Angry Video Game Nerd

Angry Video Game Nerd (abbreviated as AVGN, and formerly known as Angry Nintendo Nerd) is an American comedy retrogaming web series series, created by and starring James Rolfe. The series centers on Rolfe's character, "The Nerd", a short-tempered and foul-mouthed video game fanatic who delivers commentary on retro video games he considers to be of poor quality.

Angry Nintendo Nerd began on Rolfe's website, Cinemassacre, in 2004. In 2006, collaborative friend Mike Matei persuaded Rolfe to put his work on YouTube. In 2007, the series also became a program on ScrewAttack Entertainment and GameTrailers, where it was renamed Angry Video Game Nerd to prevent trademark issues with Nintendo and also to allow Rolfe to also review games from non-Nintendo consoles. A feature-length film, Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie, was released in 2014. The series has had success online and has gained a cult following.

Overview

The show revolves around the Nerd's commentary of old and typically commercially unsuccessful video games which he deems to be of particularly low-quality, unfair difficulty, or poor design.^[2] Rolfe's character, "the Nerd", is a short-tempered and foul-mouthed video game fanatic who is sometimes besieged by guest characters from video games and popular culture. These guests often provide additional commentary on the games, mock the Nerd's anguish, and act as parodies of the characters from which they had been derived. In response to them and to the games, he derives comic appeal from excessive and surrealistic use of fantasy scenarios, anger, profanity, and habitual consumption of alcohol while reviewing video games.

History

James D. Rolfe as the Nerd

James Rolfe's first videos were intended as "just a joke", with no intentions of making them public, showing them only to his friends.^[3] After two years, collaborative friend Mike Matei helped to publish the videos online. Since then, the show has increased substantially in quantity, production value, and fandom.^[4][5]

The idea for what became the Nerd series began in 2004 with Rolfe's short review of the NES game Castlevania II: Simon's Quest under the title of "Bad NES Games". He then decided to make another video about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.^[1] The videos were produced and published on Cinemassacre.com^[3] and released outside of the website as "The Quickies" tape, part of a four VHS tape set called the "Cinemassacre Gold Collection".^[1]

They soon made a YouTube channel which reached 1.5 million subscribers in June 2014.

Lloyd Kaufman guest stars in the Toxic Crusaders episode of the show.

On September 12, 2006, Rolfe's series received mainstream attention when his review of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles went viral on YouTube. It was reported in an MTV segment called "Viral Videos Infect the Mainstream".^[6] On November 2, 2008, his videos and personality were featured on the nationally syndicated radio show Opie and Anthony.

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Rolfe later changed the name of the program from Angry Nintendo Nerd to Angry Video Game Nerd to prevent trademark issues with Nintendo.^[3] Rolfe diversified the reviews of platforms and products such as the Atari 2600, Super NES, Sega Master System and Sega Mega Drive/Genesis video game consoles, the Power Glove and U-Force peripherals, films such as The Wizard, and the Nintendo Power magazine.

Episodes

• List of Angry Video Game Nerd episodes

Videography

Filmography

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie is an independent film based on the series. James Rolfe serves as director, producer and co-writer and reprises his on-screen role of The Nerd. The film was released July 21, 2014 in limited theatrical releases and is scheduled for release online, on DVD and Blu-ray by the end of the year. The film's budget of more than US$300,000 came entirely from crowdfunding.

The story centers around the alleged burial of over 1 million copies of the proclaimed "worst video game of all time", E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600, as The Nerd embarks on a quest to prove that there is nothing buried there after being pressured by fans to review the video game, while being pursued by federal authorities who believe he is investigating Area 51 and the crash of an unidentified flying object.^[7]

Gameography

In 2013, an official video game titled Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures was announced. Developed by FreakZone Games (creators of Manos: The Hands of Fate), it was released on September 20, 2013 on Steam.^[8] The game follows the Nerd attempting to rescue his friends, all of whom were sucked into the Nerd's television set (done in a Cheetahmen-esque style). The Nerd uses a NES Zapper as his main weapon, and a character known as Naggi the Patronizing Firefly, a parody of Navi from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, guides him through the tutorial. Throughout the game, he faces zombies, Mr. Hyde, Custer, The Giant Claw, Fred "Fucks" (Fred Fuchs), both Jason Voorhees and an oversized version of Freddy Krueger's right arm (references to the Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street games respectively) and more.^[9]

On July 12, 2014, it was announced that the game would also be released on Wii U and Nintendo 3DS.^[10] The Wii U version was released in North America on April 2, 2015; a European release, as well as a 3DS release, is planned for a later date.^[11]

There have also been some unofficial Angry Video Game Nerd games including Angry Video Game Nerd's Angry Video Game, Angry Video Game Nerd in Pixel Land Blast, AVGN Game Over, AVGN Game Over 2, and AVGN Planet. There is also the Angry Video Game Nerd and AVGN K.O. Boxing, both for the Atari 2600. The Nerd touched upon these games in the episode AVGN Games.

The Nerd character also appeared as a playable character in the game Texting of the Bread, produced by ScrewAttack.

Reception

According to Rolfe, the initial pressing of the Angry Video Game Nerd DVD sold out in less than a week.^[12]

The Angry Video Game Nerd was voted Best Online Web Series in Mashable's 3rd Annual Open Web Awards on December 16, 2009.^[13]

Legacy

On February 4, 2013, the character, along with Nostalgia Critic, made a background cameo appearance in the anime Zettai Karen Children: The Unlimited.^[14]

See also

• Video game collecting
• Joueur du Grenier, a French web retrogaming equivalent

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Angry Video Game Nerd.

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Angry Video Game Nerd

• Official website
• The Angry Video Game Nerd's channel on YouTube
• Angry Video Game Nerd at the Internet Movie Database
• Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie at the Internet Movie Database