The Angry Video Game Nerd



"He's gonna take you back to the past, To play the shitty games that suck ass He'd rather have a buffalo take a diarrhea dump in his ear He'd rather eat the rotten asshole of a roadkill skunk and down it with beer He's the angriest gamer you've ever heard. He's the Angry Nintendo Nerd ''He's the Angry Atari Sega Nerd He's the Angry Video Game Nerd"

- The Nerd's theme song

James Rolfe is the Angry Video Game Nerd, formerly Angry Nintendo Nerd before he stopped focusing on just the NES (and realized he couldn't sell T-shirts with someone else's trademark on them), a misanthropic, foul-mouthed, chronically ill-tempered gaming geek with a predilection for Rolling Rock beer who plays weird, old, and, more often than not, Nintendo Hard games, some of them with the worst Fake Difficulty imaginable. We're talking truly terrible here. Epic Snark Bait. "The Nerd" holds a specific torch of hate towards licensed games, especially ones published by LJN Toys, which he sees as manipulating hopeful and oblivious kids into buying complete trash.

The Nintendo Entertainment System was a landmark in the history of video gaming - it was the first Japanese console to make a splash in the US, the first console released after The Great Video Game Crash of 1983, and the first console that most members of Generation Y have firsthand memories of playing. During its lifespan of nearly a decade, the console introduced now-classic characters like Mario, Link, and Mega Man, saw video games shift from thinly veiled excuses to kill bad guys to complex plots, and produced scores of truly great games, some of which remain classics to this day.

But it also produced some real stinkers, and that's where the Angry Video Game Nerd comes in.

His reviews inevitably spiral downward into a barely-coherent rant peppered liberally with Cluster F-Bombs and scatological references culminating in a violent frothing rage that puts the Incredible Hulk to shame. The Nerd gets frequent unwanted visits from the stars of the games he plays, from Bugs Bunny to Freddy Krueger.

Note, however, that a handful of episodes are not so much about a single shitty game as they are about a certain console or accessory (there are even a few that aren't about video games at all). Aside from giving reviews, the Nerd has also given a bit of video game history, such as a summary of the infamous Console Wars.

When he isn't getting his nerd on, James Rolfe maintains a website at Cinemassacre.com where he showcases various other ventures, including his own independent films and an annual "Monster Madness" feature each October counting down to Halloween.

The AVGN had a long and violent "rivalry" with The Nostalgia Critic that came to a head with a Battle Royale With Cheese in October 2008, and another in May 2009, this time a Massive Multiplayer Crossover with his guitar guy in the fray. See the Critic's page for more details (and TGWTG Year One Brawl for said crossover). In Real Life, Rolfe and Doug Walker (The Nostalgia Critic) are good friends and Rolfe has even guested in several other That Guy With The Glasses projects, including Cameos in both of the site's subsequent anniversary specials.

He produced an Angry Video Game Nerd Movie, which can be viewed on-demand here.

 2004 
 * Castlevania II: Simon's Quest
 * Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

 2006 
 * The Karate Kid
 * Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
 * Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
 * Back to The Future (and Back to the Future Part II & III)
 * Toilet Video (video made for ScrewAttack's Toilet Tuesday series parodying the Nintendo 64 Kid)
 * M.C. Kids 
 * Wally Bear and the No! Gang
 * Duck Tales (technically a Video Game Vault review and not an actual AVGN episode, though he's in character as The Nerd)
 * Master Chu and the Drunkard Hu
 * Top Gun (and Top Gun: The Second Mission)
 * Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones
 * Friday The 13th
 * A Nightmare on Elm Street
 * The Power Glove
 * Chronologically Confused about Bad Movie and Video Game Sequel Titles
 * Rocky
 * Bible Games
 * Bible Adventures
 * Bible Buffet
 * Super Noah's Ark 3D
 * Spiritual Warfare
 * King of Kings: The Early Years

 2007 
 * Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (Movie Review)
 * Atari 5200
 * Ghostbusters
 * Ghostbusters Follow-Up
 * Ghostbusters on Atari 2600
 * Ghostbusters on Sega Master System
 * Ghostbusters Conclusion
 * Ghostbusters II 
 * Ghostbusters on Sega Genesis
 * Spider-Man
 * Spider-Man
 * Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six
 * The Amazing Spider-Man 
 * Spider-Man 2
 * Sega CD
 * Sega 32x
 * Silver Surfer
 * Die Hard
 * Independence Day
 * The Simpsons
 * The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants
 * The Simpsons: Bart vs. the World
 * Bugs Bunny's Birthday Blowout
 * Atari Porn(o)
 * Custer's Revenge
 * Beat 'Em & Eat 'Em
 * Bachelorette Party
 * Bachelor Party
 * Gigolo
 * Philly Flasher
 * Cathouse Blues
 * Knight on the Town
 * Jungle Fever
 * Nintendo Power
 * Fester's Quest
 * The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
 * Halloween
 * Dragon's Lair
 * A Christmas Carol Part 1
 * Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
 * A Christmas Carol Part 2
 * Shaq Fu
 * Far Cry Vengeance
 * Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz 
 * Boogie

 2008 
 * Chronologically Confused about The Legend of Zelda Timeline
 * Rambo
 * Virtual Boy
 * The Wizard of Oz
 * Double Vision Part 1 - Intellivision
 * Double Vision Part 2 - ColecoVision
 * The Wizard (film) and Super Mario Bros 3
 * NES Accessories
 * Indiana Jones Trilogy
 * Star Trek
 * Superman
 * Superman 64 (And Superman: Man of Steel on Commodore 64)
 * Batman Part 1
 * Batman Part 2
 * Deadly Towers
 * Battletoads
 * Dick Tracy
 * Dracula
 * Frankenstein
 * CDi Part 1 (Hotel Mario)
 * CDi Part 2 (Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon)
 * CDi Part 3 (Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda's Adventure)
 * Bible Games 2
 * Exodus: Journey to the Promised Land
 * Noah's Ark
 * Joshua
 * Menace Beach
 * Sunday Funday
 * Moses the Exodus
 * David and Goliath
 * The Story of Samson

 2009 
 * Michael Jackson's Moonwalker
 * Milon's Secret Castle
 * Atari Jaguar Part 1
 * Atari Jaguar Part 2
 * Metal Gear
 * The Odyssey
 * X-Men
 * The Terminator
 * Terminator 2
 * Transformers
 * Mario Is Missing! (and Mario's Time Machine)
 * Plumbers Don't Wear Ties
 * Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle
 * Super Pitfall
 * Godzilla
 * Waynes World
 * Castlevania Part 1 (Castlevania)
 * Castlevania Part 2 (Castlevania II: Simon's Quest and Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse)
 * Castlevania Part 3 (Super Castlevania IV, Castlevania: Dracula X, and Castlevania 64)
 * Castlevania Part 4 (Castlevania Bloodlines and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night)
 * Little Red Hood
 * Winter Games

 2010 
 * Street Fighter 2010
 * Hydlide
 * Ninja Gaiden
 * Swordquest
 * Pong Consoles
 * Action 52
 * Cheetahmen
 * Game Glitches
 * Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
 * Nintendo Days Re-Revisited + Back to The Future Trilogy (includes re-reviews of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Top Gun, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?)
 * Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde re-review
 * Lester the Unlikely
 * Holiday Memories
 * Christmas Special 2010 (How The Nerd Stole Christmas)

 2011 
 * Day Dreamin' Davey
 * Star Wars
 * Star Wars: The Arcade Game
 * Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back on Atari 2600
 * Return of the Jedi: Death Star Battle
 * Star Wars: Jedi Arena
 * Star Wars on Famicom
 * Star Wars
 * Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
 * Super Star Wars
 * Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
 * Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi
 * Star Wars Expanded Universe: Shadows of the Empire
 * ROB The Robot
 * Spielberg Games (includes reviews of Jaws, Hook, and some Jurassic Park games)
 * The Making of The Angry Video Game Nerd (includes a review of the video game adaptation of Barbie)
 * Ninja Baseball Bat Man
 * Kid Kool
 * Nintendo World Championships
 * Dark Castle on Sega Genesis and Phillips CD-i
 * Contra Memories
 * Bible Games 3
 * King James Bible
 * Adam & Eve
 * Spiritual Warfare on Sega Genesis
 * Exodus: Journey to the Promised Land on Sega Genesis
 * Joshua on Sega Genesis
 * Bible Adventures on Sega Genesis
 * Flight to Egypt

 2012 
 * Sonic the Hedgehog Memories
 * Double Dragon Memories

A-D
"Nerd: Now, I know we mainly focused on the shitty aspects, but lemme tell ya: That's the name of the game."
 * Abusive Uncle: Uncle Crunch/Paw in The Wizard of Oz 3.
 * Accentuate the Negative: Played straight. Many viewers forget that he deliberately accentuated the negative in his review of Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, as pointed out on Cinemassacre's FAQ, because it was meant to be a caricature of easily-angered gamers.
 * Played straight up with Ninja Gaiden. However, the review was done this way not to emphasize how bad of a game it was, but rather how hard and challenging it was. He did the same thing with Zelda II the Adventure of Link.
 * And when he reviewed Street Fighter 2010 he stated that if you get past it having nothing to do with any other part of the Street Fighter series, limited controls, and an impossibly difficult last stage, it's actually a pretty decent game. He tends to point this out a lot, playing the trope straight.
 * Note that The Nerd doesn't always do this. He generally gives quite a lot of slack to So Okay It's Average or So Bad It's Good games, more than most Caustic Critics would, and he occasionally does whole episodes on games he loves like Castlevania and homages like Swordquest. He will also often include games that appear in the same series as the real bad ones, and often they get some praise. This is both for completion and comparison, since often it will serve to let you know there is no excuse for the company that made it. Examples include his Godzilla review and Back to The Future re-review.
 * The Nerd unwittingly tempts fate with regard to this while the Joker is forcing him to play Batman: Return of the Joker. After complaining about the game at length, the Nerd comments that it's actually a decent game overall, just an excessively hard one. So the Joker decides to make him play the much worse Game Boy and Genesis adaptations of the game, driving the Nerd over the edge.
 * There are also instances where he is obviously looking for something to make fun of.
 * Flat out stated in his Colecovision review:

"James Rolfe: It’s funny how people usually see videos on YouTube and take them at face value. The same people probably believe that I go around in real life, wearing a white pressed shirt, stuffed with pens in the pocket, and saying “fuck” all the time and talking about buffaloes taking diarrhea dumps."
 * Actor-Role Confusion: Some fans seem to believe that the Nerd and his creator James Rolfe are supposed to be the same person, when the Nerd is just a character and James is an actor.

