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As a big fan of AVGN who has missed out on the previously-released DVDs, I was glad I waited and was able to get this collection on Blu-Ray!
Let me just get some technical stuff out of the way right up front since it is important: While this is a Blu-Ray disc, the content is all in 480i Standard Definition. These are not HD, they're not even standard DVD quality (480p). They're also presented in "Full Screen" (4:3, black bars on the sides). It's not until the very final episode that the video format was switched to widescreen (16:9) and 720p.
The discs are region free according to the boxart. There are individual chapters for each episode and a play all option. There are no subtitles on the disc.
The reason these are on a Blu-Ray disc is that they can hold so much space. Disc 1 has 19 hours of episodes on it! Also keep in mind these were filmed for the web years ago in standard definition, so there is no HD version of a lot of this content.
The set comes on 2 pressed Blu-Ray discs (not BD-R's)
The Blu-Ray itself boots up instantly to the menu.
No waiting through company logos, just right to the menu screen. Awesome.
Options on the main menu are Play-All, Episode Select (8 per screen -- I wish they would have upped this number as you need to scroll through pages and pages to get to the later episodes) and Commentaries.
As of this review, there are 137 episodes of AVGN -- this Blu-Ray contains the first 100. I believe this is the first 6 or so previously-released DVDs combined onto a blu-ray set. There are a few more recent volumes out there and I hope they later get combined into a 2nd Blu-Ray set since the quality is higher. Maybe a new set containing episodes 101-150? I'd love to see it.
CONTENT: If you're looking at this set, you know who the Angry VideoGame Nerd is. This is the same content online, just packed onto a Blu-Ray set and loaded with extras.
CHANGES: Some content has been removed (for legal purposes?) -- games that previously had movie footage (such as AVGN #6: Back to the Future) have the movie footage removed. It's pretty seamless, but the review is more entertaining/flows better with the footage in-place.
VIDEO: As mentioned, episodes 1-99 are in 480i, episode 100 is in 720p. These are typically lower-budget DVD quality, but that's exactly how these were filmed. The video quality (especially on the early episodes) are higher-quality than the same videos on youtube. Game footage if where you notice issues the most -- these appear to be recorded on VHS, transferred to a computer for editing and then produced for the web. I won't mark the set down for these issues as that's how they're filmed and it's the best they've looked. Just don't go in expecting a Blu-Ray looking set.
Some of the extras are also in 720p (disc 2) but the quality seems to be high-compressed for online rather than a disc, so the quality still isn't too great.
Extras:
Disc 1 contains 5 commentaries:
AVGN #24 (Spider-Man), #31 (Bugs Bunnys Birthday Blowout), #87 (Ninja Gaiden), #92 (Game-Glitches) and #100 (R.O.B. the Robot)
Disc 2 is loaded with special features. I've heard there are 7 hours worth and I believe that. The "Special Features" option has 6 pages of extras
Some of these are a little weird like the "Piece of Meat" britney spears music video cover with AVGN cameos ;)
Unfortunately there is no Play-All option on the extras. You can only view 1 extra at a time before it takes you back to the main menu and you need to navigate through the 6 pages of extras to find where you left off.
Hey James! You know what's BS? When a Blu-Ray disc is loaded with a hundred extras and you have to go through the list after each one to find the next one!
Also on disc 2 are a set of outtakes (19 of them, WITH a play-all option) - these run about an hour and 20 minutes total.
OVERALL: If you own the earlier DVD sets, you don't really need this unless you want all of the content on 1 disc. As far as I can tell, this content is all from the first 6 DVDs with no new extras added. Quality is also the same (except for a couple of the 720p pieces). The big benefit here is to get this set as a collection. 1 disc, 19 hours of AVGN.. and then another disc full of extras. Hard to go wrong with that. For that, I give it 5 stars.
The quality is iffy but it's also the best these have ever looked, so I can't blame them for that. It makes sense to load up a Blu-Ray (50GB) with content when a DVD is so limited (4.5 to 9GB).
As a big fan of the series who missed the earlier DVD Releases, I'm glad to have this. I wish they would've gone past episode 100 with this (since those are out on home-video) but I won't fault them for it. 100 episodes is a nice round number.
- Region: All Regions
- Studio: TrophyRak
- Average Customer Review: 315 customer reviews
- ASIN: B018Y6BV04
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