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.

[Shirō Ishii]

The reason why Japs got easier games is that -I think- it was illegal to rent games over there.

This is precisely it. It's worth remembering that Nintendo sued Blockbuster over renting games and tried to get the law changed in America that games were their intellectual property and that rental game places were infringing on their IPs. In Japan, IP's are strongly protected and even recording a pachinko machine's videos is illegal. So Nintendo tried to get the same types of laws that were in place in Japan to also be in the United States.

Some fighting games seemed much harder than others. I know that the arcade owners could set the difficulty of each machine. But I would do well in Street Fighter, but would just get pummeled in Mortal Kombat. I remember the bosses in SNK games being just brutal.

Mortal Kombat II's AI was intentionally made to cheat against you, with the AI being able to read your inputs. Modern Vintage Gamer goes into more detail but I'm sure many fighting games employed the same tactics so you would be forced to put in more quarters

How Mortal Kombat 2 cheats against you | MVG

Mortal Kombat 2 released in the arcades in 1993. It was a smash hit generating over $600 million in sales and threw down a challenge to Capcom and Street Fig...

www.youtube.com

 

[Murenu]

I always thought 2011 marked the end of the golden age, but he remained solid for another handful of years with some standout episodes like Hong Kong 97.

It's only the over the last 6 years has he really started to get stale, but yeah, 2011, even without the movie he had been doing AVGN regularly for half a decade by that point and it was bound to start to lose some luster.

I don't disagree that there are plenty of good episodes post 2011. James only starts getting REALLY bad starting circa 2016, and admittedly the content itself can still make up for James increasingly becoming a soulless fake robot. Still though.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

I don't disagree that there are plenty of good episodes post 2011. James only starts getting REALLY bad starting circa 2016, and admittedly the content itself can still make up for James increasingly becoming a soulless fake robot. Still though.

He was having fun at first, and I guess I understand the burnout, but fuck, you'd think he could learn to act by now and emulate his old enthusiasm and style. He can't look at the final cut of his dead eyes and forced lines and actually think, "yeah, perfect, nailed it".

 

[PeriodicTrouble]

He was having fun at first, and I guess I understand the burnout, but fuck, you'd think he could learn to act by now and emulate his old enthusiasm and style. He can't look at the final cut of his dead eyes and forced lines and actually think, "yeah, perfect, nailed it".

Why should he? AVGNs still get a million views easily with sponsors for most of them so that's a lot of money still coming from Zombie AVGN. He can just keep making them considering people don't seem to care about the quality. AVGNs come out so infrequently that it's just a pleasant surprise that a new one has come out instead of people thinking that AVGN sucks. It would be fine if he didn't care about AVGN but was making videos about stuff he's passionate like the video talking about which Dracula film is most accurate to the book. However James still seems passionless and bored outside of AVGN with him doing lackluster movie reviews in front of a greenscreen.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Why should he? AVGNs still get a million views easily with sponsors for most of them so that's a lot of money still coming from Zombie AVGN. He can just keep making them considering people don't seem to care about the quality. AVGNs come out so infrequently that it's just a pleasant surprise that a new one has come out instead of people thinking that AVGN sucks. It would be fine if he didn't care about AVGN but was making videos about stuff he's passionate like the video talking about which Dracula film is most accurate to the book. However James still seems passionless and bored outside of AVGN with him doing lackluster movie reviews in front of a greenscreen.

I don't know, I never created anything, but I'd think artistic integrity would count for something.

 

[PeriodicTrouble]

I don't know, I never created anything, but I'd think artistic integrity would count for something.

At this point in his life, James is just doing it because it's his job and this is how he pays his bills. He just does AVGNs because he doesn't have anything else that consistently gets the amount of views that AVGNs get. He's stuck with it because his dream to get into Hollywood failed horribly. Now he just has a stagnant Youtube channel that he's trying to squeeze all the money out of until he becomes completely irrelevant like Last Angry Geek or Rich Alvarez. He doesn't care about artistic integrity anymore and the only time it seemed he did with the Last Ninja AVGN was because James was doing damage control after the shit job Screenwave did with Cinemassacre in 2021.

 

[Staffy]

Regarding arcade games made with unfair difficulty in mind so players would cough up more money, there's also games that won't let you continue back at the point you died when you're at the final stage/boss. So if someone really wanted to finish the game they would potentially need to pay more.

The worst offender perhaps would be Rainbow Islands. Shit works like a modern retro styled game you'd see nowadays because it's more complex than it looks; if you want the true ending you need to know what to do. And there's the last 3 (secret) areas and if you die, too fuckin' bad, because there's no continues allowed there!

It's actually a game James could have focused on or at least delved into a bit when he covered Taito Legends a couple of years ago. That game doesn't seem to belong in an arcade cabinet.

