The Angry Video Game Nerd/YMMV

• And the Fandom Rejoiced: there's going to be an AVGN movie.
• Archive Binge: It's not unmanageable, but after 100+ episodes (and often roughly 10–15 minutes of content per episode, with some being close to 30 minutes) spread over six years, it's not easy to get caught up if you're new or even if you're just rewatching a bunch of old favorites.
• Awesome Music:
  • His theme song, including all the different versions of it.
  • The very beginning of Castlevania IV review.
  • You're a Mean One Mr. Nerd. With the music composed by Bear McCreary.
• Base Breaker: James has mentioned that his Atari 5200 review has garnered mixed reactions. Some people dislike the fact that it doesn't show any games, instead being devoted entirely to the Nerd trying to get the console to work. Others find it hilarious for that exact reason.
• Non Sequitur Scene: In the Action 52 review, the whole "TV" version of saying "asshole".

"This game is shitting me."

• • The end of his "Star Wars" review, where a buffalo shits through his window and breaks it.
  • The random "ASS!" screamer at the beginning of the Nintendo Power episode.
• Bile Fascination: The games he reviews, of course. The show itself is pretty damn good.
• Broken Base: Some fans like recent videos while others tend to bash and nitpick at any little thing.
• Crosses the Line Twice: "You'd rather listen to your only infant child puking to death. That is, choking on its own puke chunks. That's disgusting. I apologize."
• Ear Worm: The main theme and its variety of remixes, and also many of the tunes played in his reviews, which usually come from various older generation videogames.
  • Kyle Justin's cover of Foreigner's "Double Vision" for the video of the same name is also likely to worm its way into lots of ears.
• 8.8:
  • Fans mistook his joke review of Castlevania II: Simon's Quest as a serious example of this.
  • Games such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Top Gun get this as well for people who have actually played and liked the respective games.
  • Just by holding a Mischief Makers cartridge briefly during the title sequence, the Nerd got so much backlash that he had to put up an FAQ question noting that he didn't have ill feelings toward the game and promised he'd never review it.
  • An even bigger example of this trope was invoked during his Symphony of the Night review, with which he got plenty of heck for not praising it to the high heavens. To be fair, he did spend quite a bit of time comparing it unfavorably to Super Castlevania IV, but that was mostly because he had a personal preference for the old style of Castlevania gameplay.
  • His Sega CD video earned some backlash from people who genuinely enjoyed the system. Several reviewers have even posted "rebuttals" on Youtube (here's one).
• Ensemble Darkhorse:
  • AVGN was simply one of James Rolfe's film projects that he didn't expect to take off as much as it did. He even admits it wasn't even that serious of a project, just something he slapped together to amuse his friends. After being encouraged to put it online, he did so and uploaded it to YouTube and the rest is history.
  • Kevin Finn, who played the ninja from the Ninja Gaiden episode and the Glitch Gremlin, became popular very quickly.
• Fan Dumb: Reached an unprecedented height during the feud of the AVGN and the Nostalgia Critic, with some taking the whole thing a little too seriously.
• Foe Yay: With The Nostalgia Critic.
  • In the behind the scenes of the TGWTG Anniversary Brawl, the Nerd and the Critic are angrily exchanging insults when one the other reviewers says "make out!", causing everybody to crack up.
• Fridge Brilliance: The full theme song includes the lyric "The game sucks so bad he makes up his own words". This is set to a clip of the Nerd saying things like "fuck rats" and "fuck farts"...but if you look at it as referring to the time he had to make up a new swear for his Godzilla review, it makes a lot more sense.
• Funny Aneurysm Moment: In the NES Superman review, he makes a big deal about how part of the plot of the game involves Clark being sent to investigate an unexplained drop in stock prices, and how it was a ludicrous element to include in a superhero game. Funny then. Cringe-inducing for anybody with a 401(k) in the wake of the stock market dropping 1,000 points over the course of thirty minutes.
  • In his Back to The Future game review, he makes a joke about how in the NES version, Marty seems to have contracted a disease that has made him lose control of his legs. Michael J. Fox has Parkinson's disease.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Oddly enough, the Nerd has developed something of a cult following on Japanese YouTube-equivalent Nico Nico Douga, with dedicated groups translating his videos.
• He Panned It, Now He Sucks: See 8.8 example above. Suffered this after his Castlevania III review, even though he called it his favorite of the NES Trilogy and only panned the cheap difficulty.
  • He panned the Genesis port of Altered Beast in his 2010 Christmas video, and not soon later people began complaining.
  • A day after his review on Metal Gear got released on YouTube, the video was suddenly flagged for unknown reasons, probably because some Metal Gear fans were a bit angry with his criticism of the game.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Making fun of the potential title of the fourth Rambo movie. At one point before the release, the fourth Rambo movie was actually called John Rambo and the title remained as such in certain territories. Lampshaded in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre review and, aptly enough, Rambo review.
  • At the end of his original Back To The Future review, he destroyed the cart for Back To The Future Parts II & III by putting it in his toaster. As of mid-2010, the Nerd has switched to having the "Nintoaster" as his main way of playing NES games, which—as he himself noted in his revisit of the BTTF games—made his actions at the end of the original review look bizarrely prescient.
    • Speaking of his Back To The Future review, go watch it again. He says that he'll never play the game again, that it's his last time. What does he do in 2010? He plays it again for his re-review.
  • In his McKids review, he mentions "There are definitely much crappier games such as Bugs Bunny's Birthday Blowout and Silver Surfer, for example." Guess which two games he reviews nearly a year later?
