesting and introspective nightmare?

The Nerd observes the Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing slot machines. He pulls the lever and rolls three Tong Shau Pings. Multiple Seamen start coming out of the winning slot.

NERD (V/O): I was surrounded by Seamen, and somebody was given booze to these goddamn things!

The casino is surrounded with various characters. King Harkinian and Zelda are seen laughing along with E.T. and the dog from Duck Hunt. Michael Jackson is standing on a casino table while grabbing his crotch, and Jimmy Lee is sitting at another table. The casino changes colors and the Nerd lets out a shriek. King Harkinian and Zelda’s laughs become more deep and the picture becomes more distorted. The Nerd groans before passing out as the picture wipes away. The scene changes to the Nerd and Dr. Gonzo playing Pac-Kong on Atari 2600.

NERD: We were stuck in a vortex playing whacked-out games, and there was no telling how deep into degeneracy filth we would go. I don’t get it.

The Nerd takes the Pac-Kong cartridge out of the Atari 2600 console.

NERD: What is… Pac-Kong? Is it Pac-Man? Donkey Kong? King Kong? Or Transformers?

Dr. Gonzo: You gotta be crazy on acid to think that thing looks like a Transformer.

The Nerd puts the cartridge back into the Atari 2600 and plays again.

NERD: Well, it’s none of the above. Just a generic ladder platformer. This isn’t what I need, man!

DR. GONZO: Right. As your attorney, I’m advising you to try LSD.

Dr. Gonzo holds up the PlayStation game LSD: Dream Emulator.

DR. GONZO: For the PlayStation.

The Nerd looks at Dr. Gonzo.

DR. GONZO: It was only ever released to Japan because nobody else could handle it. This game, I warn you, is like one of God’s high-powered prototypes. A mutant of some kind never even considered of mass production. So only a little bit of it, okay?

The Nerd picks up the PlayStation controller and starts playing LSD: Dream Emulator.

NERD: At first, it seemed like nothing. You just walk around aimlessly in 3D environments. But then, it kicked in. It was a fantastic spectacle. It was a type of game that short circuits your brain and grounds it for the longest time possible. Have we deteriorated to the level of dumb beasts? Old elephants limp off to the hills to die. Gamers go to Jekyll and Hyde, but to play something like this defies all reason.

The Nerd lets out a loud shrieks as his vision becomes more distorted.

DR. GONZO: You played too much, man! You played too much! Too much!

NERD: Don’t you come fucking near me! It’s a game that only attracts a very specific breed. There’s no goal, except to walk around and explore for hours. Then occasionally, some full-motion video plays. A kid eating?

The Nerd quietly shrieks as his vision becomes even more distorted.

NERD: It’s a game too weird to exist, but too rare to die, and certainly impossible to review. Because there’s absolutely nothing to explain. The game crept up my spine like the first rising vibe of an acid frenzy. My medulla closed itself off from the signals it was getting from the frontal lobes, as the middle brain was desperately trying to put a different interpretation of the scene before me.

The Nerd's vision becomes even more distorted and gets stressed out.

Dr. Gonzo: Let me try.

As the Nerd hands the PlayStation controller to Dr. Gonzo, his vision returns to normal. As Dr. Gonzo plays, he sees a mysterious figure.

Dr. Gonzo: Oh! Oh! Oh shit!

The mysterious figure goes through a wall, which freaks Dr. Gonzo out. The player sees a lady, but her head comes off when she turns around. In response to this, the Nerd quietly shrieks.

NERD: It was a hell-broth of bizarre visuals sprayed with every grim detail, besides two Smurfs fucking a polar bear. It was unfit for mortal eyes. I was now on a survival trip heading into catatonic despair and manic overload.

As they continue to explore more unusual environments, the Nerd and Dr. Gonzo’s visions become very distorted to the point where they start losing their minds. Suddenly, a hotel employee is heard knocking on the hotel room door.

EMPLOYEE: Room service.

The Nerd's vision nearly turns back to normal and gasps.

NERD: It’s the narcs! They’ll run us down like dogs!

Dr. Gonzo: What, you think they’re gonna lock us up for playing LSD?

NERD: Lock us up? No, don’t kill us, man! Just like in NARC, drug dealers and junkies get no fair trial. The cops just murder you on the spot.

The scene transitions to footage from the 2001 movie Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

Jay: Who smokes the blunts? We smoke the blunts! Rolling blunts and smoking...

Silent Bob notices a NARC agent, who is heard cocking his gun.

NARC Agent: Make my day.

The NARC agent shoots Jay and Silent Bob, and when the gunshot flashes, the scene changes back to the Nerd and Dr. Gonzo in their hotel room.

NERD: It’s all a trick.

The Nerd pulls out the Telstar Arcade gun.

NERD: You’re a fucking Narcotics agent! I knew it!

DR. GONZO: Get a grip, man...

NERD: Fuck you, you fucking pig fucker!

DR. GONZO: Get a grip…

The Nerd and Dr. Gonzo both struggle against the Telstar Arcade gun, but the latter hits the Nerd with it and knocks him out. The picture slowly fades in from black, and the Nerd is on the floor with various game controllers and consoles piled on and around him. He slowly wakes up and the camera pans over various game consoles.

NERD (V/O): When I came into, there was evidence on this room of excessive consumption of almost every type of foul, rotten video game known to civilized humans since 1972 A.D. These were not the hoof prints of your normal video game addict. This was that of a world-class shit seeker.

Dr. Gonzo also wakes up on the floor, also with various game accessories and consoles piled on and around him. The Nerd looks around in horror. The hotel room is messy, with windows shattered and stains on the bed. He gets up and sits at his computer next to the broken window.

NERD (V/O): What have we degraded to? What was the meaning of this trip? Had I come to Vegas to work on a review, or to reflect on a doom-struck era when an eager gaming culture thought anything with robots, ninjas, and dinosaurs guaranteed happiness at 50 bucks a hit? That retro age was a special time to be a part of.

A silhouette of the Nerd is shown with footage of various video games playing in the background.

NERD (V/O): No words can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive, when any game based on Batman, The Simpsons or Ninja Turtles had to be awesome. There was a fantastic universal sense that we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful pop culture neon wave. And now, you can stand at the top of a steep hill of the modern decade and look to the past, and with the right kind of eyes, you can see that place where the wave broke and rolled back, leaving behind a failed generation of shit seekers. But I now look to the light at the end of the tunnel.

The scene changes to the Nerd driving back through the desert highway.

NERD (V/O): There was only one road back to the past. Interstate Shitty. Just a flat-out, high-speed burn over dead skunks and road turds. Then onto the disenchanted freeway straight into frantic oblivion. Safety. Obscurity. Just another Nerd in the Nerd kingdom.

As the Nerd drives back home, he smokes a cigarette and a parody of the Rolling Stones' “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” plays. He passes by a sign that shows the Angry Video Game Nerd and Cinemassacre logos, and then it cuts to the credits.