Awesome / The Angry Video Game Nerd

That's the Nerd fighting against ROB the Robot for his shitty games.

• While reviewing the Power Glove for the NES, he subjects himself to playing Top Gun... again. As many times as he tried and failed to do so in the past — and this is probably the first accidental CMOA — he finally lands the plane on the carrier at the end of the level using the Power Glove.
  • "Oh my god, what the fuck am I doing? I'm trying to land the plane in Top Gun with the Power Glove. I can't even land it with the regular controller!" The look of utter awe on his face afterward as he looks at the mentioned Power Glove just seals the deal.
  • Doubles as Genius Bonus and Achievements in Ignorance after Back to the Future Re-Revisited. The Nerd explains that the UP/DOWN!!! instructions are useless, as the correct coordinates are listed for you at the bottom of the screen. Ignoring the UP/DOWN and going by the numbers makes the sequence much easier. If you watch the numbers while the Nerd is playing with the Glove, you can see that he is in fact in the ballpark and that the landing is genuine, as is the Nerd's bafflement.
  • It happens again at the end of his Zelda 2 review, except he wasn't even trying to do the impossible, he just left the Power Glove on while giving his closing recap, while in the background he accidentally beats Shadow Link, and doesn't even realize what happened until he turns off the TV in frustration. When he turns it back on after a beat, he gives the Power Glove the exact same look of astonishment as in Top Gun.
• One of the Zapper variants was a scope attached to a clunky and awkward looking headset. It was voice activated, and he would later discover that you didn't have to say, "Fire!" like the packaging suggests; any word will do. You can guess where that goes from there. He then turns it on Duck Hunt, and shoots down a duck by shouting, "Fuck!" at it. This is a rare case of Precision F-Strike in the literal meaning.
• There was his epic fight against the possessed consoles in his review of Super Mario Bros. 3. Best part? The Nerd pulling out two NES Zappers and fires them like crazy, shouting "I'm the Lord of the Harvest! Bring it Down! Bring it Down!"
  • In the same episode, Super Mecha Death Christ made of guns and a tank (who keeps on shouting "FUCKEEEEEERS!") with a Thrash version of the AVGN theme playing is James Rolfe's CMOA as a video maker. He later blasts the Nerd for saying "Holy shit!", yelling "WATCH YOUR FUCKIN' LANGUAGE!" Especially as James Rolfe does the voice acting for Super Mecha Death Christ himself.
  • This one gets even better for James Rolfe if you look at his Making Of special, where he shows the video clip timeline of the sequence. It is positively labyrinthine.
• The episode where James beats the ever-living hell out of Bugs Bunny. ("I can't believe it! In my own house! Bugs Bunny! Bugs FUCKING Bunny!" (punches Bugs in the gut and then in the head)) 'Bugs Bunny Birthday Beating' indeed. Then Bugs came back for some payback in the Crazy Castle video, a multi-review that's so ludicrously over-the-top that words can't do it justice. Watch it now!
• His take on the 32X has him taking the 32X outside, propping it on a fiery stand, and shooting it with a bow to "send this fuckin' shit back to the fires of Hell."
• And all of this is topped with his final battle against The Nostalgia Critic where the two battle with fists, firearms, fireballs, lightsabers, and one final clash between good and evil to end it all. For now...
  • And later both he and Kyle Justin participating in pretty much the most epic online event ever as the two of them team up with all the video game reviewers of Channel Awesome against the site's other contributers.
  • And the kickass Rousing Speech he delivers to the gamers team during that battle.
• Somewhere in-between this and a Funny Moment is his priceless reaction to Michael Jackson's... special Power-Up move in Moonwalker: the Game.
• In his two-episode review of the third TMNT movie, he concludes that 'this movie is so bad, something must be done.' And then he proceeds to cut the videotape in two WITH A KATANA, before hammering it to bits during hammertime!
• At the end of the Winter Games video, he reads off the standard NES game warning about the various things you shouldn't do to the cartridge, and does every one of them. After all that, he throws it in the fireplace and gives us a close up shot of it melting.
• Flying into space to throw a Superman 64 cartridge into the sun while John Williams' Superman theme plays qualifies as well. Which was contributed by Chris Holland, another guitar guy who occasionally sends his stuff to Rolfe.
• This video is also a crowning moment for Mike Matei's animation skills.
• And, of course, only the Nerd can beat the final boss of a shitty game whilst being strangled by a Frankenstein's Monster (of his own creation, to boot). All while an epic metal remix of his theme song plays in the background.
• The Nerd's unnecessarily vulgar Shut Up, Hannibal! given to Freddy Krueger.
  Freddy: "Whoa, look at me, I'm a fucking nerd! What a piece of shit! Buffalo diarrhea fuckfarts!" Y'see nerd, nobody makes you play these games but yourself, so you're your own damn nightmare. Now, but you're gonna die....
  Nerd: Go yank your cock through your ass you fucking butt mongrel, I got the POWER GLOVE!
  • Likewise, in the episode before that, The Nerd (who had been forced at machete-point to play the Friday the 13th game by Jason Voorhees), snaps at the end of the episode, and beats down Jason with the game controller, before blowing his head off with the Nintendo Zapper.
  Nerd: You're easier to beat in real life than you are in that FUCKING GAME, you no-good piece of- *BOOM!!! HEADSHOT!!!
• The intro sequence for part 2 of his Batman game reviews is super awesome not only because of the theme being nicely redone by Chris Holland, but also because it features Luigi and the Nerd kicking ass! And while we're at it, the Batnerd freeing himself from the Joker's clutches in the same video and kicking his butt in a Shout-Out fighting sequence, culminating in him shoving the shitty games up the Joker's ass.
• Death Kitty chasing the bothersome Jaguar icon all around the room and finally getting out of the place at the tune of a heavy metal contribution of the AVGN Theme done by a fan.
• Beating Ninja Gaiden 2 counts as one for both James Rolfe and Mike Matei, especially after the AVGN claimed the entire Ninja Gaiden trilogy impossible to defeat during his review of it.
• The Swordquest video. All of it.
  AVGN: The Kingdom of Nerddom depends on it!
• In the Pong Consoles episode, James comments on how a gamer during the Pong Era would react to modern consoles. They'd think that maybe the graphics would be a little better, or maybe even color! Cut to scenes from Grand Theft Auto IV, with a rock-mix of the AVGN theme playing in the background, which then cuts to James with an awesomely-shocked-and-pleased look on his face.
• Combining both a Moment of Awesome and a Funny Moment together in once scene, at one point during Battletoads, James and Kyle just start groovin' out to the techno music during the Pause screen.
• "It's the Nintoaster, and yes, it works." A Moment of Awesome for Richard of stupidfingers.com (who also helped out in the Jaguar Part 2 video), and a Funny Moment because of the look James has on his face while saying that.
• James winning the glitched boss battle in Mega Man 5, as chronicled in the "Game Glitches" episode.
• James discovering a good Back to the Future game on Super Famicom (Super Back to the Future Part II) at the end of his revisiting of the Nintendo Nerd years. One minute of mouth-watering clips from the game, with a great chiptune rendition of the movie's theme and James's astounded face. Only as the realization of "Super Famicom" means "Japan-only" catches up to him. After which we're treated to a Funny Moment filled with Angrish.
• Towards the end of his second Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde review, the Nerd does a philosophical rant about how the game is the greatest game of all time, and how it parallels human life. He concludes the review, however, by saying that "The game fucking sucks!"
• Episode 100 ("ROB the Robot") is considered to be the best Nerd episode of all time, and for good reason.
  • After the Nerd is attacked and lectured by ROB about how ROB was Nintendo's hero, the Nerd grabs a Mario doll, proclaims "This is my hero!", and uses it to beat up ROB.
  • And after that, when ROB supposedly kills the Nerd and transforms every game into either Gyromite or Stack-Up, the Nerd starts recalling many of the shitty games he reviewed, thinking "No more (name of game)?". His self-answer to that? "I WON'T FUCKING HAVE IT!!" Cue Awesome.
  • The most epic Call-Back ever, when the Nerd dons his Super NES AVGN apparel from the "Wizard/Super Mario Bros 3" review for the final battle against ROB.
  • The fact that the Nerd starts the episode with a Creator Breakdown about how he's wasted his life surrounding himself with shitty games and ends the episode with a moment of clarity and a change of heart about his games is awesome in its own right.
  • Also, a very minor one, the fact that he sawed two NES controllers in half and taped them together just to make a specialized controller for Gyromite!!!
  • This episode's title card was the last one Mike Matei made for the series, and what a great way to bow out.◊ Especially cool is how in the episode's opening, the theme song is cut off by an explosion as all 100 title cards up to that point appear in a flurry, gradually getting bigger as a badass intensifying sound plays in the background.
