Poll: Is the AVGN immature?

[MetaKnight19]

I also used to watch screwattack vids until their website got too confusing to use (seriously, wtf)

I totally agree with you on that, I still have an account but I hardly ever visit. The funniest video they made was the eating contest when Ben practically passed out after drinking loads of hot sauce.

OT : I still watch his videos and find them funny at times, but I do have to agree that the scat jokes/excessive swearing are mostly unnecessary, but since he started out with that style in his earlier video's, it's sort of what people come to expect from him. Any radical change and the really hardcore fans would most likely get pissed off, kind of like the new DMC look people are ranting and raving about at the moment. Also I just found out that he is making a movie around the whole AVGN character.

 

[faselei]

Yeah the movie announcement... at first i thought it was a poorly timed april fool, then just kept thinking 'is this a fucking joke!?'

But good on him. Maybe it'll work. Who knows.

But in answer to OP, i love AVGN, can't get enough of it.

Agree on the ScrewAttack site comment, eugh.

 

[freedomweasel]

I've never seen/heard of him until this thread, so I watched the video you linked me too.

The cursing seems to be just for the sake of cursing, and isn't really all that funny to me.
The whole thing just feels very "low-budget" to me. Like a random high schooler decided that he wanted to talk about games on youtube. I dunno, the whole thing gave me a 'cheesy made for tv sci fi movie' vibe.. if that makes any sense at all. Like the guy is taking it really seriously but shouldn't be.

 

[blankedboy]

I just watched the Milon's Secret Castle episode, and yeah, he's INCREDIBLY immature.

 

[Marmal4de]

The "immature" stuff in his videos don't appeal to me as much as learning about old games. I do find how frustrating they are pretty amusing and even though some of his jokes are over the top I still enjoy his videos.

 

[Unrulyhandbag]

Utterly asinine. Zero punctuation comes across as satire, his point are serious and the language he uses is carefully constructed not just some random babbling. Even his most vulgar language and images are quite obviously considered.

AVGN is just pointless profanity the patter runs as though he's doing a reasonable review and then just spends 10 seconds repeating the f word rinse and repeat. His patter never changes.

 

[T-Bone24]

I think that he's occasionally funny.

However, most of the time he substitutes comic timing and good writing for excessive swears and elongated metaphors regarding faeces. I just don't find that funny.

 

[Caligulust]

Well, consider the character name. I mean it's kind of supposed to be an angry nerd's reaction to crappy games. Immaturity is what he aimed for.

 

[HeySeansOnline]

He's the original, and thus he has his flaws. Take reviews he's done, and compare them to the works of other reviewers. A perfect example would be his Street Fighter 2010 review, also done by SpoonyOne of The Spoony Experiment and TGWTG. While both are enjoyable videos, Spooney's is much more in depth, as well as he beats the game. AVGN just sort of talks about Street Fighter, then brings up 2010, talks about it, end of review.

He follows an older retro reviewer style, the style in which the game is handled much like a child would. A kid in the eighties wouldn't have the internet, forums, gamefaqs, youtube walktroughs. The Nerd often only works with a few issues of Nintendo Power. Its kind of cool in that way. Makes it feel like an adult reliving his traumatic experiences in the dark ages of games, when reviews were hard found, games were bought with luck involved on if it was good, and a cryptic challenge remained that way until you and a few friends shared info on the playground.

As for immature he does do a few too many toilet jokes. And he does use swears alot. But it adds to the style.

Actually AVGN did play through the game but it's just that he got side tracked on it because it shared the Street fighter name. He also finish the game as well.

Not to mention he brings up a lot of flaws with the games he review and from time to time he state how it can be done better.
In some reviews he knows like everything about the game he plays and one clear example is the Indiana Jones games. Like the one on Atari.

You know what you've got me there. I have to go back and rewatch some of his newer stuff. I mostly got into the early stuff, but he has improved his style. I also rewatched the 2010 review, can't believe I forgot that.

 

[strum4h]

If you actually watch some of his behind the scenes videos he made AVGN as a character very well. He has a passion for making videos. I think he deserves the attention he is getting for all the content he puts out.

 

[FlyAwayAutumn]

I like him, like I like NC.[footnote]Nostalgia Critic[/footnote]Besides if you can't laugh at a little immaturity once in awhile then you need to lighten up bro.

 

[Sacman]

of course that's why people watch him...

 

[shogunblade]

I do enjoy watching AVGN (But that WAKKA WAKKA WAKKA made me think of Fonzie Bear and I couldn't pass that up) and it does get a bit repetitive at times, but immature? Is watching Blazing Saddles immature? Is watching George Carlin immature? Is the movie Dumb and Dumber immature? Absolutely, but when you are in the right mood, it's all funny.

In the wrong mood, the Seven words you can't say on TV are just disgusting to hear. In the right mood, I'll have tears running down my face.

It's all a mood thing, I think, not a view of anyone's insignificance because they laugh at scatological humor.

 

[pixelbob]

nice poll options, dip shit

 

[Racthoh]

I enjoy it when:

1) There are no guests and it's just him.
2) Aren't many disgusting jokes.

When he talks about the older consoles and such, those are great (exception being the Odyssey because of that annoying Nerdy Turd or whatever). For the most part I enjoy those more simply because they're interesting and not trying to be overly funny. I'd say the CD-i part one reflects this the best.

 

[GothmogII]

AVGN is, James Rolfe isn't.

This, it's a character, that's about it really. Rolfe does some excellent movie and boardgame reviews too. :3

 

[SyphonX]

The funny part is anyone actually taking something called "The Angry Video Game Nerd" seriously. Yeah, it's immature, quite obvious. He never pretends it is mature, it's part of his act to be ridiculous, and some of his videos are insightful and entertaining. Hell, all of his AVGN videos are entertaining.

The only people that need to grow up are those that find it so serious that they need to justify their position of it on the internet. Watch something else?

 

[The-Jake]

I wouldn't have thought that different possible answers to this question existed. Yes, the character of the Nerd is immature, because that's the point of the Nerd: his overreaction is the punchline. We're supposed to laugh at the Nerd, even though we identify with him. (If you didn't, why would you be watching internet videos about '80s video games?)
I do think that a lot of the time Rolfe misses that mark, though. I'll give an example to illustrate my argument. From the Virtual Boy review (paraphrasing):

Now, let's take a step back and just look at this. WATERWORLD... on... VIRTUAL BOY. [goggles at the camera]

Now, the joke would've actually been stronger if he had just kept goggling at the camera for an extended period, and not said anything else. The punchline is the Nerd's reaction. But he instead made the joke weaker with a double scatological reference.
Immaturity is a multidimensional thing, and too often Rolfe avoids making a distinction between emotional immaturity (the funny part -- having a video game destroy the Nerd's composure, see his composure driven before it, and hear the lamentations of his composure's women) and immature vocabulary (the unfunny part, excepting when he invents a particularly interesting compound cuss construction).

 

[Zeetchmen]

And watch else Zero, I nothing Punctuation.

 

[Mastercylinder]

DO NOT, under any circumstance diss the AVGN. Cursing doesn't always equate to humor, but listen to all the other jokes he cracks about the actual games like when he tries to decipher what the crappy artists are trying to show you in a cheap 8-bit game. I guess you could call some of his ranting immature, but I think that's the point. He's trying to show you how frustrated he was when he first played those games as a kid. That, and he does get pretty detailed when he wants to.