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.

[SuperUltrapyrus]

First episode of 2023, I don’t know why the Nerd hasn’t made a joke about playing so many bad games has made his hair fall out.
Edit: damnit beat me by 3 seconds Jeff!

The episode was pretty meh if you ask me. (Not the worst, but nothing spectacular)


No offense, Rolfe, but as much as I appreciate your stuff as a little guy, I think its best to take it to reconsider and put away the nerdy shirt of yours already. Just saying.

 

[TVB]

Bimmy will not retire. No time to do so. He refuses.

On a serious note, Rolfe needs to throw away the towel. He's done.

 

[CyrusHowler]

The episode was pretty meh if you ask me. (Not the worst, but nothing spectacular)


No offense, Rolfe, but as much as I appreciate your stuff as a little guy, I think its best to take it to reconsider and put away the nerdy shirt of yours already. Just saying.

Is it time for him to stop? Yeah prolly. But I honestly respect his reason for continuing. He wants to provide for his children. I can’t really be mad at that. Plus I enjoy the videos simply from a nostalgic perspective of “My favorite guy from back in the day still makes videos.”
Are they as good as his stuff prior to 2017? No, most aren’t. But I still love ol Jamesy for what he did in the past and it warms the cockles of my heart when a new video is uploaded. As much as people wanna clown on him, the ol Bimster is an internet video game legend and pioneer.

I know some of you will make fun of me and call me a fanboy, but I’ve never hidden the fact that I like James. I just don’t like everything he’s done.

 

[Shirō Ishii]

@CyrusHowler Nobody here is really angry at James or think he is a piece of shit. We were all fans of James and his content and think that he is a good guy. But he has shown himself to be lazy and with his recent tell-all book, a massive retard who needed people like Mike pushing him.

 

[TVB]

Yea, James as a person is a very cool guy, and nobody on the Farms are acting like he's harming anyone, or at least what we know so far. But he's completely, noticeably and mentally burntout, and this is coming from us who not only are fans of AVGN, but respect him as a person. It's over for Rolfe.

 

[skykiii]

So, at first I didn't mind the mythology stuff... but when he had actually begun talking about the game but was segwaying away to talk more about it and also about Egypt.... that got annoying.

Also, wait, Daedalus and Icarus were actually locked in the Labyrinth with the minotaur? I never heard that. Version I know says King Minos locked them in a castle tower or something.

All this ranting about Kid Icarus and he never mentions the most annoying thing--on certain platforms, if you try to duck, Pit will take it as meaning you want to jump down through the platform. Which will, of course, usually result in Pit falling to his death. How can you not mention that?

But yeah some aspects reminded me of the old Beetlejuice game review where he went on more about a damn constellation. I recall that being one of the first videos where people felt James was losing his quality.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

I actually fell asleep during this episode

I usually think the quality drop is a bit exaggerated, but it's undeniable how lazy this one was. I bet AI could write a better episode just trained off the older stuff.

 

[TVB]

I usually think the quality drop is a bit exaggerated, but it's undeniable how lazy this one was. I bet AI could write a better episode just trained off the older stuff.

It's a shame that even comparing the newer episodes to the older ones still feels like we're giving Screenwave era more credit, if all. AVGN is pretty much the inernet video equivalent to a very long-running newspaper comic strip where the brand is more of the focus and less on what used to be quality long ago.

 

[CyrusHowler]

That’s the difference between The Farms and TCT. They actually HATE James.

For me, I just want James to be happy. I’d love nothing more than for it to be like the old days, and once in a while he gets inspired and you see the old magic come to the fore front like with the Ninja game, Contra Retrospective and the DOOM video. But if putting out these average nerd videos and his adjacent content makes him happy, then I’m happy.

 

[Pissmaster]

I wanna be friends with Mike and sit around discussing NES games all day every day forever.

 

[skykiii]

I have to agree with what @TVBForever and @CyrusHowler said... and with @SSj_Ness With regards to the quality drop being exaggerated.

I mean even in his classic era, the quality could vary between episodes. I hate using this argument but I sometimes think people mentally filter out the lesser episodes of the older days. I know personally when I'm rewatching older videos I tend to not go for Rambo, Metal Gear, Winter Games or Fester's Quest immediately (I actually had to force myself to re-watch certain lesser episodes once because I realized I had revisited certain episodes like the Batman two-parter or Little Red Hood too frequently).

But its just like when I read Garfield comics, I tend to not mind the lesser ones because I'm usually reading them as part of a batch, whereas with the modern output you're waiting weeks between episodes.