"If all you had to do was whip the walls when you were hungry and...if this wall would break, and... if there was a fuckin' pork chop in this wall, I would SO eat it!"
 * Actually Pretty Funny: In his review of Ricky 1, you can hear him holding back laughter when he mentions the scene that parodies The Godfather is the closest the film comes to being funny. He was also amused by the Mr. Smithers ghost in Bart vs. The World.
 * Despite talking about how much he hates the "Help, I'm a turtle and I can't get up!" line in the third Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, the Nerd has a hard time controlling his laughter.
 * "I mean, come on! It's not funny!" *laughs* "Okay, I'm back!"
 * During the "Daydreamin' Davey" review, he laughs at the "vultures shitting exploding bloody diarrhea" in the Western level.
 * Alliteration: Often.
 * On Winter Games: "This is a blizzard of balls!"
 * During his Star Trek review: "You're relieved to finally start walking around and doing stuff, but only then do you realize how astronomically ass this game is!"
 * The Game Graphic Glitch Gremlin
 * Adjusting Your Glasses: In the Action 52 episode, the Nerd does this by the bridge, just after he takes out a calculator from his front pocket to determine the price that each of the 52 games would have if sold separately. The whole gesture actually makes him look, well, more nerdy.
 * Agony of the Feet: The Atari 5200 episode.
 * A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The Nerd is convinced that the Atari Jaguar CD is sentient, and purposefully preventing you from playing it.
 * Aluminum Christmas Trees: In one episode, the Nerd jokingly suggests the idea of a Lethal Weapon game where Riggs's powerups are dog biscuits. This really does happen in the Super Nintendo game based on the movies.
 * Ancient Grome: The Nerd's review of the NES game Day Dreamin' Davey has him keep mislabeling a few stages of Ancient Greece as "Ancient Rome", even though they show Hades' lair and Mt. Olympus.
 * Angrish: A staple of his reviews. Notably, Part I of his Castlevania marathon has him devolve into it mid-sentence just talking to the camera.

"HUMBUG! BAH agabaggablughraghablugga-- HELL!!"
 * James' tantrum during the Scrooge special.

"AVGN:"It sucking fucks, it fucking sucks, it fucking blows, it's a piece of shit... and I don't like it.""
 * Anti-Hero: The Nerd is generally pleasant to most people until they turn out to be less than wholesome themselves, refrains from killing a defeated Klingon and has fought against Satan with Jesus on multiple occasions. Then again, he is a coarse, foul mouthed rage-a-holic who brutally beat up and decapitated Bugs Bunny (Though he certainly had it coming) roughly making him a Type III.
 * Applied Mathematics: Chronologically Confused features the Nerd in front of a board filled with nonsensical equations and formulae, including at points a Triforce and a drawing of Mario.
 * Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: He LOVES this trope.
 * On the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles NES game:

"This game is a chicken-lickin'-finger-fuckin' son of a bitch! This game is BALL CIDER! The assholians bow down to this piece of shit! In other words, the game sucks."
 * He says something similar when talking about the radar in the Independence Day episode... "It's too small, it makes no fuckin' sense, and... I don't like it."
 * From the Deadly Towers review:

""Now you're playing with power." (Pause) Now you're playing with fuckin' shit! You're better off fuckin' shit than fuckin' with this fucked up shit! Fuck this shit! You don't know shit about how fuckin' shitty this fuckin' shit is! It's so bad it sucks! It's so fuckin' suck it fucks! And I...can't take it anymore."
 * Here is the biggest Cluster F-Bomb in the whole series, in the Power Glove review:

""Fuck! Ass! Bitch! Cunt! Fart!""
 * Another one, from Superman 64 when he fails to complete a stage in time:

""SHIT! BITCH! CUNT! FUCK! FART!""
 * Before that, there was also the NES Accessories episode in which he shouts "FUCK!" in place of the word "FIRE!" with the Konami Laserscope, and he also thinks he can say anything besides "FUCK!", like for example "ASS!":

""It's a bunch of putrid anal shit coming out of a rhinoceros's asshole. It fucks up the ass, shits out the mouth, piss out the mouth, dookie out the ears, diarrhea out the dick, shits for the birds. The control for this game is poo-poo"."
 * Another much more subtle example appears at the end of his Rocky review, where, unlike many of his rants where he states what disgusting things he would rather do than play that particular game, he merely says "I'd rather eat raw eggs".
 * Actually, he does say "I'd rather take a bath in elephant feces" before the 'raw eggs' remark.
 * Also in the Rocky review:

""It's time for the enemy roll call: We have green rotary dial telephones, Silver Surfers in flying wheelchairs, Silver Surfers air-guitaring, John McClane from Die Hard, The Grim Reaper throwing skulls, Frankenstein monsters wearing metal masks with visors like Geordi from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and bubbles.""
 * His obscure enemy roll call for Wolverine (NES).

"James Rolfe: "As you can see, I have plenty of Nerd shirts because they get fucked up all the time. Bloodstains, shit-stains, missing buttons.""
 * In the "Making Of" video, James remarks that he has a lot of AVGN shirts, and why.

"AVGN:"Oh, okay. That's way better"."
 * Art Evolution: Mike Matei's title cards. Pointed out in the episode in which the Nerd re-visit his earliest videos, he comments on how even the title card from the Top Gun episode was crappy, just to have it replaced in that moment with a dramatically better one.

"AVGN: Ooh I'm going to hell."
 * Ass Shove: The Bat-Nerd does it to the Joker, with all the Batman games reviewed. (Except the Good one.)
 * "Ass" the Good Book Says: In "Bible Games 3", when the Nerd types out the word "ass" in the Game Boy's The King James Version, and the results got in a list of passages with the word "ass", the following passages he reads are:
 * Genesis 44:13;
 * Luke 13:15;
 * 1 Samuel 12:3;
 * Exodus 22:9;
 * Luke 14:5;
 * John 12:14;
 * 2 Peter 2:16;
 * Numbers 22:21;
 * Genesis 42:27;
 * 1 Kings 13:28;
 * and Numbers 22:22.

"Nerd: ...Whenever you access a new part of the game, it says "Hold On". Hold on for what? It has to fucking load?!"
 * Atomic F-Bomb: The sheer intensity of the way he screams "FUUUUCK!" after seeing and playing the Godzilla games that he always wanted to play as a child, but which were released after his video game-playing prime had passed, is almost scary; it helps that the famous Godzilla roar was mixed into the scream.
 * Another one was when he ordered a custom Atari 5200 controller when he couldn't use the originals, only to discover it wouldn't fit in the controller ports.
 * Audio Erotica: In his NES Days Re-Revisited episode, the Nerd decides to call the phone number in the Who Framed Roger Rabbit game, only to find that what used to be a recorded message giving tips for the game is now a sex hotline. Audio Erotica indeed.
 * Author Appeal: It sure seems like The Nerd has an odd obsession with animal diarrhea...
 * James Rolfe loves horror movies and this fact is clearly evident in the extra work he puts into Halloween-themed AVGN episodes and Cinemassacre updates.
 * Awesome Yet Practical: "It's a Nintoaster, and yes it works!"
 * Be Careful What You Wish For: The 100th episode starts with the Nerd monologuing about how he have come to hate videogames thanks to shitty games, and how he wished humanity wouldn't have invented them in the first place.
 * Berserk Button: This is what he's known for!
 * Excessively long passwords, and using any other key besides A to jump are his two main ones.
 * Games without the pause features, such as Ghostbusters 2 on NES.
 * Seeing the LJN logo on a game cartridge has also caused him to snap.
 * Goddamned Bats!
 * The Medusa Heads in Castlevania have reportedly given him a pathological hatred of wavy lines.
 * Movie sequels that don't follow a logical numbering system.
 * Games with NO CONTINUES!?!? after you die. Turned Up to Eleven if the game combines this with One-Hit Kill or only having one life throughout the entire game.
 * Game cartridges with no end labels.
 * In Batman Part I, when he explains the utterly ridiculous controls of Batman Forever, which was designed with the Mortal Kombat engine. He actually seems to have strained his voice by the end of the review.
 * AC adapters with built-in prongs (which tend to preclude the usage of the two adjacent sockets) also greatly annoy him, as seen in the Sega 32X and Dracula reviews. Related to this, ancient consoles which force the player to make use of an RF connector box for television hookups as opposed to just plugging a cable into a much simpler coaxial converter.
 * Loading times. His annoyance with them is most pronounced in the Superman (Commodore) and Zelda's Adventure reviews.
 * Also seen in the Batman Forever review, which ironically was a cartridge game.

"AVGN: ...I got more... You're a poopy-head!"
 * Overly cryptic puzzles, such as in Milon's Secret Castle.
 * Beware the Nice Ones: The Nerd ends up  That said,   is probably only just 'nicer' than the Nerd in the video itself.
 * Big Stupid Doodoo Head: Despite his generous use of swear words and scatological similes, he sometimes ends up using these instead.

"AVGN: I mean, if you have to answer the phone, or take a shit, it's like, "Tough shit if you gotta take a shit!" You gotta take a quick shit! You gotta have turbo turds! I'm trying to play the game, I've got shit stains in my pants, and an answering machine that says "Sorry, I'm playing Ghostbusters 2 on Nintendo." What a selfish game. Bottom line, have a fucking pause button, god damn it!"
 * Bile Fascination: It's Lampshaded early on that the Nerd subjecting himself to horrible games is entirely a torment of his own making, but after the Christmas Carol parody episode, he decides that he can't handle only playing good games and goes right back to bad ones.
 * And in the R.O.B. episode, after he gets beaten to within an inch of his life and R.O.B. is in the process of destroying all games except the two it was programmed for, instead of thinking about the good games he's played, he flashes back to all the horrible piles of digital crap he'd reviewed, gathers his Heroic Resolve, and shouts, "I! WON'T! FUCKING! HAVE IT!"
 * Bladder of Steel: Discussed in his review of the NES version of Ghostbusters II:

""Man, these translations suck. Couldn't they just get anyone to proofread this shitload of fuck?""
 * Blind Idiot Translation: The AVGN lampshades this in his review of the NES version of Metal Gear:

"AVGN: "Whoever came up with this is an ass]!... Ass!... Hole?... Ass[bleep]! Television makes a lot of sense.""
 * Body Horror/Uncanny Valley: The thoroughly glitched boxers on Rocky for PlayStation 2 were either FUCKING SCARY or funny as hell.
 * Booze Flamethrower: At the end of the Rambo episode.
 * Born in the Wrong Century: After seeing the newer Godzilla games, the AVGN laments that he was born too early and instead had to grow up with the games he had just previously reviewed.
 * Bound and Gagged: Every now and then.
 * Bowdlerise: Spoofed in the Action 52 review's "TV Version" clip:

"AVGN: We have a sequel to the original, a PREQUEL to the original, a sequel to the prequel, a PREQUEL to the prequel, and a SEQUEL to the young Link of the prequel's prequel! WHAT THE FUCK?!?"
 * In the crossover episode with Captain S, the Nerd foul language gets toned down to fit with the G-rated, Saturday morning cartoon feeling of the show. It gets lampshaded at the end when all the characters get scandalized when he says "Merry ] Christmas!"
 * Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: In the Chronologically Confused Zelda Timeline:

"AVGN: That would be like the Easter Eggs were full of diarrhea and the Easter Bunny was shitting all over your face... but I had enough with bunnies and shit lately..."
 * Breaking the Fourth Wall: He offers the controller to the viewer in his Dragon's Lair review.
 * In his Nintendo Days Revisited review, the Nerd plays Top Gun again. It appears as if he is about to actually land the plane, but instead the plane flies out of the TV and out the window.
 * Long before that, he finally landed the plane with the Power Glove.
 * In the same vein as the Top Gun plane exiting the TV, in his Star Wars review, the boss's life bar in one of the Super Star Wars games is so long that it exits the TV and keeps expanding.
 * Breaking the Reviewer's Wall: Sometimes he gets into fights with characters from the games, and in a few rare occasions, enters the game he's reviewing.
 * Brick Joke:
 * The mail on his Street Fighter 2010 review.
 * Leatherface and the bicycle in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre review.
 * Mentions of "the Poopie Man" in the Halloween review.
 * Broke the Rating Scale: He coins the world's strongest expletive just to describe a set of games. It's so strong that both the audio track and his mouth are censored. Consider what does get through and...
 * Call Back:
 * In the Pitfall episode there's an small call back to The Crazy Castle episode:

"AVGN: Moving on to Mario 3, The Glitch Gremlin usually stays away from this one. Yeah, it's a little too crowded with demonic possessions."
 * There's a Call Back to the Super Mario Bros. 3/The Wizard episode in the Game Glitches episode:

"Nerd as Driver(on cellphone): Hey, I'm stoppin' at Dunkin Donuts, you want me to pick up a coffee? What's that? Oh, just some fuckin' T-Rex behind me. Yeah, what an asshole."
 * In the out takes of the Nintendo World Championship episode, Pat mocks the Nerd about how he's a better gamer than him, making reference to many of the Nerd's failures from past episodes, including his inability to land the plane in Top Gun.
 * From his Star Wars games review: "And what's this? The program engineer shows his face? I wish it was Fred Fuchs!" (referencing his "Bram Stoker's Dracula" review)
 * And before that, he mentions Fred Fuchs in his review of Winter Games: "Who programmed this thing?? Maybe it was Fred Fuchs!"
 * In his second "Bible Games" review, the Nerd ends the review by looking at BIBLE GAMES... on CD-i! Much later, in his Dark Castle review, he ended the review the same way.
 * In the same episode, the Nerd sarcastically utters that the cartoonish dragon seen in the Genesis version of Dark Castle will give him nightmares, likely a reference to James Rolfe's own short autobiographical film The Dragon in my Dreams.
 * In his re-visit of the Back to the Future game, he said he was experiencing deja vu because he stuck the game cartridge in the Nintoaster. In his first Back to the Future review, he stuck the cartridge in an actual toaster.
 * The Nerd has tried to land the plane in Top Gun four times: Initially in his Top Gun review, again in his Power Glove review (ironically, the only time he landed it successfully), again in the NES Accessories video when he used the U-Force. And finally, he revisited the game during his Back to the Future re-review, and once again tried to land the plane. This time, the plane exited his TV and flew out of the basement.
 * In his Silver Surfer review, the Nerd says that just thinking about the game makes him feel like having an anal evacuation. He says the same thing about the Power Pad in his NES Accessories review.
 * In his McKids review, he comments that the character can walk on water. Then he asks, "Who does he think he is: Jesus Christ?" He asks the same thing in his Rambo review.
 * In his review of the Independence Day video game, he thought that he should be doing something better with his time than playing the game, such as playing with dog turds. Later, when he reviewed Ricky 1, he complained about being harassed by The Nostalgia Critic, and asks, "Don't you think I have enough videos to make?! That I have nothing better to do than, y'know, play with dog turds?"
 * The Cameo: Shit Pickle turned up due to his similarity to the enemies in Action 52 's "Ooze".
 * Richard Daluz, creator of James' "Nintoaster", appears in voiceover in the Atari Jaguar video, discussing his attempts to fix the Jaguar CD that James had sent him.
 * The AVGN has a small cameo in the Cinevore's music video parody Piece of Meat
 * Captain Ersatz: The Loony Fan from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre review is based on Chop-Top from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.
 * The man who sells him the games is based on Alfredo (the gas station owner) from Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, and even sings the same song at one point.
 * Captain Obvious: When criticizing the Virtual Boy's size for a portable system, he remarks, "My ass is portable!"
 * Casual Danger Dialog: When looking at the Jurassic Park game for the C Di, he notices that the mini-game where you're being chased by a T-Rex doesn't show any hands on the steering wheel. He guesses that the driver either has their hand on the bottom of the wheel or is steering with their knee, and then goes on to note that the driver must be pretty casual about the situation to steer like that, and imagines them doing this on a cell phone at the same time.

""What were they THINKING?!" "I am DEAD. FUCKING. SERIOUS." "What a shit load of fuck." "Let's pop this fucker in!" "Let's play some shitty games!" "I would rather (do something involving animal shit) than play this game!" "What a piece of shit!" "What a joke!" "ASS!" "Fuck. Fuck! FUCK! FUUUUUUUUUUCK!" as seen here and here."
 * Catch Phrase:

""I just shot down a duck, by saying fuck.""
 * Super Mecha Death Christ: FUCKERS!!!!!!
 * Bullshit Man: "You know what's bullshit?" Of course eventually followed up with: "That's bullshit!"
 * Caustic Critic: Note that this is very much just the Nerd's exaggerated persona - when James Rolfe reviews media as himself, he's actually more generous than most Internet critics. He is apparently rather soft spoken, which comes as a shock to people used to him as the AVGN. Contrast with The Happy Video Game Nerd, who inverts James' concept and even has gotten James' seal of approval—by subscribing to Happy's YouTube account.
 * Taken Up to Eleven in his review of Ghostbusters for the Sega Genesis, when he declares that the world is coming to an end due to him liking the game.
 * You'll also notice that a lot of his videos where he tries to be more informative have him be more...well, out-of-character.
 * The Chew Toy: Half the fun is simply watching the Nerd suffer and become increasingly unhinged over the course of the video.
 * Chirping Crickets: In the Action 52 episode, when he tries to play Alfred and the Fettuc (for the second time) the game never loads and the Nerd is left only with a dark screen and the sound of crickets.
 * Christmas Episode: "Bible Games" (2006), "An Angry Nerd Christmas Carol", "Bible Games" (2008), "Winter Games", and "How the Nerd Stole Christmas".
 * Clip Show: Part of the December 2010 episode is a recap of all the previous Christmastime episodes.
 * Cloning Blues: None of them want to play Nightmare On Elm Street with him. Though you can hardly blame them.
 * The Nerdy Turd is cloned from the Nerd's feces.
 * Cluster F-Bomb: Doesn't even begin to describe him.
 * In the third CD-i segment, he literally drops some F-Bombs - as in Zelda-esque bombs with "F" imprinted on them - (as he described it), while shouting... "FUCK!" for each bomb.
 * Also, after his Laughing Mad sequence for Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon, he flips off both middle fingers and clucks like the Cluster F-Bomb Chicken.
 * There's his exploration of various NES accessories, one of which was a headset Zapper with voice activation. He then found out that he didn't have to shout "Fire!" to make it shoot. Hilarity Ensues as he goes on into a literal Precision F-Strike.

""Oh eff--I mean fuck!""
 * Parodied with a line in his Dracula video.

""Purple for "Putrid Gameplay", Blue for "Bad Musical Abominations", Green for "Graphical Farts and Garlic", Yellow for "Piss-Poor Lack of Loyalty to Source Material", Orange for "Orange you a fucking idiot!", and Red for "High-stress Anger-Inducing Masochism"! Put that all together, and you have all the colors of the shit-rainbow! Hooray LJN.""
 * Color Coded for Your Convenience:

"AVGN: "Yeah! That's the REAL Jaguar!""
 * Fun with Acronyms: Or, if you prefer, Laughing Joking Numbnuts.
 * Cool and Unusual Punishment: Instead of an ironically cruel death, Freddy Kreuger forces the Nerd to play his NES game. (Though Freddy did try to kill him when he took a shit on the cartridge.)
 * Cool Pet: Boo/Death Kitty, his pet black cat. Just see the Atari Jaguar review.

"AVGN: The game cheats. That's all there is to it. The game fucking cheats."
 * Compilation Rerelease: The first two episodes were re-released as "Bad NES Games" together with various other shorts in the "Shorts" tape of the "Cinemassacre Gold Collection".
 * Complaining about Games You Don't Like: Pretty much the whole point of his videos.
 * Even more so in another of Rolfe's series, You Know What's Bullshit, though there it's more "Complaining About Pet Peeves", such as shoelaces, the post office not having much pens and pennies, which actually made the news.
 * The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: No surprise this happens a lot since a great part of the games he reviews are full of terrible Fake Difficulty.

"Nerd: The rest of the street stages are all the same, except they change the color. No effort. Time is money. Don't design another stage; just change the color, and kids will think it's different. Do they think we're idiots?"
 * Continuity Nod: The Nerd mentions "Fred Fuchs" from his Dracula review in his Winter Games review.
 * When the couch gets destroyed in the Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle review, the Guitar Guy comes out from under the wreckage. He's been there apparently since the beginning of the series, though you only learn about this in the Battletoads review.
 * Cosmic Retcon: The Y2K bug caused the events of his earlier "Wizard of Oz 3" video to be wiped from existence. This is referenced in The History Of Super Mecha Death Christ.
 * Covers Always Lie:
 * In his Little Red Hood review, he points out that even though the title character is shown kicking a Mooks on the cover, you cannot kick your enemies in the game.
 * In the Cheetahmen review's opening theme song movie, The Nerd plays the SNES game Phalanx, a space shooter. He then looks closely at the cover of the game, which has an old southern man with a banjo. He looks to the camera, confused. (Yes, this is real; the publishers did this hoping it would grab people's attention).
 * Cover Version: His Nintendo Power review features Kyle Justin performing a cover of the Nintendo Power jingle and the beginning of his "Double Vision" (ColecoVision & Intellivision) review, Kyle does a cover of Foreigner's "Double Vision." The Angry Video Game Nerd's theme has also been covered and remixed by fans of the series countless times in nearly every single genre of music.
 * Creator Thumbprint:
 * Rolfe is a huge fan of the horror genre, and it shows in his annual Halloween specials, dedicating daily updates on his Cinemassacre site to surprisingly thorough horror movie history.
 * He's also a fan of the Godzilla films as well.
 * His Castlevania marathon has him start by mentioning it as one of his favorite franchises.
 * Crossover: With That Guy With The Glasses. Repeatedly. And every instance of it is epic.
 * With Captain S, in a Christmas special of said series.
 * With Pat the NES Punk, for a review of the ultra-rare NES World Championship cartridge.
 * Cross-Popping Veins: In his logo. The shape also suggests a game controller's directional pad.
 * Crucified Hero Shot: James lying bloodied and charred from his fight with R.O.B. --With the trademark white shirt, of course.
 * Cultured Badass: For a guy who spends all day playing old video games and swearing like a sailor he has a surprisingly in-depth knowledge of Scottish folklore, recounting the meeting of St. Columba and the Loch Ness monster in the history of Super Mecha Death Christ. Though in his version the monster was Satan and Death Christ drove him off.
 * Curb Stomp Battle: Both of the fights between the Nerd and Bugs Bunny. Bugs is the first to get his ass kicked, but he later comes back in the Crazy Castle review to exact his rabbit revenge.
 * Curse Cut Short: From the Jaws section of his Spielberg movie games review: "Smile, you son of a- Mmmmm!"
 * Cut and Paste Environments: A major complaint he has in his review of Action 52, in which he gets annoyed very quickly at the quantity of Space Shooters which are basically the same. Reaches the level of "Why Did It Have to Be Snakes? Space?"
 * Also shows up in his re-review of Back to The Future (NES).

