Angry Video Game Nerd

A predictable choice, but probably his breakdown at the end of Dick Tracy, culminating with drilling a hole through the cartridge and smacking it with a hammer.

Honorable mention goes to his difficulty beating the first two levels of Superman on Nintendo 64. "This game isn't just bad... it's REALLY bad! I'm not even kiddin' around, it's fuckin' HORSESHIT!"

Edited by speedyboris on Jul 7th 2018 at 8:18:08 AM

There was a certain artistry to him shooting the 32X with a bow and arrow.

Another good one is when he accidentally selected New Game in Predator and had to start all over. The epic music is what makes it, as well as cutting to various things while he curses (E.T., Donkey Kong toy, Kyle Justin's skeleton).

In a meta way, it was also strangely heartwarming because this was the first Nerd episode in a while (since James was busy making the movie) so this scene was like, "Yep, the Nerd's back. "

Edited by speedyboris on Jul 11th 2018 at 7:09:31 AM

My favorite moment was when he discovered LJN published Spider-Man Maximum Carnage.

For rage? Either "Born too Early" upon discovering the quality of 6th Gen Godzilla games or when he discovers that the maker of a Game Boy accessory was named "STD".

In general, there are too many to name, but I will always love "Fred Fuchs", the dirty magazine bit from the Mega Man video, his reaction to the opening of Hong Kong '97, the altered hotline from the Back to the Future Rerevisited, and him vs. The Joker at the end of the Batman reviews.

Anyone here ever tried the AVGN drinking game?

lmao Macaulay Culkin has invited himself on the show, Mike seems open to it. Let's see if James goes for it. The movie tie-in-game for The Pagemaster does seem like good material for the Nerd.

Since we dont have a thread for James's non-nerd videos, I guess I'll put this here:

Caulkin is keeping busy with web originals. First the guest spot on OSW Review, and then that run in at the indie wrestling show a bit ago.

I’d be for it.

We’ve all been there James.

Edited by Beatman1 on Aug 16th 2018 at 9:32:55 AM

Netflix is the modern equivalent of "500 channels and still nothing on", combined with "you snooze, you lose" for certain shows/movies.

That said, it's great for its originals and I've managed to play catch-up with some older movies I've never seen. Like, I just saw The Crying Game for the first time. Yes, I know.

Speaking of AVGN, James released a mid-year update recently. Sounds like there will be more AVGNs during the later part of the year, kinda like last year, and he's also focusing on his horror film and will be doing something for Monster Madness. He anticipates more of the unscripted "talking about movies with friends" videos, like he did with Mac and Me recently. He will do a YKWBS if he has time. More Board James is not going to happen, but I'm not terribly surprised.

James & Mike will continue to be a weekly thing, but to be fair that's more Mike's series than James's.

Edited by speedyboris on Aug 16th 2018 at 10:11:48 AM

I'm not sure what got into me, but I recently started a big AVGN marathon on the Cinemassacre website − I'm currently at the X-Men episode, mid-2009.

Because strangely enough, until now I mostly knew James Rolfe through his film videos. I'm familiar with the AVGN's French counterpart, but I had only watched a couple of episodes of the AVGN himself.

First thing that surprised me was the date of the first episodes: 2004! It's almost mindblowing to thing that this guy has been around since before Youtube even existed… and if you except the Dr. Jekyll "review", which was just a 5 minute rant, he found his formula pretty early on.

The second thing that surprised me… is that he doesn't sound as angry as I expected. I mean, there's a healthy dose of nonsensical swearing and gross Toilet Humor (my god that theme song is one you don't wanna have stuck in your head), but most of the time his tone is actually pretty composed.

Regarding the reviews proper, I think my favorite actually those of consoles or accessories rather than games. The Odyssey, in particular, was… fascinating…?

The console reviews can vary in quality. One of the best ones was Virtual Boy, since he reviewed pretty much the entire library. By contrast, his Sega CD review was (in retrospect) weak because he spent, on average, about 20 seconds per game and mostly focused on the point-and-click games, ignoring the many good games the system had. Granted, it was because he didn't own those so he couldn't review them, but still.

That said, the Sega CD review contained one of my favorite AVGN moments:

"Because it fucking sucks - 'cause it fucking sucks - 'cause it fucking SUCKS."

Yeah, 20-second reviews aren't the best… but I like to discover weird and obscure machines like the Pong consoles. Like, WTF?

Oh, and I think the life-farming-with-a-wrench gag in the Terminator review is now my favorite joke of his. Especially when it ends up being all useless.

Now on Amazon Prime and coming soon to Youtube is a double dose of Nerd. First is the infamous Drake of the 99 Dragons, and then an episode on the Tomb Raider series.

Nice! It's about time he got to the Tomb Raider games- I don't think he even mentioned the series at all in the AVGN series. Ryan Schott made a passing reference to it in the James and Mike of Indiana Jones on N64 but that's all I'm aware of.

Oh Angel of Darkness, why did you have to be such a letdown?

Good to see another AVGN episode around the corner.

As for the earlier discussion about favorite rant, my absolute favorite is from Back to the Future Re-Visited when he realizes the Super Famicom BTTF game is decent, but never was released in America.

What I love about it is it starts in disbelief, then gradually leads to an outburst.

Oh boy, the JDG covered Drake last year, that's gonna be a piece of work.

Yeah, that was great. Actually, his "wait, I'm actually having fun!" montages are usually great (like the one of the PS2 Godzilla games).

I also really liked his Castelvania retrospective − one focused on good games for once.

Now I'm at Daydreamin' Davey, which was… a bit weak honestly. He was running through the motions a bit there.

Edited by Lyendith on Sep 19th 2018 at 9:14:33 PM

Yeah, DDD was one of his weaker reviews - the energy level was pretty low for one thing, though there were still some amusing moments:

"Was he using the ruler to measure his turds in class?"

"It would've been great if he woke up and the pencil was holding the teacher's decapitated head. Yeah."

I like how he wasn't even sure about that and he couldn't say that line almost stuttering.

Apparently Drake o the 99 dragons recieved a rerelease on steam (I'm guessing for the same reason Daikatana is on Steam).

Hmph, that last one was brutal. X)

The ROB the Robot episode was one of those "wait, did that thing actually exist?" moments… it's hard to conceive that those games were actually meant to be played that way.

Then there's the NWC episode… I guess these cartridges weren't that rare if he could aford to smash two to pieces…?

They don't smash the real carts...

That's why they hold the real ones up at the end.

Btw, with this new Tomb Raider episode, is this the first time there's been an AVGN episode that coincided with a game's release (the new Tomb Raider game)?

Huh… the smashed ones are convincing imitations then. ô.Ô

Didn't he do his Castlevania retrospective around the time Lord of Shadow was released?

Edited by Lyendith on Sep 22nd 2018 at 4:50:09 PM

Episode 111, Toxic Crusaders… That was a funny episode, just for seeing an old guy out-crass the Nerd. That ending was fucking disgusting, but it fit the episode's theme I guess…