tvtropes.org

The Angry Video Game Nerd - TV Tropes

  • ️Tue Apr 10 2012

This page is for the show. For the franchise as a whole, see Franchise.The Angry Video Game Nerd.

The Angry Video Game Nerd (Web Video)

He's gonna take you back to the past,
To play the shitty games that suck ass
He'd rather have a buffalo take a diarrhea dump in his ear
He'd rather eat the rotten asshole of a roadkilled skunk and down it with beer
He's the angriest gamer you've ever heard
He's the Angry Nintendo Nerd
He's the Angry Atari Sega Nerd
He's the Angry Video Game Nerd!

James Duncan Rolfe created, writes and plays the Angry Video Game Nerd note , a chronically ill-tempered and foul-mouthed gaming geek with a huge collection of bad video games, and a predilection for Rolling Rock beer.

He plays weird, old, and, more often than not, Nintendo Hard games, some of them with the worst Fake Difficulty imaginable. We're talking truly terrible here. The Nerd holds a specific torch of hate towards licensed games, especially ones published by LJN Toys, which he sees as manipulating hopeful and oblivious kids into buying complete trash. His reviews inevitably spiral downward into a barely coherent rant peppered liberally with Cluster F-Bombs and scatological references, culminating in a violent frothing rage that would make even the Hulk piss his pants. The Nerd also gets frequent unwanted visits from the stars of the games he plays, from Bugs Bunny to Freddy Krueger.

Note, however, that a handful of episodes are not so much about a single shitty game as they are about a certain console or accessory (there are even a few that aren't about video games at all). Aside from giving reviews, the Nerd has also given a bit of video game history, such as a summary of the infamous Console Wars.

The Nerd (and Rolfe by extension) is respected for the impact his videos had on online Video Review Shows for years to come, with the show being seen as a Gateway Series for the medium to transition to the mainstream. He and his AVGN show pioneered the non-professional online review's structures and conventions, to the extent that he's considered the Trope Codifier of the Mid-Review Sketch Show. Many a number of reviewers who have since popped up on the Internet owe much to the Nerd, with his rage, vulgarity and sketch comedy being turned into the bread and butter of countless Caustic Critic personas to come, almost to the extent of forming a subgenre. One could even argue that his show is a precursor for online shows in general; aside from it predating YouTube by nine months, some point to the advent of the Analysis Channel and the video essay as indirect present-day results of the show's ripple effect on online content creation.

The success of the series enabled Rolfe to work on Nerd-related projects in different media than videos. September 2013 saw the release of The Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures, a throwback to Nintendo Hard NES platformers developed by FreakZone Games and published by ScrewAttack. It gained enough of a following for a 2016 sequel, called The Angry Video Game Nerd II: ASSimilation. July 2014 then saw the premiere of Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie, written and directed by Rolfe, with the film's plot involving the Nerd getting caught up in a government conspiracy after trying to disprove the old urban legend of the landfill burial of the infamous E.T. game, a game he had notably never covered at the time.

The Nerd was christened by Doug Walker as the greatest video game critic of all time, and Walker and Rolfe are good friends in real life, with the Nerd appearing in many Channel Awesome projects.

An independent filmmaker when he's not being the Nerd, Rolfe maintains a website at Cinemassacre.com. He does other web-based video shows, including You Know Whats Bullshit, where he rants on daily annoyances (keeping his foul language and a sharp sense of observation) and Board James, where he reviews board games (keeping with the game-reviewing aspect, though milder).

Episodes:

open/close all folders 

2004 

2006 

2007 

2008 

2009 

2010 

2011 

2012 

2013 

2014 

2015 

  • Hong Kong '97 (Super Famicom)
  • Darkwing Duck (Interactive Designs) (Turbografx 16)
  • Seaman (Sega Dreamcast)
  • The Crow: City of Angels (Sega Saturn)
  • Bad Game Cover Art
    • #1: Pro Wrestling (Sega Master System)
    • #2: Mega Man (NES)
    • #3: Shatterhand (NES)
    • #4: Action Fighter (Sega Master System)
    • #5: Shingen the Ruler (NES)
    • #6: Phalanx (SNES)
    • #7: Snow White and the 7 Clever Boys (PS2)
    • #8: Action in New York (NES)
    • #9: Rallo Gump (DOS)
    • #10: Ghost Lion (NES)
    • #11: Eliminator Boat Duel (NES)
    • #12: Street Hockey '95 (SNES)
    • #13: Irritating Stick (PS1)
    • #14: Crackout (NES)
    • #15: Cock'in (Commodore 64)
    • #16: Treasure Master (NES)
    • #17: Karnaaj Rally (GBA)
    • #18: Hell Fighter (NES)
    • #19: Scrapyard Dog (Atari 7800)
    • #20: Rollerblade Racer (NES)
    • #21: Killer Kong (ZX Spectrum)
    • #22: Hammerin' Harry (NES)
    • #23: Super Duper Sumos (GBA)
    • #24: The Ultimate Stuntman (NES)
    • #25: X-Man (Atari 2600)
  • Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero (N64) note 

2016 

2017 

2018 

2019 

2020 

2021 

2022 

2023 

2024 

2025 

  • Gex Trilogy (3DO, N64, PS1)
  • Video Game Commercials

These tropes are ASS: