James Rolfe / James D. Rolfe / Angry Video Game Nerd (AVGN) / Rex Viper and Cinemassacre / Screenwave - Now with not much grieving about a 41-year old man still making videos on YouTube. We're the balls on the dick.

Which videos do you like the most from Cinemassacre?

  • Angry Video Game Nerd

    Votes: 1,812 63.5%

  • You Know Whats Bullshit

    Votes: 143 5.0%

  • James and Mike Mondays

    Votes: 96 3.4%

  • Board James

    Votes: 441 15.5%

  • Monster Madness

    Votes: 270 9.5%

  • James' movie reviews

    Votes: 90 3.2%
  • Total voters
    2,852
To me James isn't a lolcow. If anything, he's simply disappointing. Today I learned James Rolfe's favorite movie is "Get Out" (forgettable anti-white popcorn flick) and maybe I'm reading too much into that but I can't help but feel it sums up my disappointment with the guy. Compared to Red Letter Media, who treat Hollywood for the collection of money-grubbers and freaks they are (which is the only respectable stance a film critic can take) - James always came across as a complete Hollywood simp who hops from bandwagon to bandwagon. Just a fanboy. Not just that, but he's a boring nerd too. I think he actually has a Metallica tattoo. Knowing these things, it's self explanatory why his movie project came out to be a complete and total mess.

Mike Matei is a pretty weird guy with many problems himself, but what worked with AVGN was the friendship with Mike and their cooperation in making the videos. Together they understood the comedic rhythm which allowed them to crank out Youtube videos which was a huge influence on Youtube culture. They complimented each other well, like Opie & Anthony did in their primetime, though Mike was primarily behind the scenes and generating game footage. Mike's departure, followed by James selling his company to a fat Jewish man, really marked the end of AVGN. Now he's stuck creating these meandering, skit-filled reviews that reminds me of everything that went wrong with the NC. Meanwhile Mike spends an unhealthy amount of time playing videogames on Twitch. I suppose these are the weird realities you face when you dedicate your life to making money on Youtube.
 
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People who call James a lolcow clearly have no fucking clue what a lolcow is. He's put out some mediocre, even bad, stuff in recent years, but that doesn't make him a lolcow. He's still a pretty down-to-Earth, reasonable, nice, normal dude that's been making material for close to twenty years and still is decently relevant and well-liked. I think the only controversies he's ever been involved in was that Monster Madness script thing (which if I recall wasn't even his fault) and people getting pissy when he said he wouldn't watch the 2016 Ghostbusters movie.
 
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James should do something about his hair. I have boomer relatives old enough to be James's father who have better hairlines than James does. He should just get a toupee specifically for AVGN episodes. I don't think the hair is much different from the white button-up shirt and other trademarks of the AVGN character.

I think James has been aware of this for years and probably has tried solutions at some point (like of course wearing a hat which Board James and IRL James do all the time), since I remember like a decade ago there were 2 or 3 AVGN videos where his hair looked really short and one of the comments on the Cinemassacre site asked if he was keeping a chemo treatment under wraps (that might've been one of the first years with reduced AVGN output).
Lone Star said:
People who call James a lolcow clearly have no fucking clue what a lolcow is. He's put out some mediocre, even bad, stuff in recent years, but that doesn't make him a lolcow. He's still a pretty down-to-Earth, reasonable, nice, normal dude that's been making material for close to twenty years and still is decently relevant and well-liked. I think the only controversies he's ever been involved in was that Monster Madness script thing (which if I recall wasn't even his fault) and people getting pissy when he said he wouldn't watch the 2016 Ghostbusters movie.
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People just jumped to blaming him for the plagiarism when even Screenwave booted the guy who actually did it (some lazy intern). I don't think James had anything to do with that except reading off the script, Screenwave are the ones in charge and the ones who approved it to begin with.
 
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Good for James to get himself out of a lolcow board.

While the Contra special wasn't anything extraordinary it was still fun mindless content and if you look at the credits I think only Kieran and Matt Matei worked on that episode. So I think James can fix his content if he uses Mike again and limits the input from the Screenwave nerds.
 
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Cardenio said:
Good for James to get himself out of a lolcow board.
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How many other lolcows have been sent to a non-lolcow board? I think we should wait another year or so to see if anything comes out of James and the Screenwave Slobs, even if 99% of the drama is James being lazy and the Slobs being the Slobs.
Cardenio said:
While the Contra special wasn't anything extraordinary it was still fun mindless content and if you look at the credits I think only Kieran and Matt Matei worked on that episode. So I think James can fix his content if he uses Mike again and limits the input from the Screenwave nerds.
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The ending made me feel old. An "Angry Video Game Nostalgiafag" arc wouldn't be so bad. And yes, I was amazed to see that James was credited with all the writing and direction with Mike and Kieran only getting secondary credits.
 
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I saw the AVGN Contra video. It felt like filler but it was the comfy kind of filler. As a kid I knew of Contra but for whatever reason I never got to play it. I don't think the cart was at the video stores I went to to rent it. I never knew of Super C until years and years later until mid-2000's. I was like "There's a Contra 2 on the NES and they called it Super C because now all of a sudden they were worried about any connection to Iran/Contra?"

It would have been interesting had he divulged a little bit into the Iran/Contra reference or homage? He probably avoided the subject because he didn't want to get even remotely political. It's also equally possible that James and Mike know absolutely nothing about politics. I will never forget that one time during the shitty podcast the topic of the Zapruder Film came up and the topic of film managed to get a reaction from James where he asks "Zapruder Film? What's that?" 😬

Imagine not knowing about the fucking Zapruder Film. FFS, man.

I think the devs just liked the name Contra but the arcade flyer does make reference to "rebels in the jungle." Also of note that Contra Rebirth on WiiWare goes even further with the Iran/Contra/Commie connections:


I can't find pics of just the cut scenes but in the end a facsimile of Che Guevara appears and I am NOT making this up!

There was even a knock off (which is actually a good game) that did the same thing by naming itself after foreign conflict with Bay Route (GET IT???????). http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/bay-route/

But yeah, I owned Contra 3 and Hard Corps back in the day. Loved both but I prefer Hard Corps.

It was an overall good video from James.
 
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ProblematicUser420 said:
James isn't a lolcow, but he's easy to laugh at.
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Pretty much. All this talk about people saying James is a lolcow, when barely anyone's saying that. Majority is making fun of him, or that he's been close to being a cow/that Screenwave are cows, but that's it.

Wonder why he didn't make the Contra review a double parter, with the next video going into the others (Specifically the Playstation games). They'd certainly fit as Nerd episodes, so saying "Mayyyyybe I'll come back to them" is a bit strange, unless his other planned videos will be like this/Castlevania/Zelda 2 so it's not on the schedule atm, dunno.
 
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BrunoMattei said:
I saw the AVGN Contra video. It felt like filler but it was the comfy kind of filler. As a kid I knew of Contra but for whatever reason I never got to play it. I don't think the cart was at the video stores I went to to rent it. I never knew of Super C until years and years later until mid-2000's. I was like "There's a Contra 2 on the NES and they called it Super C because now all of a sudden they were worried about any connection to Iran/Contra?"

It would have been interesting had he divulged a little bit into the Iran/Contra reference or homage? He probably avoided the subject because he didn't want to get even remotely political. It's also equally possible that James and Mike no absolutely nothing about politics. I will never forget that one time during the shitty podcast the topic of the Zapruder Film came up and the topic of film managed to get a reaction from James where he asks "Zapruder Film? What's that?" 😬

Imagine not knowing about the fucking Zapruder Film. FFS, man.

I think the devs just liked the name Contra but the arcade flyer does make reference to "rebels in the jungle." Also of note that Contra Rebirth on WiiWare goes even further with the Iran/Contra/Commie connections:


I can't find pics of just the cut scenes but in the end a facsimile of Che Guevara appears and I am NOT making this up!

There was even a knock off (which is actually a good game) that did the same thing by naming itself after foreign conflict with Bay Route (GET IT???????). http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/bay-route/

But yeah, I owned Contra 3 and Hard Corps back in the day. Loved both but I prefer Hard Corps.

It was an overall good video from James.
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I did some googling and found that as far back as 1982 the New York Times was referring to Contras in Nicaragua. It's pretty safe to assume that Japanese news services reported on them too and someone in Konami got inspired by it. As Wikipedia's article notes the ending theme to Contra 1 is titled Sandinista so there's little doubt that it served as initial inspiration. But since the series is about Not-Rambo and Not-Commando Arnold shooting up Aliens the only thing they took were names and a jungle theme.

The more amusing thing about the Contra self-censorship was Konami rereleasing the game in the PAL regions as Probotector apparently to escape any conflicts with Germany's stringent anti-violence rules. European gamers seem to have nostalgia for their palette swapped version but jeez seeing all the characters replaced by robots just makes the game look wrong to me.
 
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Cardenio said:
I did some googling and found that as far back as 1982 the New York Times was referring to Contras in Nicaragua. It's pretty safe to assume that Japanese news services reported on them too and someone in Konami got inspired by it. As Wikipedia's article notes the ending theme to Contra 1 is titled Sandinista so there's little doubt that it served as initial inspiration. But since the series is about Not-Rambo and Not-Commando Arnold shooting up Aliens the only thing they took were names and a jungle theme.

The more amusing thing about the Contra self-censorship was Konami rereleasing the game in the PAL regions as Probotector apparently to escape any conflicts with Germany's stringent anti-violence rules. European gamers seem to have nostalgia for their palette swapped version but jeez seeing all the characters replaced by robots just makes the game look wrong to me.
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I always wonder about this: how much did the devs know of Iran/Contra? I honestly think -because lol Jap game dev logic- they just thought the name was cool and stuck with it.
 
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Cardenio said:
I did some googling and found that as far back as 1982 the New York Times was referring to Contras in Nicaragua. It's pretty safe to assume that Japanese news services reported on them too and someone in Konami got inspired by it. As Wikipedia's article notes the ending theme to Contra 1 is titled Sandinista so there's little doubt that it served as initial inspiration. But since the series is about Not-Rambo and Not-Commando Arnold shooting up Aliens the only thing they took were names and a jungle theme.

The more amusing thing about the Contra self-censorship was Konami rereleasing the game in the PAL regions as Probotector apparently to escape any conflicts with Germany's stringent anti-violence rules. European gamers seem to have nostalgia for their palette swapped version but jeez seeing all the characters replaced by robots just makes the game look wrong to me.
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I think we PAL regioners are nostalgic for the pallet swap because that is what we grew up with. We didn't know back then that it was meant to look different. So that is what that game is to us.

Though I've mostly only have played roms of the original Contra for the last 20 years, so to me seeing the robots seems off now.
 
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