How do you feel about the Angry Video Game Nerd?

[Leo656]

I get why they have to do it, but including paid ads in the first minute or two of every video now is pretty annoying. It bothers me more when the overall video is already pretty short, as the latest AVGN video was.

Like I get that there's not much to say about Pac-Man 2, but he could've stretched it out to like 15 minutes or so by talking about some of the lesser-known sequels from back in the arcade days. He's done that for a lot of other properties. I've liked most of his recent videos but this one felt like a total throwaway, to be honest.

It's like "Here's a minute of me trying to sell you a VPN... here's 5 minutes of me talking about a Pac-Man game nobody's ever played... aaaaand we're out." One of the laziest videos he's ever done, I hate to say.

[Prowler]

Yeah. The last time he released an episode as short as his latest one must have been around 2006 when he was still Angry Nintendo Nerd. And yet, his episodes at the time had more substance than his Pac-man 2 episode.

A rather disappointing episode.

[Coola Yagami]

Yeah, there so much he coulda done with this one but at the same time, not too much. Idk. It seemed like another game that only has 3-4 levels, they're just crazy long and crazy hard. I guess he shoulda gone more into the history of it, or also review Pac-Attack as a palette cleanser.

[sdp]

So pretty much every video now is defending criticisms from the cinemassacre truth subreddit. AVGN is a tired idea it's been going on for two decades now and copied to the ground, he's never really evolved. I still enjoy watching it but it's obviously a shadow of its former self. It's not entirely his fault, there's not much else he can do with the character, more elaborate videos do help but it's not even enough at this point.

When is he going to start reviewing Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 games? They're already retro.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by sdp

So pretty much every video now is defending criticisms from the cinemassacre truth subreddit. AVGN is a tired idea it's been going on for two decades now and copied to the ground, he's never really evolved. I still enjoy watching it but it's obviously a shadow of its former self. It's not entirely his fault, there's not much else he can do with the character, more elaborate videos do help but it's not even enough at this point.

When is he going to start reviewing Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 games? They're already retro.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E9ayp_ZX...jpg&name=small

To be honest as long as game companies keep making ****** games, it'll never get old. There's a lil bit of AVGN in all of us every time we buy a game we think is gonna be great and ends up sucking.

If anything I'd like to see him address that it's 2021 and they're still making ****** games. "wtf, Atari and Nintendo are one thing due to the limitations of the 80s tech at the time, BUT HOW THE **** ARE THEY STILL MAKING ****** GAMES FOR THE PS5 AND XBOX SERIES X. WHAT KINDA NAME IS SERIES X TO BEGIN WITH??? WHAT WERE THEY THINKING????"

[Prowler]

The Cinemassacre Truth subreddit is mostly lunatic conspiracy theorists who are obsessed with James Rolfe's personal life.

I understand the criticisms about the quality of AVGN episodes declining ever since Screenwave partnered with James, but those people take it too far and just end up being hard to take seriously.

[Prowler]

Two new episodes recently. Rocketeer and Greendog.

Rocketeer was a good episode. Greendog was just OK at best. They clearly overhyped the way they destroyed the game at the end of the episode.

[ssjup81]

Originally Posted by Prowler

Two new episodes recently. Rocketeer and Greendog.

Rocketeer was a good episode. Greendog was just OK at best. They clearly overhyped the way they destroyed the game at the end of the episode.

I only know about Greendog because of Gamesack. I didn't see the Rocketeer one. I didn't finish Greendog as I had to go to bed. I actually had forgotten that I didn't finish watching it until coming to this thread.

[Coola Yagami]

New ep recently dealing with all sorts of horror games on the Commedore 64, ending with Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street on it. I have to admit, that was one hell of a blood curdling scream for the C64.... it just made me shudder cause the Nerd kept replaying it over and over and over cause he was really having a blast with it.

I'm really hoping some day he points out his bald spot as part of a rant. Like he'll go on and on and then somewhere during the rant he can be like "I MEAN LOOK AT THIS... LOOK AT THIS, I'M LITERALLY GOING BALD PLAYING ALL THESE ****** GAMES!!!!'

[Leo656]

I can hardly believe he's been around so long. Like I got into him "late" but he still had most of his hair at that point.

New ep was pretty good. I still get the feeling from the last batch that he's kind of burned out on it, though. Like I don't want him to stop but he's definitely doing it more out of obligation than anything, at this point, and it's coming through in the product. I don't feel the same passion.

And sometimes, when he looks at the camera with one of those Fourth Wall-breaking looks, he just looks... tired. Like, "I'm doing this for you guys, man. Not for me. All of you. Not me, not even a little bit. All of you. ALL of YOU PEOPLE what the f*ck what the F*CK I really am gonna be doing this sh*t when I'm 70, aren't I?! YOU F*CKING JACKALS! GIVE ME PEACE!!!"

...That's the vibe I get from him sometimes, lately.

Kinda sad. Like I said, I don't want him to stop, but at the same time it's pretty clear he sort of ran out of gas and only keeps going because he gets paid well and so many people love him.

It's gotta be tough too since he's mostly pumped the well of the most well-known "sh*tty games" from the 8-bit era, and a few from the 16-bit and PS1 eras, but he wasn't as immersed in gaming through the PS1 years and beyond because he was in college and stuff so emotionally, he's disconnected from almost anything after the year 2000. There's lots of lousy games since then that he COULD, in theory, do good videos on... but he personally might not be the best guy to do those particular videos, since he didn't have the same emotional connection with them as the other stuff.