"Nerd: They just cut out the logo with cheap paper and they glued it on...with glue."
 * Cute Kitten: His black cat Boo, a.k.a. "Death Kitty" has made a few appearances:
 * In the second part of the Atari Jaguar episode, the Nerd is attacked by the Atari Jaguar logo. He thus summons Death Kitty to fight it, and proves quite Badass.
 * In the NES accessories episode, it plays with the screen for a few seconds, as well as defacing the Power Pad when the Nerd references what pets can do to it. The Nerd also attempts to use him to control the Roll'n Rocker, only for Boo to walk off it 5 seconds later.
 * AVGN turns into Boo at the end of his Moonwalker review.
 * His white cat, Little Yeti, is used to torture the Nostalgia Critic into submission in the Final Battle behind-the-scenes.
 * Dark Reprise: A low-tempo version of the AVGN theme plays us into his 100th review. It reflects the Nerd's increasing disillusionment with his once-beloved NES games.
 * The Danza: The Nerd's first name is James according to the Winter Games video.
 * A Day in the Limelight: The episode in which "the guitar guy" (Kyle Justin) who sings the Nerd's Theme Song helps review Battletoads.
 * Decision Darts: The 100th Episode (R.O.B.) reveals that the Nerd takes a pen out of his pocket protector and randomly hurls it at his wall of games to determine his next review.
 * Defictionalization: There are a couple of episodes in which he casually mentions names of fake ridiculous games, this has caused some fans to actually google those games causing some curious results:
 * In his review of Shaq Fu, he mentions Full House Tournament Fighter. Later, someone on YouTube submmited the supposely intro of the game, and recently he even submmited a whole battle between Uncle Jesse and Joey.
 * In the review of Kid Kool, he mentions the game "Doctor Claw's Dump and Pump", there are already a couple of fake YouTube videos claiming to be the intro of the game to mislead the people that actually try to Google it.
 * Deliberately Monochrome: Fester's Quest, apart from the game footage.
 * Department of Redundancy Department

"Nerd: And you know what pisses me off? Every time you fall down, you have to walk through the entire room all over again. All the enemies come back, so you have to fight everybody all over again."
 * In his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles review:

""Once upon a time, there was a girl named Little Red Riding Hood. She liked to jump in the air and whistle out her vagina. She kicked at trees until Big Bird's ballsack would appear. --what, that's not the story?""
 * Derailed Fairy Tale: Red Riding Hood has an interesting take on the children's classic.

"Obi Wan: Luke, choose the force! Nerd: Get it? Instead of "use the force", it's "choose the force", that's clever."
 * Deus Ex Machina: Literal case during his battle with The Nostalgia Critic. The Critic begins channeling the power of Satan, and the Nerd is helpless, until Super Mecha Death Christ 2000 4.0 Beta shows up.
 * Disproportionate Retribution: In his revisit of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Nerd (who himself has been transformed into Hyde) is so pissed off by the game that he goes and digs up the grave of Robert Louis Stevenson.
 * It then gets subverted when Stevenson's skeleton rises up and says 'Fuck you!' to the Nerd and foils his revenge. May count as a Funny Moments for some.
 * The Dog Shot First: Mercilessly mocked in the intro to Nintendo Days Revisited. "Jason Voorhees shot first".
 * Don't Explain the Joke: In his "Star Wars" review:


 * Double Standard: In his Atari Porn review, the Nerd calls a woman who bangs a lot of guys a "whore", while he calls a guy who bangs a lot of women a "stud".
 * Double Take: Mistakingly beating Zelda II by wearing the Power Glove on his hand.
 * Downer Ending: In his Ninja Gaiden review, he and his ninja mentor ultimately give up trying to defeat the Final Boss.
 * Driven to Suicide: Following the Dracula reviews, the Angry Vampire Game Nerd begs the sun to "vanquish" him.
 * Duck Season! Rabbit Season!: Done in the review of The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle 2.
 * Duct Tape for Everything: The Nerd deals with the Virtual Boy's unwieldy design by duct-taping it to his head.
 * Dude, Where's My Reward?: At the end of the Captain S crossover, the Nerd merrily announces "Merry [bleep] Christmas!", shocking everybody with his language, he ends up being sent back to his home and receives the Home Alone 2 cartridge from Santa Claus as a punishment for being foul-mouthed, ignoring the fact that the Nerd just helped Captain S to save him and Christmas from the Game Genie. In the Christmas Carol episode, it turns out receiving that game was the last straw that caused the Nerd go Scrooge. Nice Job, Santa.

E-H
"Angry Video Game Nerd: This game sucks."
 * Easter Egg: You can sync the episode of the review of the Wizard of Oz SNES game with Pink Floyd'sDark Side of the Moon album. Done in purpose as a reference to the urban legend that the Wizard of Oz movie could be synced to the album.
 * Edutainment Show: His reviews actually fall into this category, when you think about it. You may learn something you never knew about an old console or game, while being entertained at the same time.
 * Many of his more recent episodes (2010 and beyond normally) were a little more like a documentary.
 * Enemy Mine: He has joined forces with The Nostalgia Critic to review The Making of TMNT: Coming Out Of Their Shells as they both are Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fans. Sure, they technically became allies at the TGWTG Brawl, but still...
 * Enforced Method Acting: Several times, those are genuine reactions, and sometimes James thinks they were so good that they're worth putting into the final take. Gameplaywise, he shows that he's actually playing the game and that he wasn't staging them. If it's a new game he's never played before (Namely Dragon's Lair), some of those are his actual thoughts.
 * Subverted in a couple of his early videos. He admits in his 'Making an AVGN episode' documentary that in his Karate Kid video he was intentionally walking into the enemies.
 * Episode Title Card: All drawn by Mike Matei, and all featuring a caricature of the Nerd.
 * Establishing Character Moment: His very first words:

"Nerd: You would rather listen to your own infant child puking to death. That is, choking on his own puke chunks...That's disgusting, I apologize."
 * Even Angry Nerds Love Their Mamas: In the Super Mario Bros.. 3 review, it's not the SHIT PUKE that pissed the Nerd off about the possessed cartridge in the first place. It's the line "Your mother sucks cocks in Hell!"
 * Even Vulgarity Has Standards: During the Bible Games episode, the nerd shows us one of his limits (though he had said the first sentence straight in an earlier review, so he was probably trying to make up for that).

""To play the game, you need the Game Boy. Here's the game, that's the boy, this is the Game Boy.""
 * He also apologizes for something he says in his Indiana Jones review. "I'd rather drink buffalo shizz! That's a combination of shit and jizz. Yeah, that's foul. I apologize."
 * He also draws the line when it comes to animals. In Cheetahmen, he was horrified to see a dag get ran over when he was playing Action 52 for the Sega Genesis and demanded to know why would "dead cats" be in the game.
 * Every Episode Ending: Not all of them, but it often involves destroying the cartridge of the game reviewed.
 * Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: In-Universe: Parodied at the end of his Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde review remake.
 * Exactly What It Says on the Tin: He is a nerd, he often gets angry, the show is about video games.

"Ballz is an aptly-named travesty on SNES That makes no sense and is a cockamamie butt-brained mess!"
 * Shit Pickle. He's a pickle, and he's got a big (well, relative to his size) dollop of shit on his head.
 * Also the Nerdy Turd, a large turd with the Nerd's face on it. Created for the Magnavox Odyssey review. The only sound it makes is fart noises.
 * "Hey, you like my new invention? I call it the "Gyromite Controller". ..It plays Gyromite."
 * The Nerd lampshades this in "How the Nerd Stole Christmas":

""And I am dead fucking serious. Dead. Fucking. Serious." *breaks into laughter as video cuts away*"
 * Expository Theme Tune
 * Eye Scream: When confronted by Michael Myers, the Nerd jabs the joysticks of a pair of Atari controllers through the eye holes of his mask, evidently to little effect.
 * The Faceless: Mike Matei, who always wears some form of costume or makeup.
 * Freddy Kreuger's face is covered by shadow or obscured otherwise in the Nightmare on Elm Street episode.
 * Initially the Bullshit Man, until The Reveal that he's...ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin.
 * Face Palm: The Nerd can't help but do this during Plumbers Don't Wear Ties and during his Dracula review.
 * Fake Crossover: The crossover with The New Adventures of Captain S.
 * Fake Difficulty: The biggest reason why the games the Nerd reviews suck.
 * Fate Worse Than Death: To the nerd, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is this trope incarnate. Out of a six and a half minute video, exactly one minute and 12 seconds is actually spent playing; the remaining time has the Nerd going on about how horrible it is, chugging back his beer several times, and essentially begging not to have to play it or that the viewer not play it. And it really is that bad.
 * Another time, when Jason Voorhees is forcing him to play the Friday the 13 th NES game and say good things about it, the Nerd at one point gets caught badmouthing it and runs away before Jason pins him in a corner. At first, he pleads for his life...then Jason takes out the cartridge, and the Nerd begs to be killed instead.
 * Fight Scene Failure: Intentionally used in the Star Trek review, where a shot show him jump-kicking a wall for no reason, which Kirk actually did once.

"AVGN: There's dogs applauding!! I didn't even know that dogs were fucking watching!! AVGN: Bu... th... uh... wha... A fucking chicken mask?! ...An UPSIDE DOWN FUCKING CHICKEN MASK! AVGN: WHY IS IT NOW JUST A HEAD OF A PANDA?!"
 * Fire and Brimstone Hell: Seen in the "Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle" review.
 * Fire-Forged Friends: The Nerd and Captain S in the crossover Christmas special.
 * Flanderization: Kinda. His earlier reviews (back before his Screwattack partnership) had him act much calmer, with some swear words popped in at times. Now he swears much more often, and he's more over the top angry. Beer drinking was also a one-time action in his Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde review, now being a staple of his series.
 * Another way to put it is that before, he was simply an "Angry Video Game Nerd" who became angry at the constant suckage of the games he played. Now, he's an insane muthafucka. Compare his Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde reviews.
 * Flashback Cut: Demonstrated in his Rambo review when he briefly flashed back to a satirical remark he made in his Chronologically Confused video about what the next Rambo movie might be called.
 * Flipping the Bird
 * Follow the Leader: Inspired a glut of profanity-filled internet video game reviews, with The Irate Gamer being among the most prominent.
 * He also has some imitators in other countries, like Le Joueur Du Grenier ("The Attic Gamer") in France.
 * Foreshadowing: The Nerd mentions Richard Daluz's Nintoaster in passing during his review of the Atari Jaguar CD. It is the console he plays Action52 on in THAT video.
 * Also overlaps with Brick Joke:  This overlap was lampshaded.
 * In the Making Of special, when James demonstrates how he has hooked up so many consoles to a single TV, he uses the CD-I as the example and shows us how he activates it, but adds "I don't know why I'd ever want to play CD-I again." Guess what console he uses in the Dark Castle review?
 * Fountain of Expies: He got a lot of them!
 * Frankenstein's Monster: The "Franken-Nerd".
 * Freak-Out: The Nerd goes completely fucking loco at the end of the Dick Tracy review. He starts screaming about the Nintendo Hard aspect of the game, coming closer and closer to the screen, screams, starts drinking beer like crazy (wetting his clothes in the process), starts shouting muffled nonsense while pushing his face into a pillow, a brief montage of him screaming "FUCK" in various parts of his house follows, and even then, he pierces the cartridge with a drill. Then he looks at the cartridge, spinning because he wasn't holding it and it was still on the drill, with a demented stare, at that, and the screen finally cuts to black as he destroys it with his hammer. While the cartridge is spinning.
 * It's been noted the sheer ire of this particular Freak-Out concerning Dick Tracy was because this was one of the few games the Nerd owns that he hasn't been able to beat for over 20 years and actually harbors sincere animosity for. Projecting real-life frustration via the Nerd persona equals one of his most batshit insane rants ever in the series.
 * Done again in his second revisit of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. After too much time playing the game (and, arguably, too much liquor), the Nerd goes on a rage-blinded mission with a cape, top hat, and a cane to dig up Robert Louis Stevenson's grave for making the book that inspired the game; after the skeleton somehow comes back to life, proclaiming it's the devil and commanding the Nerd to play the game some more, the Nerd wakes up with the game still in the toaster-turned-NES. He has an epiphany...
 * Fridge Brilliance: The Nerd has an extreme case of this himself when he revisits Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. Toward the end of the review, he begins to think it is actually a clever game, as it makes sense that Jekyll's weapon doesn't hurt people since he symbolizes good, how you get a game over when Hyde physically passes Jekyll since in that instance it would mean evil triumphs over good, and many other bits of symbolism in the game. Of course, even after realizing this stuff, he still hates the game for being awful.
 * His "evidence" for Super Mario Bros 3 being possessed had to take forever to come up with, and it's truly a spectacle of nerd theory-dom.
 * He doesn't use his 'Beat-a-Game button' on the original Ninja Gaiden, but on Ninja Gaiden 2 instead. Why? Because he never beat the first one so he wouldn't be able to use footage of the ending cutscenes.
 * Frothy Mugs of Water: Word of God says the Rolling Rock bottles are actually filled with water. Justified because James shoots the footage in the morning and doesn't want to drink alcohol that early.
 * In the 'Spiderman' episode, you can see that it is indeed water in the bottle (as Spidey tips it away claiming it to be 'corporate bullshit' and 'Shit Rock'), although this might be purely because of the nature of this shot; who the hell would actually tip perfectly good beer away like that?
 * Funny Background Event: In the Winter Games review, the Nerd eventually goes on a rant about how the control setup is essentially frantic mashing of random buttons. He does an example of this while saying so, facing the camera and using the controller plugged into the NES behind him. Viewers looking past him during this moment will notice the figure skater in the game doing several (relatively) impressive moves; all of which the Nerd previously noted he couldn't do when he was trying.
 * Much the same happens when he tries to beat Zelda II with the Power Glove. The Nerd is busy talking about the Nintendo Hard nature of the game and the shittiness of the Power Glove while lamenting how he's never been able to beat the game. All the while behind him, Shadow Link is handily defeated by the Power Glove's random movements, something he was never able to do when he actually tried his hardest.
 * Future Loser: During the 2007 A Christmas Carol parody, the Nerd sees his future self playing various shitty Wii games and.
 * Genre Popularizer: Of the "angry video game reviewing" kind, if you're not going to call those others copycats.
 * Genre Savvy: The Nerd created a Frankenstein's Monster, but also added a way to shut it off.
 * Go Mad from the Revelation: All the time, but there are particularly plenty of examples in his Plumbers Don't Wear Ties review:

"AVGN: Home Alone in the Nintendo Entertaiment System, what a buttload of crud."
 * The Golden Age of Animation: James Rolfe is an admitted fan of vintage animation, to the point where even goes out of his way to collect the original prints of those cartoons and watch them at home with his own movie projector.
 * Good Angel, Bad Angel: Used in a few examples in his review of Super Pitfall when an angel and a devil fight over Harry's body every time an enemy kills him. Even funnier is that when Harry falls into spikes at one scene, the game would freeze up while the angel and devil are hovering for a few seconds before Harry finally "dies".
 * A Good Name for a Rock Band: "Cunt-thrust", inspired by the ladies who "restore Link's health", so to speak, in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.
 * Gosh Dang It to Heck: In the crossover with Captain S, the Nerd's foul language got humorously toned down.

""Well, I gave that a try...""
 * Grammar Nazi: James does this to the credits for the NES Ghostbusters game. Though in fairness to James, those were really obvious errors and deserved to be corrected.
 * Gratuitous German: Slips into this during his Deadly Towers video (the one where everything was written by the fans).

"Heh heh heh, it says "dumbass" in the Bible."
 * Gross-Out Show
 * Guest Fighter: Bugs Bunny, who intrudes the Nerd's reality just to kick the crap out of him.
 * The Nerd and Kyle Justin were the guest characters (...and Ma-Ti from Captain Planet and the Planeteers) that were not part of the TGWTG.com crew that appeared in the Anniversary Team Brawl.
 * Guilty Pleasures: According to his review of "The Making of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Coming Out Of Their Shells Tour," he had a cassette of the tour, which he would listen to all the time, but is ashamed to admit it.
 * He also admits to liking "TMNT 2: The Secret of the Ooze" as a guilty pleasure, despite (or perhaps because of) thinking it's cornier than the first movie.
 * The Gump: As The History of Super Mecha Death Christ reveals, Super Mecha Death Christ has had an influence in history from its first chronological appearance in 2000, where the prototype spontaneously appeared after the events of The Wizard of Oz 3: Dorothy Goes to Hell (one of James' earlier videos) and was subsequently destroyed by the cavemen, the vikings, and the Egyptosaurus. Notable appearances in history include:
 * The discovery of the prototype SMDC2K's remains in Stonehenge (where Mechahenge was built the next morning but vanished mysteriously at sunset) in 900 ;
 * The construction of Mecha Death Christ by Prince Vlad Dracula in 1476 after being haunted by visions of Death Christ (who aided St. in defeating Satan in the Loch Ness 911 years prior), which eventually went on a berserk killing spree and ultimately beheaded Dracula before heading off to whereabouts unknown;
 * The recovery of Mecha Death Christ by Nazis in 1933, its upgrade to Super Mecha Death Christ in (not to be confused with Super Megadeth Christ), and its killing of Adolf Hitler in 1944, the same year it was defeated and then recovered by the U.S. military;
 * The reconstruction out of the same parts a year later into Super Mecha Death Christ version 2, complete with new weapons, electromechanical interface, capability of flying, and voice synthesis (however, all it could do was shout out German swears);
 * The completion of version 3, which was given a test flight in 1947 in a desert near Roswell, New Mexico, where it was mistaken for a UFO;
 * The malfunction of version 4 (which was built in 1955 out of a red Chevrolet) on its first test run;
 * Version 5 (built in 1960), which, despite being capable of employing laser physics, suffered the same fate as the previous one;
 * The completion of Super Mecha Death Christ 2000 in 1962 with stealth flight, which escaped detection, and flew off to an unknown location, only to be found 40 years later washed up on the shore of Maldives Island (up until then, the U.S. military dropped the SMDC project, and instead focused on what eventually became the Nighthawk), and rebuilt in 2004 into SMDC 2000 II;
 * The discovery in 1972 by the NASA astronauts of what was presumed to be the remnants of SMDC2K, which was really the scrap metal from the SMDC2K prototype. They subsequently flew it back to Earth for testing;
 * The creation of Super Mecha Death Christ 2000 from the prototype in 1981, with laser, grenade, and machine gun cannons, and the upper body being mounted on a task for extreme combat;
 * The release of RoboCop in 1987, which ripped off the model of the protoype of the SMDC2K;
 * The completion of SMDC2K version 2.0 in 1989, with a ray gun equipped to its chest, and the ability to blast laser beams from its eyes;
 * The builiding of SMDC2K version 2.5 in 1997, which was updated with a new voice synthesis (but it could only scream in rage); it was abducted by Satan the next year, and reprogrammed for world domination;
 * The rampage of the automated robofied powertronic cyberbot Super Mecha Death Christ 2000, version 3.0 Beta (bitch) in the land of Oz under the control of Satan in 1999.
 * Its existence failure at the beginning of 2000, in which the Y2K bug caused the year 99 to 0, thus causing the space-time continuum to reset itself, which turned SMDC into Baby Christ (obviously, not an evildoer) who generated a force field that deflected the world-blower-upper bomb it fired into the air as SMDC and redirected it to Hell and it blew up Lucifer instead, sent the SMDC prototype to 2000, prevented the building of version 3.0 Beta, and because Baby Christ was in Oz, it made no sense for him to be in the Bible, so without Jesus, there'd be no New Testament, and Satan would have nothing better to do than sit around and stick his pitchfork up his ass, his son Damien would be playing croquet with the angels, dogs and cats would be rolling around in the mud, and Dorothy would be reincarnated as a pig taking a shit up the side of a barn (In short, the Y2K bug resulted in a Stable Time Loop, and the events in Oz no longer exist);
 * The take-over of SMDC 2000 II by Satan, yet again, after it was rebuilt, only to be intercepted by SMDC2K version 3.1, who shows up out of nowhere, destroys it in the confrontation, and sends Satan back into Hell;
 * The surprise appearance of the self-upgraded Super Mecha Death Christ 2000 4.0 Beta after AVGN encounters Satan possessing a Super Mario Bros. 3 cartridge in 2008, and again in the same year during the battle between AVGN and the The Nostalgia Critic where Satan intervenes to assist NC; in both cases Satan was defeated;
 * The final appearance of Super Mecha Death Christ 2000 (whatever version it happened to be at the moment) to date in 2009 in a pitched battle between the forces of gamers and critics, in which he did combat with Giant Robotic Donkey Kong Jesus Riding a Puff of Smoke, culminating in a nuclear blast in the middle of Chicago; Neither have been seen since.
 * The moral of this story: Good always prevails over evil, no matter how corruptive.
 * Gushing About Shows You Like: The main purpose overall of his Super Mario Bros. 3 and Castlevania series reviews. This is especially prevalent for Super Castlevania IV, since he had criticisms for the other games, but that game garnered nothing but praise.
 * Hair-Trigger Temper: Our man.
 * Halloween Episode: Once a year. For the first few years, two videos per year.
 * Harsher in Hindsight: At the beginning of his review for the Die Hard game, he acknowledges this about the cover art for the game, which depicts the Nakatomi Building, which is lit in such a way that it greatly resembles the Twin Towers, ablaze.
 * Heh Heh, You Said "X": "It's my duty -- heh, "doodie"..."
 * In the third Bible Games review, when he types in the word "ASS" in the Game Boy video game The King James Version and a list of passages with the word "ass" shows up, one of them having the words "dumb ass":

""The name entry screen is a disaster. You can't move the cursor up or down. It only goes left and right. Isn't that fun?! Not to mention, they only let you spell four-letter words, which I could think of plenty, but how many names would have less than four letters? If you tried to add a fifth letter, it goes back and replaces the first letter, then you gotta figure out how to start over. When it reaches the last letter, why couldn't it just stop?! The simplest thing to do is to type in all A's, then go left once to get to the end button. Because, why put in a name anyway? It's not like the game is gonna save it. But if it did, I guarantee most of the high scores will belong to "AAAA". The point is, how hard is it to program something as simple as a name entry screen? If they can't even get that right, then WOAH! Wait 'til you see the game!""
 * Hello, Insert Name Here: "ASSSSSSS", naturally.
 * Sometimes he lampshades the name entry problem in the Winter Games episode:

"Nerd: This game is like playing shit tennis with an orangutan while having a hyena's head up your ass... (Beat) or your head up its ass! (laughs)"
 * Heroic BSOD:
 * Happens briefly in part 2 of the Zelda CD-i reviews, upon seeing the infamous "You've kiiiilled meee!" "Good!" cut scene exchange.
 * Also the end of the his Rambo game review.
 * Ninja Gaiden did this to a Ninja Master!
 * The Action 52 review has various degrees of this, with probably the best example being his stunned silence during the clip of "Timewarp Tickers".
 * Happens yet again with his Star Wars episode, this time as a result of Darth Vader's transformation into a scorpion when he's reviewing the Famicom version of Star Wars (1987).
 * Hilarious Outtakes: Try to watch the "Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle" outtakes and not laugh from watching James repeatedly laugh himself silly trying to say a convoluted scatological rant.
 * There's also a video entirely made up of outtakes from his Ninja Gaiden episode. Kevin Finn (the ninja mentor) improvises when they forget a line or something unexpected happens, all without missing a beat.
 * Occasionally, James will stick an outtake during or after the credits, such as The Wizard of Oz review where James kept cracking up at Mike Matei's Cowardly Lion, or James cracking up at Kyle Justin's "There are no other couches to go behind!" in the Battletoads review, or this gem from Castlevania Part 2:

""I would never do this, I take good care of my games!" (Cut to his over-the-top destruction of the Dick Tracy game.)"
 * Hiss Before Fleeing: The Nerd himself does literally this at the Nostalgia Critic before running away at one point during the TGWTG Team Brawl.
 * Hollywood Nerd: When he's not on the verge of a homicidal rampage, he's rather attractive.
 * Homage: The 2010 Christmas Episode pays tribute to Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
 * How the Character Stole Christmas: The 2010 Christmas Episode.
 * Hypocritical Humor:
 * Criticizing the physical state some games he receives from other people and stores:

""What kind of masochist would you have to be to beat this game more than once? If you did it one time, what would you have to prove to do it again? You'd have to be some kind of fucking idiot!" [resumes playing]"
 * In the Wizard of Oz review, he says "Hey man, did you just swear!?" to the Cowardly Lion.
 * Once the Nerd introduces the Super Mecha Death Christ 2000 BC 4.0 Beta (Bitch), said robot blasts him while shouting "WATCH YOUR FUCKING LANGUAGE!!"
 * He did this in response to the Nerd going "Holy shit!" which suggests that he's pretty fine with vulgarity, but will not stand for blasphemy.
 * When discussing the fourth Friday the 13 th film he asks, in response to the actions of Corey Feldman's eccentric character, who on earth puts on a mask to play a video game. Cut to existing footage of the Nerd playing Batman games in a Batman mask.
 * While reviewing Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, the Nerd proclaims that he won't be using Game Genie because he wants to beat the game legitimately. Cue the Nerd using an Extra Life code.
 * After a torturous run of Super Pitfall, followed by a lame ending, the game has the audacity to offer a "Second Quest":

I-L
"Ninja Master: A hummingbird with no song will never... be a pop star. Ninja Master: A cherry blossom, that gets eaten by a possum, isn't that awesome. Ninja Master: A wren... that looks like a hen... is more a hen than a wren. Ninja Master: ...If you want to catch the moon in a net, you must get a net required for the bigness of the jump."
 * Ice Cream Koan: The Ninja Master (Kevin Finn) improvised many of these for the Ninja episode, and they were so random that they ended up being cut.

"AVGN: It's crazy! Remember how futuristic the year 2000 seemed? My whole childhood, it seemed like every movie, every video game, it was always 2000... it sounded so high-tech and far away. But now, fuck that! It's the 10 year anniversary of the year 2000! (Back to the Future's 2015 footage) In five years, we're gonna have flying cars, and hoverboards and self-lacing shoes... It better happen, otherwise they should have make it the year 3000. If they ever made it 2100, we'd all be dead. It wouldn't make any difference anyway. Better be a mystery than to be wrong."
 * Idiot Savant: An inanimate example with the Power Glove. Besides being completely useless with every other game, it helped the Nerd land the plane in Top Gun and aided him in beating Dark Link in Zelda 2, much to the Nerd's astonishment.
 * If You Taunt Him You Will Be Just Like Him: During one exchange with the Nostalgia Critic. For the longest time, he appeared to be taking the high road for a change...
 * Ignored Epiphany: Done for comedic effect. In the Star Trek game review, the Nerd is about to destroy another game he doesn't like. He then decides not to, thinking that maybe the game designers did the best they could. The guest character says, "By sparing the shitty game, you have shown the advanced trait of mercy!" The Nerd replies, "Mercy this, motherfucker!" and kills him for no reason. The Nerd goes back to physically attacking bad games in later reviews.
 * In the Christmas special, he found out that the future is not going to be good for him as he ended up being a Future Loser who plays terrible Wii games. It turned out to be a dream and then he played Super Mario World and realized how good the game was. He decides to just play good games before he said "fuck it" and starts playing terrible games again, starting with the Virtual Boy.
 * I Got a Rock: When he unveils a childhood halloween tape of his (He dressed as Dick Tracy.).
 * Instead of candy, the Nerd gives a shitty Atari game (and an Atari 2600) to one of the children that come trick-or-treating to his house, after taking a crap in the other kid's bag.
 * Imagine Spot: Both Pat the NES Punk and the Nerd daydream about how awesome it would be if they had the two Nintendo World Championships cartridges for themselves.
 * I'm Going to Hell For This: The Nerd's response to him looking up the word "ass" in a Game Boy version of the text of the King James Bible and laughing at the results.
 * Incredibly Lame Pun:
 * He had called out the Who Framed Roger Rabbit game for using a cheetah\cheater pun.
 * His reaction to "Lights! Camera! Action 52!".
 * I Need a Freaking Drink: Zig-zagged: he drinks so much Rolling Rock that the impact generally associated with the trope is lost, but he will also drink hard liquor (in one case, an entire bottle of what appears to be scotch) on the rare occasion that beer alone won't do. And in the Transformers episode, he drank hot sauce, but not for the same reason—it was endorsed by a world-champion gamer, and thus he was trying to use it as a performance enhancer.
 * Infinite 1-Ups: Subverted in the Terminator review. The Nerd is so fed up with constantly losing all of his lives that he decides to take action. Finding a location where Terminators infinitely spawn, the Nerd clamps a wrench down on the "Fire" button to rack up points and lives while he can go do other things. He comes back to the game the next morning to find that
 * Insistent Terminology: In the Haloween review. It's not chocolate, nor is it poop, it's shit!
 * Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja: In the Ninja Gaiden review, he gets help from a ninja master who helps him progress in the game.
 * Instant Home Delivery: In one episode he orders an Atari controller and then goes outside and has it thrown in his face.
 * Insult to Rocks: You thought Godzilla for the NES was bad? "(Godzilla 2) is an insult to the first game!"
 * "Why does Darth Vader turn into a fucking scorpion? That didn't even happen in the Special Editions!!"
 * Interface Screw: The Glitch special spoofed, discussed, and deconstructed this trope for the sake of humor, in that order.
 * In the Style Of: At a few other times in "How the Nerd Stole Christmas!", the Nerd talks out in rhymes, which is more like rapping them in the style of Eminem.
 * Ironic Echo: in the TMNT 3 review.
 * Item Get: Parodied in the Legend of Zelda CD-i episode, when the Nerd pulls out Zelda's Adventure in a pose to the music that is played when Link pulls out the Master Sword in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.
 * I Thought It Meant: When ROB asks for his gyros, The AVGN makes him a gyro.
 * It Is Pronounced "Tro-PAY": ""I AM ERROR." Well, maybe that's just his name? Maybe it's pronounced "Ear-oar."
 * I Want My Jetpack: The Nerd comments on this in the Street Fighter 2010 episode.

"or... "whichever version you happen to be at the moment". Super Mecha Death Christ: WATCH YOUR FUCKING LANGUAGE!!!"
 * Jump Scare: Played for Laughs in the Nintendo Power video. AAASSSSS!
 * Katanas Are Better:
 * Kindhearted Cat Lover: He includes Boo/Death Kitty in a number of videos, and has posted at least one picture of Yeti, his white cat, sitting with him at the computer. (Keep in mind James' actual personality - not his Nerd persona - for the "kind-hearted" part.)
 * Kung Fu Jesus: Super Mecha Death Christ, bitch.
 * That's Super Mecha Death Christ 2000 Version 4.0 Beta, bitch!

"AVGN: Then surely you know the name of our mother? Nostalgia Critic: eh... Of course I know the name of our mother! it's... Ee...liza...? *The Nerd puts the Super Scope on his head* Oh, can't blame me for trying!"
 * Large Ham: The Nerd in rage mode. Sometimes, even silently, like the Kaiju impersonation in the Godzilla episode.
 * Mike Matei, in all of his appearances.
 * Laughing Mad: Mike Matei's rendition of the Joker. He makes Caesar Romero look a paragon of restraint.
 * Playing ''Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon" reduces The Nerd to this state.
 * Leitmotif: Variations of the opening theme appears elsewhere in the videos from time to time.
 * Let's Mock the Monsters: All the time.
 * Limited Wardrobe:
 * Lampshaded in the Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout episode, showing his wardrobe containing only white shirts.
 * Averted a few times: He wore an Atari coat for Winter Games and the Star Wars episode. And let's not forget the Halloween episodes, specifically the Dracula ep, wherein he wore a black-and-red cape reminiscent of said Count.
 * Loony Fan: The evil hippie in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre episode.
 * Luke, I Am Your Brother: The Critic tries to pull this off when the Nerd corners him during the Final Battle.


 * Ludd Was Right: We failed in our existence when we were cursed with the technology to invent such horrible mind-rotting catastrophes! We were better off in the fucking medieval times! I wish I was just sitting on a riverbed playing with FUCKING ROCKS!
 * Lyrical Dissonance: Arguably the main theme.

M-P
"AVGN:"What do you get when you take a movie that's ass, and make it into a game. You get a piece of shit. Now if you get a piece of ass, that's a good thing, but if you get a piece of shit, you don't want that!""
 * Mad Scientist: The Nerd is slowly but surely getting there. His resume already includes a video game-playing Frankenstein and a sapient poop clone.
 * Manipulative Editing: Averted; but you can see that he actually does do this in the Castlevania (Nintendo 64) video. He claims that there is no freaking music; and then proceeds to tell you to listen on an outdoor stage where there is no music. His claim makes less sense later on; since he shows a lot of the stage he got stuck on when he was youger and it clearly has audible music.
 * Manly Tears: The Cinemassacre 300 The Dragon In My Dreams video may cause this.
 * Mean Character, Nice Actor: The nerd is violent, foul-mouthed, and has an incredibly short temper, whereas James Rolfe is by accounts very pleasant and even claims to enjoy some of the games the nerd lambastes.
 * Subverted with Mike. He is often a nice person... when you talk about something you share interest with him on. Bring up a topic like, say, The Millennium Age of Animation and you'll set off his Berserk Button.
 * Metaphorgotten: In his review of Independence Day:

"AVGN: Noah, man, nobody fucks with him. Not even Chuck Norris."
 * Memetic Badass: The Nerd acknowledges that Noah—despite being an old man—is strong enough to pick up five cows and horses over his head without any problems, and that he can run with all of them without getting tired and even run faster than the screen can scroll.