  • The phone number you need to call in the Who Framed Roger Rabbit? game to get hints on the game currently leads to a sex hotline.
  • In a non-Nerd video, he talks about Street Fighter sequels. He brings up Street Fighter 2010, and adds, "I couldn't tell you where that fits in." As he found out, it fits absolutely nowhere in the original Street Fighter series.
    • In that same video, he talks about both the Mega Man and Mega Man X series, and says, "Now if only they made a Mega Man 9, it would come full circle." Guess what Capcom made a couple years later.
    • Also, he tries to use Guile's Theme to make it seem like Street Fighter in his review, only to say it doesn't work. This makes it one of the few exceptions to Guile's Theme Goes With Everything (though it predates the meme).
  • When the Nerd is experimenting with the Laser Scope and trying to get it to fire when he swears, he says "fuckfire".
  • In the Bible Games 3 review, the Nerd mentions the strange sight of a bird laying an egg while flying and compares it to a marathon runner running a marathon and then giving birth. This really did happen to a New York City Marathon runner a few months before the review was released.
  • Some aspects of the Nerd's review of Godzilla: Monster of Monsters seem downright prophetic if you've read the NES Godzilla Creepypasta, particularly when he rants about how much The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard and claims "the game fucking cheats". In Zachary's experience, the game did indeed try to cheat - to kill him.
• Internet Backdraft: Whenever something not related to the Angry Video Game Nerd comes out there will always be arguments between fans on Cinemassacre.com, chastising James for not doing a so called "obligation" or defending James because AVGN isn't the only thing he does.
  • He started a fundraiser for the upcoming AVGN feature film. To say there's a backlash would be the understatement of the century.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • James Rolfe encourages fans to come up with remixes or covers of the Nerd's theme song, which he sometimes plays on the show. Many of his catchphrases are also frequently invoked and imitated.
    • The sound clip (and portrait) of him yelling "ass" is one of the most-common memetic catchphrases used, typically in remixes of popular melodies on Youtube.
  • His joking pronunciation of Destoroyah as "DESOTOROYAH!" has become something of a memetic mutation amongst giant monster movie fans.
  • The "Where did YOU learn to fly?" Most Annoying Sound from his Atari Jaguar review was given a Shout-Out by Spoony when a similar floating head appeared in his review of Terror T.R.A.X.
  • "This game is ass!"
  • "Kill all babies?!"
  • "WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!!"
  • He uses one himself, "Welcome to die!" from the X-Men arcade game, as he destroys the NES games based on the franchise in much the same fashion as Magneto.
  • "BEE-SHEVENTEHN BAWWWWWWMMMMEERRRRRR!"
• Misaimed Fandom: Some fans of the Nerd begun to quote him and accept his word as fact. Never mind that he has, in fact, made several research failures - especially around Castlevania, and even then, he was never intended as a legitimate reviewer, but as a comedian and a parody of Accentuate the Negative reviewers and isn't meant to be taken seriously.
• Misblamed: LJN did not develop all the games they published. Most of their games were actually externally developed by other companies such as Rare, Beam Software, Pack-in Video, and Atlus. Among the games LJN did develop are Gotcha! The Sport and Jaws.
  • Though kind of a Fridge Brilliance if you think about it, someone who's living in the 80's/90's will have no idea who actually made those games, so naturally anyone would have just blame the company on the cover.
• Moral Event Horizon: R.O.B. crossed it when he almost killed the Nerd in Episode #100.
• Narm: Apparently, some fans fail to see The Dragon in My Dreams as a serious video.
• Praising Shows You Don't Watch: Some of his fans on Gametrailers proudly admit that they rate every episode a "10" before they even watch it.
• Replacement Scrappy: Some fans have seen Nerdy Turd as this to Shit Pickle.
  • After Motherfucker Mike took over the game reviews for a while, the reception was lukewarm, not helped by his wildly different format.
• Ruined FOREVER: This claim is expected every now and then from the fandom: those who prefer the "classic" reviews, those who prefer the skit based episodes, those who complain about the Nerd not being angry enough, those who complain about the Nerd being too angry, those who complain everytime James Rolfe posts something that it's not AVGN in his website... Anyone who disagrees is usually accused of Creator Worship.
• Seinfeld Is Unfunny: While in 2006 and 2007, the premise seemed like a fresh style of reviewing, it seems that every reviewer since then has tried to replicate the style, and while there are some good takes on it, there are some others that aren't.
  • Not to mention, in 2006-7, James wasn't as informative. his 2010 and above videos were trying to be a little more educational.
• Special Effect Failure: The Ninja Gaiden review has moments where the green screen is visible, especially around the ninja's hands.
  • This also occurs in the Spider-Man review during the song sequence at the end.
  • During the scene when Boo the Cat fights off the Atari Jaguar cube, you can actually see the red laser light in place of the cube in some scenes.
• They Copied It, So It Sucks: There's a small section of people that believe the AVGN ripped off Seanbaby because they reviewed the same games and made "similar" statements. Never mind that their styles are completely different and the "similarities" are problems anyone has playing the game.
  • It seems absolutely ANYONE talking about Games on YouTube is a AVGN ripoff. Including Raocow, bizarrely.
• Uncanny Valley: Almost every single episode titlecard falls into this trope.
• Unfortunate Implications: In his review of Sunday Funday the Nerd says the plot is the kid is trying to get to Sunday School, and all the adults trying to kill him before he gets there. The Nerd asks why all these raging atheists; giggling men and women, are trying to blow up the kid with bombs when all he wants to do is get to church.
• The Woobie: Kyle Justin managed to become one in mere minutes, on the same episode where it justifies his day before the camera.

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