 

[Travoltron]

Mortal Kombat II's AI was intentionally made to cheat against you, with the AI being able to read your inputs. Modern Vintage Gamer goes into more detail but I'm sure many fighting games employed the same tactics so you would be forced to put in more quarters

Ah, that makes sense. That game in particular I remember hating a lot and could never get very far.
Somebody made a patch to fix that cheating AI for the Genesis version.

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/7365/

 

[thegooddoctor]

I always thought 2011 marked the end of the golden age, but he remained solid for another handful of years with some standout episodes like Hong Kong 97.

It's only the over the last 6 years has he really started to get stale, but yeah, 2011, even without the movie he had been doing AVGN regularly for half a decade by that point and it was bound to start to lose some luster.

Its been a bit of a broken base for where the decline was but I personally think he should have stopped at the Earthbound episode. There are plenty of excellent episodes even post Movie like his various specials and his experimental stuff like where he reviewed a different game for every day of Christmas and even reviewed bad game art. I even like The Amiga CD32 and the various guest specials with Gilbert Gotfried and his long form reviews of every Taito game ever. For me the official drop was 2021, were every episode suffered from poor acting, lack of enthusiasm from its cast members and James, Low energy and shitty special effects leading up to the awful loathing in Las Vegas parody which felt like a bad 2000s 'Epic Movie' style parody that proved James has run out of steam. He should've retired at episode 200 but he has to continue to pay the bills and the AVGN Character is his magnum opus so i guess he's stuck with this character bar some miracle.

 

[Tism the Return II]

I don't know, I never created anything, but I'd think artistic integrity would count for something.

I feel like artistic integrity went out the window the moment James decided to essentially become a terrible actor, a living puppet spouting some of thet worst lines ever spoken in YouTube reviews written by fat troglodytes while simultaneously putting the lowest, most minumum amount of effort possible.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Its been a bit of a broken base for where the decline was but I personally think he should have stopped at the Earthbound episode. There are plenty of excellent episodes even post Movie like his various specials and his experimental stuff like where he reviewed a different game for every day of Christmas and even reviewed bad game art. I even like The Amiga CD32 and the various guest specials with Gilbert Gotfried and his long form reviews of every Taito game ever. For me the official drop was 2021, were every episode suffered from poor acting, lack of enthusiasm from its cast members and James, Low energy and shitty special effects leading up to the awful loathing in Las Vegas parody which felt like a bad 2000s 'Epic Movie' style parody that proved James has run out of steam. He should've retired at episode 200 but he has to continue to pay the bills and the AVGN Character is his magnum opus so i guess he's stuck with this character bar some miracle.

Earthbound would have been a good place to stop and/or continue the AVGN but do it like 1-3 times a year. But he sold out to Screen Wave. Which, when you think about it, has got to be one of the most bizarre company relationships with a Youtuber that has ever happened.

We're sorely lacking when it comes to dirt on Screen Wave. We don't know how they started. Is AVGN the only thing keeping them afloat as well?

Can you think of any other Youtuber where another company does everything for them and the Youtuber essentially just reads lines but the relationship is very blurry?

 

[Pissmaster]

Earthbound would have been a good place to stop and/or continue the AVGN but do it like 1-3 times a year. But he sold out to Screen Wave. Which, when you think about it, has got to be one of the most bizarre company relationships with a Youtuber that has ever happened.

We're sorely lacking when it comes to dirt on Screen Wave. We don't know how they started. Is AVGN the only thing keeping them afloat as well?

Can you think of any other Youtuber where another company does everything for them and the Youtuber essentially just reads lines but the relationship is very blurry?

Yahtzee Croshaw from Zero Punctuation, though I think he still writes his own scripts. The Escapist still tries to be its own thing with a multitude of creators, but everyone knows they'd be dead as hell if it weren't for Yahtzee. Just look at the views they get on anything with vs. without him:


Though even Yahtzee's views are a fraction of what they once were, now that he's become very woke and boring. Go back a few years and most of his reviews were breaking the million view mark:


And speaking of Screenwave Media, they've got their fingers in a lot of holes, like game publishing, now under the name "Retroware":

 

[Celebrate Nite]

and if you die, too fuckin' bad, because there's no continues allowed there!

I recently discovered City Connection pulls this garbage. 2 lives, no continues, 12 stages in total. The cop cars aren't that big of a deal, it's the spikes that pretrude from the ground and those GODDAM FUCKING CATS!!!

Luckily you can fuck around with the dip switch in the arcade version to have unlimited lives so you can actually play the game to its completion.