• After discovering that the modern Godzilla video games are so much cooler than the ones he played as a kid, the Nerd lets out a "FUCK!" set to Godzilla's roar, trashes his cartridge racks in rage, and proceeds to realize that, since he's used all the swears in existence, he needs to make up a new one. Which is bleeped out, because "it's that bad". He said "scunt".
• James/The Nerd has the Nintendo World Championships Gold Cartridge, possibly the rarest video game cartridge in existence. WHICH HE JUST FUCKING ANNIHILATES WITH A HAMMER! Only in-universe, thank the lord. Sadly, the part about him owning the gold cartridge isn't true. According to the comments he posted on his video of outtakes from that episode, Pat the NES Punk does indeed own both the grey AND the gold version of NWC (which is pretty awesome in and of itself).
• In his "Contra Memories" video, James (as himself) talked about his fond memories of the NES game Contra; he actually beat the game WITHOUT USING THE KONAMI CODE!! As a nine-year old child! With his parents watching!! Before breakfast!
• The full-length AVGN theme in the Sega CD episode. Not only is the full song great by itself, but it's loaded with Call Backs to previous episodes! There are numerous complaints that the song was just too awesome and encapsulated the Nerd and his epic career (up to that point) too well for it be used that early in the series, being more suitable for the 50th or 100th episode special. It's that good.
• The Fundraiser for the AVGN Movie was set for $75,000. The end total is almost $326,000. That's over 4 times the goal James Rolfe expected. To say he was shocked at his fans' generosity is an understatement. This doubles as a Heartwarming Moment.
• Him successfully beating Ghosts 'n Goblins, one of the hardest NES games ever made, after trying to for almost twenty-five years. In fact, it was the very first NES game he ever attempted, on his 8th birthday. Also him successfully beating the Japan-exclusive "Transformers" Famicom game, remarking that it's the hardest game he's ever beaten.
• His speech at the end of Atari Sports, relating that gamers and sports fans aren't that different after all.
• Not an official part of the Angry Video Game Nerd's reviews, but related nonetheless: in Mike Matei's video about hacked cartridges for the NES, the Joueur du Grenier (a.k.a. the French AVGN) makes a cameo appearance.
• At the end of the Kid Kool review, the Nerd throws the game over his shoulder, and it lands in a bin in the background. The Nerd's expression makes it obvious that this was not planned.
• The Guitar Guy's awesomely dramatic "I'M GOING BEHIND THE COUCH!" in the Battletoads review.
• Lloyd Fucking Kaufman co-hosting an episode!
• Having the balls to rip apart his own licensed game. Admittedly he starts out enjoying it, but he quickly makes it clear how aggravatingly hard the game is, and that it combines hundreds of elements he has complained about, making it feel like he has played every shitty game he has ever played all at once.
• The end of the second part of the AVGN Wish List episode, which has the Nerd playing "Spider-Man: Maximum Carnage" on the SNES. He finds the game to be, while not necessarily the best he's ever played, a rather decent game and perhaps the best Spider-Man game he's ever played. When he looks at who made the game, he's in for a shock: on the box of the game, he sees the LJN logo. The fact that LJN of all companies could make a decent game like that is actually a pretty awesome moment in and of itself. The effect is lessened once you learn that LJN never made a game in-house. Instead, they always outsourced their games to different developers. Instead of finally making a decent game, they finally got a decent developer, which is awesome in its own way.
  "Oh my god... Oh. My. God! They did it. They pulled through! Oh my god! They made a game that's not a steaming pile of fucking shit! OH MY GOD! THEY DID IT! THEY MADE A GAME THAT'S NOT SHIT!"
• Him being able to have a good time with Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, one of the worst games of all time.
• The very end of the Desert Bus episode. After playing a romhack of Simon's Quest and seeing that it fixed most of the errors he addressed in his episode for the original version, the Nerd sees that the work he's doing to warn others about shitty games is working. He un-retires himself, and then says that with this he must go beyond his basement and do something bigger than he's ever done before. He looks to the camera, nods slowly, and the episode ends. Not only that, but Penn himself tweeted about the episode!
• The Seaman episode opens with the Nerd praising the Sega Dreamcast, mentioning that the fact he hadn't reviewed anything on it yet up to that point (Sonic Shuffle not withstanding) was testament to the fact that it was a quality console with very few bad games.
