This is the most normal part of any episode.
From the weird, to the wild, to the WHAT, Weird Video Games is a video game review show by "Heisanevilgenius" (real name Tom White), where only the most asinine and mind-breaking games are showcased to the masses. The show is a result of Tom's self-appointed quest to find the oddest of the odd and get the good word out for the funkiest and wackiest games in existence. From blocks finding magical goblets and avoiding duck-like dragons to tomatoes who shoot fists at household objects, Heisanevilgenius has you covered.
Heisanevilgenius is also (he claims) the genius behind the patron saint of bad fanfic, Peter Chimaera, and created the Rom Hack Super Mario TKO, one of several popularised by ProtonJon.
The show's Web site can be found here
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This show contains examples of:
- A Good Name for a Rock Band: Running Gag in the "Rock 'n' Rage" video.
- All Just a Dream: Discussed at the end of Mangia. Tom lampshades that this bit would get added to this page anyway.
- Anachronism Stew: Pointed out in "Rock 'n' Rage", whose Ancient Egypt level's enemies includes both mummies and modern Arabs throwing grenades.
- Ancient Grome: In "Rock 'n' Rage" he notes that the game's idea of Ancient Rome is if anything more like Ancient Greece.
- A Rare Sentence: In "Rock 'n' Rage", "I never thought I'd have to say this, but these are the most hardcore trees I have ever seen in my life".
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Discussed in "Cathouse Blues." The laws in "Dimension Bob" seem to dictate that running most of the time is sure to alert the cops. The stinger for the episode has Tom's character get arrested just after the character got mugged.
- Badass Decay: Invoked. Tom notes this in the review for Yume Penguin Monogatari, in which Penta, once the fastest organism on the planet, has lost all of his athletic abilities and is now stuck in a dysfunctional relationship with a girl penguin who is not only threatening to dump him if he doesn’t lose weight, but has also already chosen a new boyfriend.
- Badass Normal: Judging by Tom's reaction to the enemies in Bazooka Bill, the "men-in-adult-diapers" are possibly the most powerful enemies in the game, where a bomb just takes off one HP while these guys can cost you a life.
- The Cameo:
- Dusty Diamond's All-Star Softball had several other members from Channel Awesome as well as Doug Walker and Linkara.
- Yume Penguin Monogatari featured the late JewWario from You Can Play This.
- They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: In-Universe, Tom's opinion of how the roster of players in Dusty Diamond's All-Star Softball was considerably toned down for the North American release compared to the wacky original Japanese version.
- Cool Versus Awesome: Often shows up, especially in the fighting games.
- Crossover:
- He once swapped shows with Roo from Clan of the Gray Wolf for one episode, doing a "16-bit Gems" while Roo did a Weird Video Games.
- Roo breifly appeared in Rock'n Rage.
- Cowboy Be Bop At His Computer: All over the place in the episode covering Zunzun-kyou no Yabou. Here's the two biggest examples:
- The titular Zunzun-kyou is not the player-character as stated in the video. It's the enemy organization. This should have been clear to his translator as the character for "kyou" in this instance roughly translates to "faith" or "doctrine".
- The player-character is not a statue of the Buddha, but rather Kshitigarbha, better known as "Jizou" in Japan, and referred to in the game's manual and page on the Japanese version of The Other Wiki as the Silver Jizou (Player two is the Gold Jizou)
- Epileptic Flashing Lights: He covers his eyes and cringes when this effect is used between stages in Rock 'n' Rage.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: He provides a short written synopsis for each video describing the game in question, with emphasis on its weirdness. Some examples:Revolution X: Weirdness Rating: 7/10 – Fight an oppressive new order alongside Aerosmith with a magic machine gun that shoots music.Michael Jackson's Moonwalker: Weirdness Rating: 7/10 – Michael Jackson dances at gangsters, zombies, ghosts, and vacuum cleaners to save kids from Joe Pesci.Mahjong: The Lady Hunter: Weirdness Rating: 7/10 – A shameless superhero ripoff hunts down female jewel thieves so he can play Mahjong with them and then strip them naked.
- Four-Point Scale: The "Weirdness Rating" is measured out of 10, but rarely dips below 5. Justified, in that if a game wasn't at least that weird then it wouldn't be on the show anyway.
- Goshdarn It To Heck: Except for one or two cases, Tom relies on several unusual phrases and euphemisms to get his points across instead of relying on cursing.
- Gratuitous English: Discussed Trope in Momoko 120%, with him particularly dwelling on Japanese game titles' fondness for using the word 'panic' inappropriately.
- Heroic BSoD:
- This tends to happen when the game being reviewed gets a little too weird.
- Happens during the host's Revolution X review.
- The ultimate example is Beat'em and Eat'em for the Atari 2600, where he spends a majority of the video writing and typing his thoughts as just talking about it froze him and removed his speech.
- Hyperspace Arsenal: In Penguin Adventure, accompanied by original art depicting the penguin if he really was trying to wear three pairs of boots, two mediaeval helmets and much more all at once.
- Joke and Receive: In "Rock 'n' Rage", after expressing disbelief at the random weirdness of the first Ancient Egypt level (such as Cleopatra giving you a forcefield powerup) he sarcastically suggests that the next level, Mediaeval Great Britain, will include Dracula as an enemy. It actually turns out to have Nosferatu as an enemy...
- Oddball in the Series: Discussed in Donkey Kong 3. Tom brings up the fact that the first two games were traditional arcade platformers, and the Donkey Kong Country series continue the first two games' genres, with DK3 being more of a Shoot 'Em Up starring new character Stanley the Bugman rather than Mario.
- Only in Florida: Jail Break takes place in Florida by headcanon."I've been a Florida resident for three years now, but not a native, and I can definitely confirm this is Jacksonville. Some guy running down Main Street with a rocket launcher through a hospital and a jail, and some little kid running through crossfire—yeah, that's Jacksonville. They all just got ouf of a Jaguars game and are pissed off that the team lost again."
- Rant Comedy: Averted, unlike most web review shows. Tom's style is more an easygoing befuddlement with each weird factor in the game he's reviewing as they start to mount up.
- Shared Universe: Due to the cameos, Tom is part of the Reviewaverse.
- Shout-Out: Subverted in Di's Baby, where it looks like he's going to do the Monty Python "And now for something completely different" transition, (as the game in question is British) but it cuts to the intro before he can open his mouth.
- Super-Speed: Penta the penguin from Antarctic Adventure and Penguin Adventure, who is capable of Mach 58.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: In one video he discusses how people just accept weirdness without question if it appears in a popular mainstream gaming series, such as Super Mario Bros.—it's the less popular and one-off games where it stands out more.
- World of Chaos: Many of the games he reviews are set there, especially the Japanese ones.
- Wunza Plot: His description of Captain Commando:A superhero teams up with a ninja, a mummy, and a baby. Who cares what they fight?
