With the Halloween season well underway, it feels only appropriate to showcase just some of the ghoulish enemies you’ll be able to face in Angry Video Game Nerd (AVGN) 8-bit! You’ll blast through tons of enemies populating seven unique environments that take inspiration from the AVGN universe. But today, we’re taking a look only at those enemies and levels that truly evoke the spooky spirit!

AVGN 8-bit brings everyone’s favorite rage-induced Nerd back to take down a new threat to the gaming world! When an old ally of his somehow becomes corrupted, the Nerd must spring into action to fight this fallen force of good with an unimaginable force of evil: a “bad game” ritualistically made using the “worst” bad games of all time. With live action cutscenes featuring the Nerd himself commenting on your progress and encouraging you forward, it’s never a dull moment as you fight your way to the corrupted entity within. But first, you’ll have to deal with its minions. Let’s look at some techniques to keep you from suffering a dark fate!

Trigger-Finger Zombies and Walking Hands

Some of the first enemies you may encounter as you begin your digital “purge” are zombies and disembodied hands. Now, to the average horror enthusiast, these enemies shouldn’t sound too threatening, but what if the zombies can shoot lightning and the hands can rush at you on detection? For zombies, you’ll want to time your jumps right whenever they fire a bolt of lightning at you. Finish them off when you land back down. But be careful as they charge up their lightning shots, as zombies are able to temporarily reflect your own projectiles away. For those creepy, crawling hands, they’ll often charge at you along a linear path, so blasting them as fast as you can before they hit you is ideal.

A Soda Factory Full of Robo-Skeletons

There’s something definitely wrong when you have to take down a boss inside a factory that makes soda–not to mention having to go through a company of robo-skeletons first. For these enemies, they’ll come in three distinct forms: full-body walking types carrying rifles, crawling types that lob projectiles, and hanging types that fire bullet bursts at a downward angle. If you shoot at full-body walking types, they’ll collapse and turn into crawlers–you can finish them like you would the hands. For hanging types, try to stay clear from their bullet spreads, and manage your jumps to line up your shots well on them.

Spiders, Spiders, Spiders

It should come as no surprise that we’d have to include spiders as another spooky enemy. These skull-motifed guys will descend from the ceiling and try to shoot webs at you, while also being able to drop onto platforms and attack. You’ll want to be careful as they try to shoot webs at you in a downward arc. Getting caught in a web will drastically lower your movement speed, so, if one sticks to you, you’ll have to wiggle your way out of it. Spiders will eventually fall from their threads the longer you fire on them, so force them to be on the same plane as you, and you should be able to blast them away, no problem.

The Dark Realm Cometh

One of the hallmarks of giving off a haunting Halloween vibe is the temporary transition to the night world, which takes place in an otherwise seemingly normal-looking level. In this dark world, you’ll encounter enemies exclusive to this dark environment–including hopping zombie heads, scorpion-like monsters, floating sprites, and a persistent mask that fires an energy ball at you each time it appears. For hopping heads, try unloading on them as they land on the same plane as you. For those scorpion-like monsters, these function similarly to crawling hands and can be blasted easily if on the same plane. For floating sprites, you can destroy them as they get into your line of fire, but make sure you jump over any projectiles they launch at you on their death. Finally, for that recurring mask that appears and disappears quickly, be sure to dodge its single projectiles it fires at you. You won’t be able to destroy this mask enemy immediately, since this is actually the boss of that level you’ll face later on.

The Angry Video Game Nerd returns in 2025 just in time for the spooky season, with plenty of monsters for fans and newcomers to the AVGN universe to blast, so grab your controller and unleash the ultimate nerd rage in Angry Video Game Nerd 8-bit, digitally available now!