• The Nerd's thorough and complex comparison of the Beetlejuice game to the Betelgeuse star will make one believe that there may actually be a connection between the two.
• His gaming prowess. He doesn't just cover some of the worst games ever, he still beats them! Hours upon hours of playing sadistically difficult games, usually with broken controls to boot, and he somehow has the patience, skill, and nerve to get to the bitter end. An especially astonishing one goes to beating NES side scroller Street Fighter 2010, in which the final stage is a Boss Rush of five that requires players to pass it under a ridiculously short time limit, forces you to go out of your way to grab all the weapon power ups in the stage within that limit (or it is pretty impossible to beat the final boss), and do it all in one life bar. While the game gives you endless continues, it also makes you start from the beginning of the stage every time you die. You could feel the hours sap from his life during a LONG montage of his attempts, but he did it. Also see his videos on Super Pitfall and The Wizard of Oz.
• The resurrection of The Guitar Guy (Kyle Justin) using "A-BB-A", complete with a spooky sounding rendition of the AVGN Theme. Also, the Theme Song returns in that episode.
  Guitar Guy: Why should I help you? You never even use my theme song anymore...
  AVGN: Well, I thought that everyone was getting tired of it.
  Guitar Guy: Yeah, well you thought wrong.
  AVGN: Yeah, I know.
• The Nerd's utter ecstasy in Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero when he lures an enemy into being crushed by a falling pillar...only to then get crushed himself when he tries to cross.
• The Mega Man episode, where the Nerd travels back in time to his previous selves. At the end, he returns to 2016, only to find Bugs Bunny has taken the Nerd's job following his 10-Minute Retirement. What else should ensue but another epic beatdown.
• The Nerd testing if it's possible to break a window with nothing but a newspaper as shown in Paperboy and succeeding!
• The Polybius "review" for the 2017 Halloween special. There are several Visual Effects of Awesome through the video, including the fact that James Rolfe apparently made an entire Polybius cabinet, complete with an actually working screen, just to sell it even further.
  • Also, the fact that several comments on the video say that they were more scared by this video than recent horror movies. A foul-mouthed internet reviewer locked in a warehouse with an arcade cabinet managed to make something that scared people on the level of a big-budget Hollywood production.
  • While it doesn't last, the Nerd's brief attempt to resist the game's control on Day 5, complete with Badass Boast:
    The Nerd: (struggling with the camera) If you can keep me from getting out, I can keep you from showing yourself, you fucking game!
• His episode of EarthBound, tying in various fan theories along with his extensive knowledge of cinema that originally inspired the game in the first place. The Nerd even provided his own theory we won't spoil here. James not only reviewed a classic cult game, he did it in a way that was uniquely him, fitting the themes of the game. He also had the balls to devote an entire segment of his video to un-sugar coated criticism of a game considered by many to be a Sacred Cow. Despite admitting that he thinks it really is one of the best SNES games ever made like everyone says, he still has enough integrity to point out that it's far from flawless.
• During his episode on Resident Evil Survivor, James shows his editing skills by incorporating himself into the first game's FMV cutscenes as well as putting together an intro that pays tribute to Resident Evil 2's intro too. Complete with blurring and interlacing effects to make it look very low quality, as if they were FMV fils straight off a Playstation disc. Takes talent to make something look intentionally shitty. The Nerd's final battle with the Tyrant is fought just like in the original Resident Evil. Special mention goes to Board James, who gives him the Super Scope to defeat the Tyrant!
  Nerd: LIGHTS OUT, BITCH! (defeats the Tyrant with one shot)
• The end of the episode featuring The Town With No Name starts off with the Nerd attacking the Amiga CD32 with his usual digital graphic attacks, but at the end, he decides that this one really needs to die in a fire, hauls it outside and torches it with his Boring Company Not-A-Flamethrower!
• Macaulay Culkin himself appearing in the Home Alone Games episode and playthrough of The Pagemaster. Macaulay F'n Culkin!!! And not just as a tiny cameo, either. He actually reviews the games with the Nerd.
• For his episode of Pepsiman, managing to get Mike Butters to reprise his role as the TV Game Guy, killing Pepsiman with a Mentos bazooka ala Terminator 2: Judgment Day! Pepsiman himself deserves some credit by being one of the only villains in the show to have the Nerd dead to rights until Butters saves him. Also a credit to James Rolfe for managing to make Pepsiman a frightening and intimidating villain.