"Floating green head:"Where did YOU learn to fly? Where did YOU learn to fly? Where did YOU learn to fly?"."
 * Memetic Mutation: The 2019 "You're a Poopy Head" video meme takes a clip from the Nerd's response to the Nostalgia Critic and plays on the joke that streamers react to the Nerd's childish insult with extreme anger, as this compilation shows.
 * Mercy Invincibility: You'll notice he points out why this trope is needed.
 * Mid-Review Sketch Show: About 50% of his premise is about this trope, usually involving the many ways in which he can destroy the games he reviews, or the characters who appear in them.
 * Milestone Celebration: The 100th episode features the Nerd reviewing the Robot series, Gyromite and Stack-Up...
 * And the 75th featured the return of Bugs Bunny as the Nerd reviewed the Crazy Castle games.
 * Mind Screw: Describing Attack of the Mutant Penguins. It was even worse when he tried to describe his own even more screwy game until he mimed his brain being blown up and drank some beer.
 * Mock Guffin: James eagerly rips through a package for his "rare" copy of Nintendo World Championships (NES) ...only to discover that it's a cheaply-made reproduction cartridge.
 * The Moral Substitute: The Nerd devoted three episodes to trashing Christian games.
 * Most Annoying Sound: He has had a few unfortunate experiences:
 * The most flagrant one was in his review of Cybermorph on the Atari Jaguar episode:

"It's all gonna be dust anyway."
 * Also turns into an unfortunate non-musical Ear Worm to the Nerd since he couldn't be able to get it out of his head after a while.
 * The Movie: Currently in the planning stages, and will apparently contain the long-awaited Atari E.T. review.
 * MST:
 * Since Plumbers Don't Wear Ties 3DO game has barely any gameplay to speak of, the Nerd ends up doing this for a review of that "game." And it is awesome.
 * The Sega CD review has elements of this too in the FMV sections.
 * Mundane Made Awesome: Everything from shooting a 32X with a bow and arrow and setting it on fire to fighting off a Super Mario Bros.. 3 cartridge possessed by Satan.
 * "I just killed a duck with a piano!" / "I just shot down a duck by saying "fuck!""
 * "I'm drinking ROLLING ROCK! On THE ROLL & ROCKER!!"
 * The episode about Swordquest is surprisingly stirring, with the Nerd treating the Swordquest contest as less of a promotional thing and more of an actual adventure. It even comes complete with an orchestral version of the Nerd's theme tune. Ironically, he makes a joke in the review itself about the game making an overly-dramatic (almost explosive) sound effect for walking through a door.
 * Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Mocked by The Nerd when he reviewed games involving Frankenstein. One of the games includes an enemy called "Dark Warrior", prompting him to sarcastically call it scary and then suggest alternate names such as "Death Guy" or "Mr. Kill".
 * Name That Unfolds Like Lotus Blossom: The full version of the theme song refers to him as the "Angry Atari Amiga CD-i ColecoVision Intellivision Sega Neo Geo TurboGrafx-16 Odyssey 3DO Commodore 64 Nintendo Nerd".
 * Narm Charm: His words, not ours; "Despite all the shitty things in this game, this ™ COMING!"] screen is so cheesy, that it's just awesome!"
 * Nausea Fuel: The Nerd himself mentions things that make him nauseous when he reviews things. For example, in McKids and Bugs Bunny's Birthday Blowout, he commented how the screen effects made him wanna throw up. In his Nintendo Power review, he talked about how disgusting some of the ads were, such as one that showed a jar full of toenail clippings and another that showed a barf bag. He also mentioned that one ad was so gross that he stapled the page shut so he didn't have to see it.
 * This turned out to just be the toenail clipping ad (you can see the issue number of the magazine AVGN stapled.)
 * Never Live It Down: The Nerd deploys this himself:
 * "Kill all babies?!"
 * Fred Fuchs.
 * "One guy?! NO CONTINUES!!!?"
 * Never Say "Die": Its notable aversion in Friday the 13 th is lampshaded heavily.
 * Never Trust a Title: In his review for Plumbers Don't Wear Ties, he pointed out how you can't even trust the title when it shows John wearing a tie (although the title of the game does not mean "The plumber in this game wears a tie" but "Plumbers are not supposed to wear ties").
 * "He's a plumber, and I don't see him wearing a tie." *cut to John wearing a tie* "What the fuck?!"
 * Nietzsche Wannabe: Hinted at in the Lester the Unlikely review.

"AVGN: "Only in Japan... Only in Japan...""
 * Nostalgia Filter: Averted so hard it's not even funny.
 * Not always, though. The Nerd gets pretty wistful about pop and videogame culture from the mid 80's to early 90's. Watching how the (genuinely) good memories of the past get mangled by bad videogame adaptations is half of the fun.
 * Outright inverted in his review of various Godzilla games, when he wished he was born later because the ones or the Xbox and PlayStation 2 were monumentally better than the ones on the NES, SNES, or Game Boy.
 * No Export for You:
 * His disappointment to learn that the Godzilla Fighting Game that he just wanted never came out stateside, instead getting the lame Godzilla games he grew up with until the games for the XBox and PlayStation 2 came in:

""I am dead fucking serious.""
 * He admits this is probably a good thing in his Transformers review, as the Famicom-only TF side-scroller is truly awful.
 * In the Back to the Future trilogy review, he was pissed off that the Back to the Future SFC game didn't leave Japan, and that instead America had three crappy games. Two of them distributed by LJN nonetheless.
 * No Video Games Were Harmed: At the very very end of the Nintendo World Championships review,
 * Not Completely Useless: The Power Glove. He beat Zelda 2 without even REALIZING IT when he turned his head away from the screen to look at the camera. In the original review for the glove, he actually had better luck landing on the carrier in Top Gun with it.
 * "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer:

"Kevin Finn, a.k.a. The Ninja Sensei: Normally they say, Ninja Gai(Gay)-den."
 * From the Game Glitches episode, "All game glitches shown on this video were real." Considering what the last game in that review was like...
 * Nutty Squirrels: Lampshaded in one part of Bible Adventures in the "Bible Games" review.
 * Oddly-Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo/Market-Based Title: The nerd gives a long diatribe about this topic.
 * Offhand Backhand: To Bugs Bunny.
 * Old Media Are Evil: He's delivered a couple of jabs at television.
 * Averted, though, in that James Rolfe is an avid fan of films from the early period of cinema.
 * One of the Kids: The AVGN is basically a grown man who takes shitty video games seriously.
 * One-Winged Angel: After the Nerd he reveals his true form - that of.
 * Darth Vader in the Star Wars episode turns into "a fucking. SCORPION!" Cue AVGN going insane.
 * Opening Shout-Out: Invoked in the Angry Nerd Christmas Carol.
 * Origins Episode: The Anger Begins video.
 * Or Was It a Dream?: The ending of the Nightmare on Elm Street review. Even after waking up, the Nerd still has
 * Overly Long Gag: The Intro to the Sega CD Video; you hear the entire theme song instead of just the first verse and the chorus as usual, and there's a longer montage of previous Nerd videos to match. See it for yourself
 * From the Ninja Gaiden outtakes:

"AVGN: Who the fuck are you? Kyle: I'm the guitar guy... *the Nerd looks utterly confused* ...that sings your theme song?... from behind the couch?"
 * Pac-Man Fever: Played intentionally when the nerd tries to figure out how to use newer console's controllers. Otherwise averted, wherein shots of him with a gamepad usually have him pressing the buttons slowly and methodically. In his Winter Games review, he does a Lampshade Hanging, saying that people that perform random Button Mashing pretending to play video games are playing that game.
 * During the crossover Brawl with TGWTG, the Nerd is seen playing a Nintendo DS, with the music from Mario, and sound effects from Pac-Man and Sonic the Hedgehog.
 * Padding: In-universe: A lot of the Atari 5200 review is just him trying to set the system up.
 * Painting the Fourth Wall: In the intro of the series we see the Nerd playing games while Kyle Justin appears in the background singing the theme song with a guitar, then the song ends and the real episode starts, but in the Battletoads review after the song ends, the Nerd starts talking to the audience while Kyle is still visible in the background. Kyle sits down by the Nerd side, and it's then that he notices Kyle presence and abruptly interrups his monologue.

"AVGN: Yeah, I got pens, and I'm not afraid to use them. IT'S SATIRICAL Nobody throws pens. I mean yes the pen is mightier than the sword, but that's just an expression meaning the communication is more effective than brutality."
 * Password Save: He's noted that some of these are longer than others, for example, his first review where Castlevania 2 requires five 4-character sections inputted for a single password, with boring letters and numbers that can sometimes be confused for one another.
 * The Pen Is Mightier: Sometimes the Nerd had thrown his pens as a threat, in the Team Brawl he actually throws one of his pens as a weapon. Lampshaded in the first response to the Critic with an small disclaimer.

"AVGN: Number 9 - "Alfredo", or... "Alfred and the Fettuc". Yeah, "Fettuc"! You never heard of "Fettuc"?"
 * Perfectly Cromulent Word: One is discovered during the Action 52 review.

"AVGN: There's no skill involved, you never know wheter or not you're hitting a monster or the monster's hitting you. It's just as random as rolling a dice or playing the lottery, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose... but I guess it's better than using drugs or alcohol, because with drugs and alcohol (specially drugs) you always lose."
 * Pet Peeve Trope: He has them, except more so...
 * Check Point Starvation: The Nerd absolutely detests this. It was his biggest complaint toward the Dick Tracy NES game.
 * Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Quite a Berserk Button for him.
 * Fake Difficulty
 * Guide Dang It: Really winds him up. Put some of this into your game and The Nerd WILL stop the review for several minutes to rip into the fact. As he points out several times, it's a justified complaint since most of the games he reviews were made back when walkthroughs and guides were not as easily available as they are today.
 * Mercy Invincibility, when absent.
 * Nintendo Hard
 * No Death Run: Oh, SO MUCH.
 * Obstructive Foreground: Especially combined with enemies, powerups, or collectibles that are already small and difficult to see.
 * Pint-Sized Powerhouse: The two kids that the Nerd has to babysit in the "Halloween" review end up beating the living crap out of Michael Myers.
 * Platform Hell: This is how he presents Ninja Gaiden.
 * Poe's Law: A surprising amount of viewers mistake the Nerd for a legitimate reviewer.
 * Pokémon-Speak: Shit Pickle.
 * Portmanteau: "I'd rather drink buffalo shizz! That's a combination of shit and jizz. Yeah, that's foul. I apologize."
 * Precision F-Strike. Strongly averted. He swears in all directions. Innocents take cover. He does make one when playing the Xbox / Playstation 2 Godzilla fighting games, realizing that he was born too early to enjoy Godzilla games that perfectly paid homage to the films.
 * Done literally in one episode, in which he found our that shouting "FUCK!" into his headset during a shooting game plugged the target. Lampshaded shortly afterwards.
 * The Problem with Licensed Games: About half of the video games the Nerd reviews are Licensed Games. He always tries to have a sense of optimism about the game even though he knows that it's doomed in the end. He's been burned so many times by LJN-published games, though that this trope has devolved into X-Pac Heat. He's given some respect to the arcade and Genesis X-Men games, as well as the NES Batman game and the SNES Batman Returns.
 * Product Placement: The Nintoaster. And yes, it works.
 * Public Service Announcement: Randomly thrown in the Hydlide episode:

"They made. A Cheetahmen. Sequel!"
 * This PSA is a quote from a film that is referenced in a number of AVGN reviews.
 * Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Seeing just how much he can continually outdo himself in emphasis while shouting "You know what's bullshit?!" and "It's Cinemassacre's Monster Madness!" is pretty damned impressive.

"Look at this! LOOK AT THIS! HOW CAN I GET STUCK WHEN THERE IS SO. MUCH. ROOM??!!!"
 * During the "Plumbers Don't Wear Ties" review: "It's NOT. FUCKING. NIGHT!"
 * During the Superman 64 review:

""I got Dark Castle on C...D.........I!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" (fire erupts all around him)"
 * From the Dark Castle episode:


 * Punctuated Pounding: The Nerd does this to Bugs Bunny during his review of Bugs Bunny's Birthday Blowout.

