Shout Out / The Angry Video Game Nerd II: ASSimilation

• The Nerd Room's BGM is an intentional Suspiciously Similar Song based on a mysterious MIDI track that was submitted as the overworld theme for the CD-i game Zelda's Adventure. Except it wasn't, nor was its true source never identified.
• The game's main MacGuffin is a set of six triangles named the Sexforce. The remake alters their design and renames them the Fucks Capacitor.
• The Area 52 zone contains several to VVVVVV.
  • Stage 2 features a vertical Advancing Wall of Doom segment identical to The Tower and two of the screens in the final area of the game.
  • Stage 3 has the Nerd reverse his gravity with every press of the jump key, exactly like the player character of VVVVVV.
  • Stage 2's name is "Slide Down the Shaft", referencing the screen "Whizz Down the Shaft", and Stage 3 is titled "WhyWhyWhyWhyWhyWhy" like the title of VVVVVV.
• Also from Area 52:
  • The first stage and boss battle have swirly portals obviously lifted from Portal.
  • The zone's name is a portmanteau of Area 51, prominently featured in Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie, and Action 52.
  • The boss is Dark Onward, the Big Bad of the movie. When down to 1/2 HP, he transforms into a mecha-scorpion, referencing the first fake Darth Vader encounter in Namco's 1987 Star Wars Famicom game.
  • The remake's version of the boss, Dark Invader, takes more cues from not only the original Darth Vader — complete with his all-over black armor, breathing difficulties, and yelling the infamous Big "NO!" from Revenge of the Sith when he dies as well as the obvious Punny Name — but the lower half of his pre-transformation vehicle is a dead ringer for the Dalek-like one used by Davros. He also references a quote from an interview with George Lucas when he has his second arm blown off.
• Browntown has several to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on NES.
  • The colour palette in the world is pretty much a dead ringer for the sewer sections in the game.
  • Stage 2's main gimmick is that it's filled with the same electrified kelp from the game. It also has the "You can just walk over it?!" gap from the game that the Nerd made (in)famous in his review.
  • Mouser robots are one of the enemy types in this world.
  • A beer placed in a spot you can't possibly retrieve it before a moving trap catches it is a reference to the Nerd's rant about a similarly situated pizza in this game.
  • The Wolfpack Boss of the world consists of expies of both the Ninja Turtles and the Battletoads combined, complete with the Nerd's suggested names from his Battletoads review: Herpez, Genital Wartz, and Gonorrhea. They also have a Master Sphincter, but that name wasn't mentioned in the review.
• Other shout-outs from Browntown:
  • The Elite Mooks are Bouncers.
  • Stage 1 is called "Dookie Dookie Panic".
• From Board James:
  • Obviously, the entire world is based on James Rolfe's other series, Board James.
  • The mice from Mouse Trap and flying Sorry! game pieces are enemies throughout the world. The Hungry Hungry Hippos appear as a version of Malevolent Architecture.
  • Stage 2 is based on Crossfire. You ride through the stage on one of the Crossfire discs, the level is full of lightning and fire, like the commercial, the stage music has a Recurring Riff lifted from the commercial, and the level is literally named "You'll Get Caught Up".
  • At the end of Stage 2 you fight Board James.
    Nerd: That guy was a psycho! ...glad I'm not him.
  • The boss of the World is "Mr. Fuck-It", an Expy of Mr. Bucket, who had an infamous appearance in an episode of Board James, and quotes the "BALLS, BALLS, BALLS" meme from Duke Nukem.
• The Nerd Gaiden stages have a pic of Kyubey's face in the background, and the CAT-209 boss of the world is an anime-themed reference to the ED-209 from RoboCop.
  • The first stage is called "Hang Dong '97", obviously named after Hong Kong '97. The level music also samples "I Love Beijing Tiananmen", the song that repeats constantly in Hong Kong '97.
  • In "Sush 'em Up", the Nerd rides on J Li Tanuki, a flying raccoon whose signature weapon is his flaming "Balls of the North Star", and does battle with his rival Scrotoro.
  • The remake adds a clone of Godzilla who fights, in order, clones of Mothra, King Ghidorah, and Mechagodzilla.
• From Monster Madness:
  • The world title is an obvious shout out to Cinemassacre's own Monster Madness yearly Halloween event.
  • The first level is called "Ghouls 'n Garbage"
  • The second is "Deadly Danger Dungeon", another Board James shout-out.
• The final stage, "Virtual Insanity", is entirely red and black, just like the Virtual Boy. The remake also makes its section of the map a giant Virtual Boy.
• The Wall Jump ability you get after attaining the Loafers in the Tutorial Stage is a dead ringer for Mega Man X's, right down to being able to climb up walls by jumping back up against them repeatedly. This ability can be used to attain the Fukonami Swear N' Scout 9001^note Lets you see hidden passages and blocks, much like Mike could in the original game. and Cape^note Lets you glide through the air to slow your descent and cross large gaps. upgrades.
• The Swear N' Scout 9001, in addition to parodying the Konami Laser Scope, is described as "making your vision over 9000 times more powerful".
• The Final Boss fight with Death Mwauthzyx, the Sealed Evil in a Can from the film, is similar to the first phase of the Giant Eggman Robo battle at the end of Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
  • And also to the battle with Gamma in Mega Man 3.
  • In the remake, he gets replaced by the Fuckotron 9000, which is pretty much a jungle-foliage-and-hyena-feces-themed variant of Photoshop Flowey, complete with Nightmare Face.
• The Tower of Torment bonus area in the compilation game has some, too.
  • The second area has a Big Motherfucking Rig appear to try to run the Nerd over. Doubling the reference, it gets faster later by driving backwards.
  • The True Final Boss is Bugs Bunny, here referred to as "The Fucking Rabbit". When you beat him, you get to kill him in the Kourtyard.
  • The theme of the True Final Boss has penis music as a subtle part of the song.