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Characters: The Angry Video Game Nerd

The Angry Video Game Nerd (James Rolfe)

It sucks monkey fuck.

The one, the only, the man who made Internet reviewing a genre singlehandedly—the Angry Video Game Nerd. A bespectacled man in a white button-down shirt with a pocket protector, the Nerd sits in his basement and vents his impotent rage over terrible video games of days gone by. He has a perennial rivalry with The Nostalgia Critic.

Adult Child: A grown man who takes video games very seriously.
Acting for Two: The Nerd and James Rolfe once appeared side-by-side.
Adorkable: When he's not in a rage.
Angrish: Occasionally, when he runs out of curse words.
The Alcoholic
Anti-Hero: Type III
Badass Bookworm: A nerd who can take on Jason Voorhees himself in a fist fight and win.
Badass Normal: While most of his enemies have superhuman powers, the Nerd is, in the end, just a guy who owns some light guns that function like the real thing.
Basement Dweller
Berserk Button: This is what he's known for!
- Excessively long passwords, and using any other key besides A to jump are his two main ones.
- Games without the pause features, such as Ghostbusters 2 on NES.
- Seeing the LJN logo on a game cartridge has also caused him to snap.
- Goddamned Bats!invoked
- The Medusa Heads in Castlevania have reportedly given him a pathological hatred of wavy lines.
- Movie sequels that don't follow a logical numbering system.
- Games with NO CONTINUES!?!? after you die. Turned Up to Eleven if the game combines this with One-Hit Kill or only having one life throughout the entire game.
- Game cartridges with no end labels.
- In Batman Part I, when he explains the utterly ridiculous controls of the SNES Batman Forever game, which was designed with the Mortal Kombat engine. He actually seems to have strained his voice by the end of the review.
- AC adapters with built-in prongs (which tend to preclude the usage of the two adjacent sockets) also greatly annoy him, as seen in the Sega 32X and Dracula reviews. Related to this, ancient consoles which force the player to make use of an RF connector box for television hookups as opposed to just plugging a cable into a much simpler coaxial converter.
- Loading times. His annoyance with them is most pronounced in the Superman (Commodore) and Zelda's Adventure reviews.
  - Also seen in the Batman Forever review, which ironically was a cartridge game.
Nerd: ...Whenever you access a new part of the game, it says "Hold On". Hold on for what? It has to fucking load?!
- Overly cryptic puzzles, such as in Milon's Secret Castle.
Butt Monkey: When every popular fictional character, from Bugs Bunny and the Cowardly Lion to Jason Voorhees and Freddy Kreuger, seems to love to mess with your life, you know you're the Butt Monkey of the century.
Caustic Critic
The Chew Toy
Cluster F-Bomb: A huge signature of his.
Deadpan Snarker: Might well be the Trope Namer.
Disco Dan: Rarely does the Nerd ever reference modern games. When he's presented with an Xbox 360, he seems to hardly know what it is.
Mr. Fanservice: Due to the Hollywood Nerd-ness.
Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: The Nerd doesn't get serious during the Super Mario Bros 3 review until the possessed game cartridge tells him "Your mother sucks cocks in Hell!"
Everyone Calls Him Nerd: It has been suggested numerous times that the character's real name is simply The Nerd or the The Angry Videogame/Nintendo Nerd. He usually introduce himself as such or as The fucking Nerd. Even when he sees his future tombstone, it is engraved with the name AVGN, and everytime he receives a package, the boxes are directed to AVGN. The only exception to this is a scene in the Winter Games episode: while he complains about how he can't type more than four letters in the name entry screen, we can see he (unsusccesfully) tries to type the name James.
- In the Spider-man episode, Spider-man calls him James.
Friend to All Living Things: He is disgusted by the overly graphic animation of the dog getting run over by a car in the Genesis version of Action 52
Future Loser: Looks like he's stuck playing shitty games for the rest of his life. He even gets shocked when he learns that he will die from a heart attack while reviewing Boogie for the Wii at an old age, and decides to swear off playing shitty games after that incident, popping in Super Mario World and proclaiming that he will only play good games from that point onwards. Needless to say, it doesn't last very long, and he simply says "fuck it" and decides that he prefers to bash shitty games anyway.
Hair-Trigger Temper
Hollywood Nerd
I Need a Freaking Drink: Now and then.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold
Large Ham: Debatable. He can switch between being calm and composed or screaming frothing rants at the drop of a hat.
Mad Scientist
Mean Character, Nice Actor: James Rolfe bears little similarity to the Nerd in personality.
Nerd Glasses
One of Us: He's a Godzilla fan.
Specs of Awesome
Sir Swearsalot
Sitcom Archnemesis: ~~The Nostalgia Critic~~ CRITIIIIIIC!!
Sophisticated as Hell
Superpower Lottery
Talks like a Simile: and how. With many of the similes usually related to animal diarrhea.
Trademark Favourite Drink: Rolling Rock
Unkempt Beauty: When he has a bit of Perma Stubble and slightly messy hair.
Unstoppable Rage
Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: He hates bats.

The Bullshit Man (James Rolfe)

A frustrated gentleman who vents his annoyance at modern life. Eventually revealed to be a giant turd with glasses.

Body Horror / Squick / Visual Pun: He is a sentient mass of bovine feces.
Berserk Button: Too much cream cheese!! ..yeah, he's got a lot of these.
The Faceless: Until The Reveal.
Talking Poo

The Guitar Guy (Kyle Justin)

(The one on the left.)

A Day in the Limelight: In the Battletoads review.
Adorkable
Basement Dweller: Sort of, he lives behind The Nerd's couch.
- Technically, it's a futon.
Instrument of Murder
The Lancer: Before Mike started making appearances in person, he was this to the Nerd in some aspects. Specifically, the Battletoads video and the That Guy With The Glasses brawl.
Nice Hat
Perma Stubble
Left the Background Music On
Warrior Poet: Occasionally proves himself capable in a fight.

Motherfucker Mike (Mike Matei)

It's a moniker he wears with pride, funnily enough.

The Faceless: At first he only played The Nerd's masked enemies. While in Board James he shows his face, in AVGN, he doesn't (the only time he's unmasked is playing The Joker, and thus with make-up).
Not the Way It Is Meant to Be Played: He has his own series alongside James's videos that are dedicated to finding glitches of all kinds in old games.
The Lancer: Acts as this to James when it comes to putting out videos and other media-related assistance.
Jerkass: He's called Motherfucker Mike for a reason.
Trying to Catch Me Fighting Dirty: He tends to cheat when going against James at board games.

The Ninja Master (Kevin Finn)

Ambiguously Gay: In the outtakes, played for laughs.
Cloud Cuckoolander: He even drinks beer without removing his mask.
Deadpan Snarker: "It's not a woman."
Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja
Ninja
Stern Teacher: The Ninja.

The Game Glitch Gremlin (Kevin Finn)

Alliterative Name
Great Gazoo
Kryptonite Factor: Q-tips used with cleaning solution.
Oireland: Has an Irish accent.
Reality Warper
Screwy Squirrel
Trickster

Shitpickle (James Rolfe)

Exactly What It Says on the Tin: He's a pickle with shit on it. That's about it.
Oh Crap: He appears in the Action52 review during the Ooze bit. "It's...it's..." "SHITPICKLE SHITPICKLE SHITPICKLE SHITPICKLE SHITPICKLE"
Pokémon Speak