All the "best" stuff he did was covering stuff he played when he was a little kid. It hits different when he covers a game he only played for the first time a few weeks or months ago as a middle-aged man. Some of the intangible magic that made the early videos so great simply doesn't carry over. I can't lie, I watch whatever new Game Nerd video he does, regardless of what game he's covering, but there's a noticeable difference in his level of engagement when it's a true "old school" game and not something from 1996 or later.

I don't think it can be helped, really.

[Prowler]

Thing is, he's kinda trapped in the AVGN character forever. That's what he'll always be known for and what has given him most of his income, I assume. If he stopes doing AVGN, what will he do for a living? Seems obvious to me hell never be a favous director. He has only worked on low budget videos and short films. And his AVGN movie wasn't so good and also clearly had balow budget. I don't see him even having a good career as an indie film maker.

He has a wife and two kids. He can't afford to lose the AVGN job and end up doing something that makes him much less money.

[Coola Yagami]

Nerd's final part of the 200th episode hit. I didn't expect the ending to get all emotional though. If I didn't know he needs to keep pumping these out to feed his family, I'd say this is the last one.

Whenever the last one does come, he's gonna have a hard time topping this one.

[Leo656]

Yeah, it was pretty good. I liked how he admitted his earlier "actual" reviews of the LJN WWF games were nonsense and that they were actually good games (mostly).

And yeah, it definitely felt like a "grand finale" even though we all know it won't be. Poor guy Peter Laird-ed himself; he took on a fun little side project for laughs, just to kill time and make some pocket money until he finally got his "real" career started... and then that never happened, so he got locked into this "fun little side project" forever.

One can only hope he's not as embittered as Laird ended up being, and still enjoys his creation(s). Anyways, not a bad way to round out the year.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Yeah, it was pretty good. I liked how he admitted his earlier "actual" reviews of the LJN WWF games were nonsense and that they were actually good games (mostly).

And yeah, it definitely felt like a "grand finale" even though we all know it won't be. Poor guy Peter Laird-ed himself; he took on a fun little side project for laughs, just to kill time and make some pocket money until he finally got his "real" career started... and then that never happened, so he got locked into this "fun little side project" forever.

One can only hope he's not as embittered as Laird ended up being, and still enjoys his creation(s). Anyways, not a bad way to round out the year.

That's probably the best way you could look at him. And yeah. Hopefully.

[Prowler]

So, I finally watched the LJN games 3-parter.

The 1st part was basically covering games he had already reviewed, which makes sense since most of LJN games were movie adaptations.

The 2nd part focused on sports titles. Didn't care much for it.

The 3rd and final part where he covered wrestling and unsorted games was the best one. That ****ing Aerosmith game was crazy, man. That's something I did not expect LMAO

As for the ending and the credits... it also surprised me. It gave a real series finale vibe. It was heartfelt and nice, but at the same time seems a bit off since we know AVGN isn't over. If anything, I take it as a token of gratitude for people who have been watching and helping James all these years with AVGN. And episode number 200 was probably the best episode to pay such a tribute.

Still, it would have been a fine ending for the series.

Anyway, now that he's finally done with LJN and that he's reviewed all of the notoriously bad NES games, what's there left for him to review as far as infamous games go? He's already reviewed the likes of Action 52, Ghostbusters, Superman 64, Big Rigs, Hong Kong 97, Desert Bus, Crazy Bus, The Town With no Name, E. T., etc.

Lousy games are made every year, but I feel like James has reviewed all of the infamous retro games by now. At least the ones from the 80s and early 90s. So does that mean he now has to mostly review PS1, Xbox PS2 and GameCube games? That doesn't work as well as actual retro games for AVGN, though. Like when he reviewed Sonic 06, for example. Making a review about how bad that game is over a decade after it came out felt rather pointless, since everyone knew already it was bad. It came out at a time where everyone had Internet at home already and Youtube was a thing already. Unlike in the 80s or early 90s where it was a lot harder to know if a game was gonna be good or bad.

[Prowler]

New AVGN episode. The Last Ninja.

An NES game. James originally had reviewed this one after the NES TMNT episode, but for some reason never released the episode. So now he did so and also made it longer with current day footage. So it's basically an episode with 20% of 2006 footage and 80% of 2022 footage. Interesting idea.

It was a fun episode imo

[Leo656]

Watched it this morning, that was a pretty fun episode. I was cracking up at the end with Ernie. "F*CK Bert, I already took care'a him!" or whatever. That was awesome.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Watched it this morning, that was a pretty fun episode. I was cracking up at the end with Ernie. "F*CK Bert, I already took care'a him!" or whatever. That was awesome.

When I was a kid I was a big fan of the monthly Seasame Street magazine.

My favourite was the Cookie Monster. I liked Ernie and Bert at first but then the jokes at school of them being gay kinda ended that

[Leo656]

New episode, this one about Contra:


Good stuff, makes me wanna give these games another try, I was awful at them as a kid.

Watching James go bald is f*cking depressing, though.

Great ending sequence too. Really heartfelt, and spot-on.

[Prowler]

I beat the original Contra a few years ago. Yes, I used the 30 life code. I can't beat it with 3 lives only.