Stuff like this is why I tend to not watch still-running anime. though with web shows you basically don't have a choice.

 

[demicolon]

The dude flat out refuses to make a patreon last I heard, even though people say it'd make a lot of money. The fact he refuses should really say a lot about his state of mind. He either cares so little that he doesn't bother, or he realizes it'd be scummy to accept money for the bare minimum work he puts in to get advertiser money.

As for Patreon, I would think he doesn’t do it because he’d think he had to make Patreon specific content, and he doesn’t have time (yes, I said that ironically and on purpose) to make the content.

People start to forget that James keeps doing this out of necessity. If he could retire and fuck around with muh kids all day, he would in a heartbeat. It's waaay too late for James to make a Patreon.

Here are links to posts ITT that explain how much more money the AVGN brand could make if it was managed by someone competent (i.e. not James):

link 1
link 2
link 3
link 4

 

[RollerGator]

Sigh...
Absolutely. Soulless. Literally.
I like James but I really do think it's time to retire and live out a happy life with his kids. It's so obvious he's phoning it in.

That would probably require him getting a real job eventually, like when he worked at shitmart. Do you want him to suffer??

 

[PeriodicTrouble]

Mike talked about the history of AVGN for over 2 hours on his stream about Final Soldier. He talks about episodes he wrote (Ex:Zelda 2 and Zelda Timeline), episodes James wrote on his own (Ex:Godzilla and early AVGN episodes), Mike talks about doing the title cards and why he chose to stop doing them to focus on editing videos for Monster Madness and James and Mike Monday's, Mike doing the editing for Godzillathon and the movie reviews for Spike.com.

 

[Gravityqueen4life]

we come to the point where people can write their own AVGN episodes better then James.

 

[Captain Gomez]

Mike talked about the history of AVGN for over 2 hours on his stream about Final Soldier. He talks about episodes he wrote (Ex:Zelda 2 and Zelda Timeline), episodes James wrote on his own (Ex:Godzilla and early AVGN episodes), Mike talks about doing the title cards and why he chose to stop doing them to focus on editing videos for Monster Madness and James and Mike Monday's, Mike doing the editing for Godzillathon and the movie reviews for Spike.com.

I kinda feel bad for the guy, he put as much effort (if not more) on the channel as James but got called a leach for 15 years lol

at least he's making good money by being a tard from the comfort of his home now

 

[TVB]

we come to the point where people can write their own AVGN episodes better then James.

This is way better than an actual modern day AVGN episode, no joke.

 

[BrunoMattei]

I have to agree with what @TVBForever and @CyrusHowler said... and with @SSj_Ness With regards to the quality drop being exaggerated.

I mean even in his classic era, the quality could vary between episodes. I hate using this argument but I sometimes think people mentally filter out the lesser episodes of the older days. I know personally when I'm rewatching older videos I tend to not go for Rambo, Metal Gear, Winter Games or Fester's Quest immediately (I actually had to force myself to re-watch certain lesser episodes once because I realized I had revisited certain episodes like the Batman two-parter or Little Red Hood too frequently).

But its just like when I read Garfield comics, I tend to not mind the lesser ones because I'm usually reading them as part of a batch, whereas with the modern output you're waiting weeks between episodes.

Stuff like this is why I tend to not watch still-running anime. though with web shows you basically don't have a choice.

During the good era I loved the majority of episodes. Only a handful I disliked and would skip when on a playlist:

R.O.B. episode 100, the original Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde review, Odyssey (not a bad episode, I just find the console itself boring), Crazy Castle, original version of Wayne's World that used clips from the movies every 10 seconds, Sega Activator with Keith Apicary, with Nintendo World Championships being the worst.

The Deadly Towers (written by fans) grew on me largely because it fares well when compared to the Zombie AVGN episodes.

 

[TVB]

During the good era I loved the majority of episodes. Only a handful I disliked and would skip when on a playlist:

R.O.B. episode 100, the original Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde review, Odyssey (not a bad episode, I just find the console itself boring), Crazy Castle, original version of Wayne's World that used from the clip from the movies every 10 seconds, Sega Activator with Keith Apicary, with Nintendo World Championships being the worst.

The Deadly Towers (written by fans) grew on me largely because it fares well when compared to the Zombie AVGN episodes.

The Deadly Towers one was one of my favorite episodes for a long time. I've rewatched it recently, and it shocks me of how it ages fondly.

 

[BrunoMattei]

I forgot to mention the Bad Game Cover Art series which is inexplicably part of the AVGN series? I don't know? I know when I watch episodes by season that when I get to the season with Bad Game Cover Art that I just skip the entire hour+ series.