 

[reptile101]

Yahtzee Croshaw from Zero Punctuation, though I think he still writes his own scripts. The Escapist still tries to be its own thing with a multitude of creators, but everyone knows they'd be dead as hell if it weren't for Yahtzee. Just look at the views they get on anything with vs. without him:
View attachment 4236236

Though even Yahtzee's views are a fraction of what they once were, now that he's become very woke and boring. Go back a few years and most of his reviews were breaking the million view mark:
View attachment 4236264

And speaking of Screenwave Media, they've got their fingers in a lot of holes, like game publishing, now under the name "Retroware":

i liked yahtzee but he got preachy in his streams about masks and covid shots combine that with escapist hiring moviebob and siding with him over the audience also an amazing choice

 

[PeriodicTrouble]

i liked yahtzee but he got preachy in his streams about masks and covid shots combine that with them hiring moviebob and siding with him over the audience also an amazing choice

Wait Yahtzee sided with Moviebob? Fucking hell does nobody who works with him ever check his Twitter account? It's so easy to see how much of a toxic asshole he is yet people like Yahtzee and Jack Picard end up defending him regardless. Then again Jack is not a surprise considering he also did a collab with Allison Pregler because he was a fan of Baywatching.

 

[reptile101]

Wait Yahtzee sided with Moviebob? Fucking hell does nobody who works with him ever check his Twitter account? It's so easy to see how much of a toxic asshole he is yet people like Yahtzee and Jack Picard end up defending him regardless. Then again Jack is not a surprise considering he also did a collab with Allison Pregler because he was a fan of Baywatching.

oh i'm not sure if he sided with him it was the channel itself that hired and defended bob i dont know if yatzhee even ever spoke of him

idk what hes been up to for a few years now i unsubbed from the channel when they hired bob and i stopped searching yatzhee vids when he got preachy

 

[PeriodicTrouble]

oh i'm not sure if he sided with him it was the channel itself that hired and defended bob i dont know if yatzhee even ever spoke of him

idk what hes been up to for a few years now i unsubbed from the channel when they hired bob and i stopped searching yatzhee vids when he got preachy

Oh It was the Escapist then? Sorry about that. Fucking stupid of them to hire him back after he got let go in 2015. They defended him and he made fools out of them by defending the movie Cuties and trying to censor Memology 101 for making a video about him thus forcing them to fire him. Well that and people saying they didn't want to pay for Channel memberships because they didn't want their money to go to Moviebob. Never was a big fan of Yahtzee. Nothing against him, just his videos were never my thing. I did like his Dev Diary videos though. Really shows his love for video games and his talent as a developer.

 

[reptile101]

Oh It was the Escapist then? Sorry about that. Fucking stupid of them to hire him back after he got let go in 2015. They defended him and he made fools out of them by defending the movie Cuties and trying to censor Memology 101 for making a video about him thus forcing them to fire him. Well that and people saying they didn't want to pay for Channel memberships because they didn't want their money to go to Moviebob. Never was a big fan of Yahtzee. Nothing against him, just his videos were never my thing. I did like his Dev Diary videos though. Really shows his love for video games and his talent as a developer.

oh ya i also worded it badly and did make it sound like i meant yatzhee hired him

i was curious though and started searching around if he actually ever did do anything with bob https://www.destructoid.com/yahtzee-moviebob-and-jim-sterling-have-an-hour-of-love/ most i found was yatzhee hanging out with 2 faggots at a con

 

[demicolon]

Earthbound would have been a good place to stop and/or continue the AVGN but do it like 1-3 times a year. But he sold out to Screen Wave. Which, when you think about it, has got to be one of the most bizarre company relationships with a Youtuber that has ever happened.

Nobody knows the exact figures, but IMO Rolfe has it good with Screenwave. He gets to work for 4 hours/week reading lines before camera while the Slobs do all the work and suck his dick for exposure and maybe 20% profit cut.

James can go 2 ways: either make ~3 good quality episodes per year with 1 million views each and 3 sponsorships, or 10 garbage-tier episodes per year with ~500k views each and 10 sponsorships. Doesn't pay for him to care about quality.

 

[Sexyphobe]

The AVGN games are very mediocre. It feels like it was designed by an A.I. if you were to feed it AVGN shit and tell it to create an action platformer. The only part I sincerely liked is when you kill Santa and ride his corpse down a mountain. That was a peak into some level of creativity and fun. But the constant use of death blocks was very lazy and arbitrary.

I beat the first game and played a little bit of the 2nd one and stopped because it was more of the same. If Screenwave is going to use the same guy who made the other two to make the NES one then it's going to suck. Assuming the NES game didn't die a quiet death.

There doesn't need to be an AVGN game. Just play the Mega Man 2 hack that adds the AVGN sprite and you're done.

Just beat the 2nd game, and more or less, yeah. There is a bit more creativity in the level design, where it feels original instead of "Here's where we ripped off Mega Man 2, and here's where we ripped off Castlevania", although there's still a handful of levels like that. I still enjoyed it, but damn, even on easy mode the game has a fucking fetish for death blocks. Those aren't a good challenge, they're annoying just for the sake of being annoying.

Still fun, but just like 1 it's carried by the Nerd and all the references.