• The Nerd's gone and covered the terrible Life of Black Tiger, claiming old Fred Fuchs must have been up to his shenanigans again...and not only does the character finally appear, but he's played by none other than GILBERT GOTTFRIED. The places the Nerd's come from since 2004...
• His review of The Immortal might just be a basic one-and-done review with a medieval twist on the formula, but it's impressive for being shot in one single take. Considering it involves both live gameplay and almost tirelessly recalling lengthy rants for about 11 minutes, it's a sight to behold.
• Episode 175 opens with the Nerd giving a succinct, eloquent, and blistering "The Reason You Suck" Speech to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Action 52, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde cartridges — paying deliberate homage to the Twilight Zone episode "The Masks". Every syllable that escapes the Nerd's mouth is dripping with seething disdain toward these abominations of gaming. Here are his words, quoted in full.
  The Angry Video Game Nerd: You are cruel and miserable games. You exist for one purpose: to reap everything I've sown. You've robbed me, not only of my childhood, but my adulthood, too! (downs a shot) I've been cursed to play your bullshit until the end of time, but thankfully, the end of time is about to come: the year 2020 is upon us! Doomsday — yeah, they were 20 years off with Y2K — but this is it, for real! And with only one week left, the ceremony must begin. (He grabs three small paper masks: one is a Ninja Turtle with dollar signs for eyes, the second is a screaming Cheetahman, and the third is a distorted Two-Faced mask with a hand Flipping the Bird.) You must wear these masks until the midnight of New Years. They've been carefully selected as caricatures of your true, shitty natures.
  (He puts the Ninja Turtle mask on the TMNT cartridge) Your mask represents The Solicitor, the one who uses familiar source material to cash in and disrespects the love for the franchise. You don't respond to love. You only respond to what your petty hunger dictates; to things that have value. You're the kind that appraises franchises without seeing their beauty. You're nothing but greed.
  (He places the Cheetahman mask on the Action 52 cartridge) Your mask is The Overzealous Coward, the one who has nothing to give but somehow gives too much of it. You're an overflowing garbage can of filth, bloated and packed to the gills with nonsense, bullshit to the highest capacity to hide your incompetent, broken gameplay!
  (He puts the Two-Faced mask on the Jekyll and Hyde cartridge) And of course, you. You wear the mask of The Heartless Punisher, tricking me with useless weaponry and sucker-punch pitfalls at every step! You see humanity as small animals caught in a trap to be tortured! Your pleasure is the giving of pain! From this, you feel the same sense of joy one might get from a kiss or an embrace! Shame on you!
  Shame on ALL you shitty games! All your cryptic mazes, bad controls, unfair jumps, vomit-inducing graphics, lack of continues, long passwords... I hope you're proud of yourselves. May God, the Devil, and whatever else have pity on you. And as for me... I wear the mask of the thing that stalks me at this very moment. (He puts on Majora's Mask, then opens the window to show the Weird Moon in the sky above the cityscape) You shitty, shitty games. You stole my life away. It's all yours. You inherit everything left of my soul. Now, you can dig deep in the treasury, but before the world ends, I must play one last game.
  • That game? The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, which he proceeds to deliver a thought out and salient review of, acknowledging that it has good points even while focusing on legitimate criticisms, much like the EarthBound review. At the end, he proceeds to defeat the final boss with just 9 hearts, no Fierce Deity Mask, and no Great Fairy's Sword.
  So, if all along you're saying I suck at this game, well then suck on this shit!
• Roughly the entire first two minutes, fifteen seconds of the Bartman Meets Radioactive Man episode. Even those who aren't fans of the show can easily see a genuine love of The Simpsons from everyone involved in the intro, and even the Express VPN ad.
  The Nerd: Okay—that animated intro was way too good, how am I gonna top that?!
• Fittingly enough for the Doom episode, we have "The Icon of Sin" involved with the episode, this time actually voiced by John Romero himself! If you wanted to hear what Doom II's secret boss would have sounded like without his voice being reversed outside of a couple of opening lines, this episode's got you covered.
• After 19 years, the Nerd finally beats Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (NES). Not once, not twice, but three times (The US version twice to see both endings, and the Famicom version to see the difference in the good ending) with the help of his future self in a parody of The Exorcist.
  • In fact, the episode ends up being an effective homage to The Exorcist, re-creating several shots and scenes. The old man make-up on Future James in particular is very impressive.

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