Q-T
"AVGN: Burn, motherfucker! BURN!"
 * Rage Quit: Because it would be impossible to play scores upon scores of awful games without getting so frustrated with at least one that you can't finish it.
 * Rasputinian Death: The Nerd gives out one to the Winter Games catridge. "Do not store in extreme temperatures, do not immerse in water, do not clean with benzene, thinner alcohol ot other such solvents, do not hit or drop cartridge, do not attempt to disassemble." Cue montage of AVGN doing all of the above which he finishes with burning the game inside his fireplace.

"Super NES: 32-bit, my ass! What's wrong with you?! You say CDs are the next big thing, but then you switch back to cartridges? You say you're more powerful than me, but then why do you need all these extra add-ons? What are you gonna do next? Add something else on top? Sega Genesis: Uh, yeah. (a second 32X is added onto the first 32X) Super NES: OK, go ahead, keep stacking shit on top. You've already needed like three power adaptors to run that colossal mess you've made. Look at you: You're a fucking disaster."
 * Read the Freaking Manual: As mentioned on the page; he was mistaken by the controls on Top Gun and kept thinking that he was supposed to press the controls.
 * Likewise; a couple of his complaints could be rebutted by this trope; but it's actually justified why he can't do this because for a lot of the games he has, he doesn't have the manual. In order to obtain a lot of his games he has to buy them second-hand; and if you buy a cartridge game second-hand nowadays, you're lucky if it comes with a manual.
 * Real Life Writes the Plot: James has stated he would review Big Rigs Over the Road Racing, but he doesn't have a PC to play it on (using a Mac). His general rule that he can only play games he owns falls under this as well.
 * Really Dead Montage: With R.O.B. on a rampage, a dying James reflects on all the shitty games he'll no longer have to play.
 * Subverted and defied at the last second before the montage finished.
 * Rearrange the Song: On some clips, he uses a remix of his theme tune.
 * "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In his "Wii Salute" video, The Nerd provided voices and characterizations to various game systems, most notably the Genesis and the Super NES. After Genesis gloated in vain about his supposedly superior hardware (even though it undermined its points by introducing all sorts of add-ons like the Sega CD and 32x), Super NES finally got fed up and delivered this:

"AVGN: "We're not going to fight with our hearts, we're going to fight with our balls! Now sound off like you? got a pair!""
 * Record Needle Scratch: Heard in his "Indiana Jones" review when he compares "The Last Crusade" movie's plot to the video game's.
 * In the Zelda II episode, when he gets surprised by the fact that people ask him to review the game, when he actually believes it's a good game.
 * Refuge in Audacity and Refuge in Vulgarity: Oh yes.
 * Rhymes on a Dime: His 2010 Christmas Episode is this, along with a Homage to How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
 * The Rival: The Nostalgia Critic may view the Nerd as his Worthy Opponent, but the surly Nerd isn't anywhere near as generous in return.
 * Roar Before Beating: The Nerd literally roars like a lion as a Battle Cry during the TGWTG Team Brawl.
 * Rousing Speech: The Nerds delivers a kickass one to the team of gamers during the TGWTG Team Brawl.

"AVGN: Yeah, I bet the game designers were smoking seven different herbs."
 * Rule of Seven: In his review of Kid Kool (whose full name is Kid Kool and the Quest for the Seven Wonder Herbs), the Nerd says that the game has a story that says that the king has a terminal illness, and that Kid Kool has to find the aptly named Seven Wonder Herbs.

""You gotta tell that ocean floor to go fuck itself!! I don't want your starfish and crabs!! ...Asshole.""
 * That is not all. In addition to these seven herbs, he says that the game has "seven horrible design flaws", which are called "Seven Deadly Sins"; and he even has a name for these flaws as follows:
 * 1. Not Being Able to Go Back -- "One-Way Bullshit"
 * 2. Running Too Fast -- "Two-Gear Diarrhea"
 * 3. Jump Control -- "Jump Fuckness"
 * 4. Skipping Over Water -- "Topside Aquatic Ass"
 * 5. Vertical Scrolling -- "Air Suspension Shit Lift"
 * 6. Invisible Items -- "Inviso-Bitch"
 * 7. Having to Drop Down -- "Free-Falling Fuckballs"
 * Rule of Symbolism: He realized  That or it just fucking sucks.
 * Running Gag: Among others:
 * Whenever he encounters a strange game mechanic, he uses the first Super Mario Brothers game as an example to show how ridiculous that mechanic would be (e.g. only being able to jump or run).
 * He used Super Mario World, Contra, plus The Legend of Zelda and Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link a couple of times as well.
 * Does the game have some sort of crippling gameplay or logic flaw? Bank on him comparing it to Simon's Quest. Lampshaded in his Castlevania I review.
 * His inability to succeed at "Top Gun."
 * His flipping out over games made by LJN.
 * His hate for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for NES.
 * He's also mentioned 'Fred Fuchs' a few times.
 * CDI games are now introduced with "flick the shit switch, turn up the diarrhea dial"
 * Sadistic Choice: Invoked on him by Jason Voorhees. Jason has the Nerd cornered and is prepared to kill him, while he pleads, "Don't kill me!" Jason then holds up a copy of the Friday the 13th NES game. The nerd, still scared out of his wits, says, "Kill me!"
 * Sarcasm Mode: Enforced in Friday the 13 th review: If he said anything negative about the game,
 * Saving Christmas: The subject $ of the aforementioned Fake Crossover with Captain S.
 * Schmuck Bait: The easiest way to die in Jaws (NES) is to go near the ocean floor—where the power-ups inevitably drift.

""[Duck Tales for NES] stars multibillion-dollar rich fuck Scrooge McDuck on an intercontinental quest to become even richer. Now, imagine flying into someone else's country, killing them with a cane and then taking all their treasure. Well, he's Scrooge McDuck, and I guess he can do whatever the fuck he wants.""
 * You'd be forgiven for googling Dr. Claw's Dump n' Pump or Full House Tournament Fighter, considering how he casually mentions these fake games during his reviews and even shows convincing (but false) cartridges.
 * Sci Fi Ghetto: James discusses this in his Monster Mania movies, mentioning how The Exorcist was nominated for (and received) awards, saying it was one of the few pure horror movies to do so.
 * Screw the Rules, I Have Money: His Alternative Character Interpretation for Scrooge McDuck.

""Oh, wait; you meant... Aw come on, you really want me to play that?!""
 * He also notes that Scrooge is perfectly content to bail out of a speeding minecart, leaving Huey, Duey and Louie to fall into a pit and die.
 * Sequel Escalation: In the Friday the 13 th review, he says that if they made a sequel, its Game Over screen should be even worse than the original, and makes one up himself.
 * In the Lester the Unlikely review, he hypothesizes what the sequels would be like, making the protagonist (and then even the cartridge itself) more incompetent each time.
 * Sequel Hook:
 * A parody of this appears at the end of his NES accessories review. R.O.B. the robot shows up in the background as the Nerd says that the viewer probably knows what is coming up next... but is saying this while putting on an Indiana Jones hat. He then reviews Indiana Jones games in the following episode.
 * Two of his 2006 reviews foreshadow what will happen next. At the end of his Friday the 13 th review we see him about to be attacked by Freddy, whose game is next. At the end of the A Nightmare on Elm Street review he magically acquired a Power Glove, and sure enough ends up reviewing the glove afterward.
 * During his battle against the possesed Mario Bros 3, he wears his Armor made of NES accesories. At the end of the battle, Super-Mecha-Death-Christ asks him "What the fuck is that shit?", the Nerd looks at his armor "This shit?" and announces to the audience "I'll tell you all about it". The next episode was of course about NES accesories.
 * His 2010 reviews have had a couple sequel hooks. The Action 52 review ended right before The Nerd started playing Cheetahmen; guess what the next review was. And the ending to his Back to the Future review suggests he will revisit Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde next time.
 * The Christmas crossover with Captain S ends with Santa Claus punishing the Nerd for being foul-mouthed by giving him the Home Alone 2 cartridge for Christmas. The AVGN's Christmas Carol 2-part episode starts with the Nerd reviewing that game.
 * The episode about Superman NES games ends with the Nerd announcing that the next game is the so long awaited Superman 64 review.
 * Which he teased with a little in the following episode when he said he'll be reviewing Superman... On Commodore 64.

""'Milon's Secret Castle'. If you don't know who Milon is...well, he's the guy from 'Milon's Secret Castle'.""
 * The Spielberg games episode ends with the Nerd refusing to even touch the infamous Atari E.T. game, but a sign announces "To be continued...in the AVGN movie".
 * Shaped Like Itself:

"AVGN: The better way to sum this up is to recite a very famous quote from Wiliam Shakespeare: Fuck it!"
 * Shout-Out:
 * Wax on, wax off! With Q-tip! Sai!
 * Toasty!
 * "The question is, how much more black could this be? And the answer is, none." He's made a few Spinal Tap references before. Including "Like Sewer Shark, for this game I only have a two word review, Shit Shark."
 * And in Dragon's Lair when he says the bat kills you in 11 hits, why 10 when it can take 11?
 * Numerous ones to one of his favourite films, American Movie.
 * He said in his Ninja Gaiden video that he'd like to find whoever programmed such an unfairly difficult game and rip his still beating heart out of his ass so he could see how cold and black it is before he dies.
 * This exact clip from the movie is used in his Wayne's World review.
 * Only in that case, he said he'd rather hurl.
 * Hmm, the illustration at the end of the Back to the Future Re-Revisited surely reminds Metallica fans of something else re-revisited.
 * "It's time to wrap things up! It got something to blow the lid off the crap barrel! Time to flick the shit switch, turn up the diarrhea dial, it's Bible games on CD-i!! Yeah-ha-ha! We're living on the edge! More like living on a prayer!"
 * When reviewing Atari and NES light gun games he said, "Aw, man, I thought it was gonna be He-Man!" at the Atari He-Man game and, "You mean you gotta use your hands?! That's like a baby's toy!" when reviewing Wild Gunman.
 * In the Batman review, the Nerd ends up getting in a fight with the Joker. This uses copious amounts of sound effect bubbles, like in the Adam West series, but there's another one when they use the sound effect "BIFF!", which is immediately followed by the Unsound Effect "MARTY!"
 * In the Fester's Quest review, AVGN says, "You were expecting, uh, maybe, uh, the Ninja Turtles?" (which is a nod to the quote from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, "You were expecting The Addams Family?")
 * During one of the many fights in the Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle review, the Nerd says, "BullSHIT!"
 * The scene at the beginning of the Sega CD review is a shout-out/parody of the 1993 Sega CD commercial with the angry black guy.
 * At one time in his Plumbers Don't Wear Ties review, the Nerd mistakenly calls John and Jane "John and Kate", which could be a shout-out to the controversial TV show Jon and Kate Plus Eight.
 * Apparently, you can synch up the first half of Dark Side of the Moon with the "Wizard of Oz" episode, in reference to "Dark Side of the Rainbow".
 * Shown Their Work: He does actually do extensive research on titles and game consoles.
 * Sincerity Mode: After spending nearly the entire review of Friday the 13 th for NES in Sarcasm Mode, when he comes to commenting on how it had the best Game Over screen ever (considering it flew in the face of Nintendo's then-dominant Never Say "Die" policy), he had to add that he was actually being serious. Dead fucking serious.
 * Sir Swearsalot: Who else but the man himself?
 * Sitcom Arch Nemesis: The Nostalgia Critic. Also, Mike Matei (Motherfucker Mike), who often plays characters who get into fights with The Nerd.
 * Something Completely Different:
 * His occasional "Chronologically Confused" segments, which feature a much less angry and scatological Nerd complaining about oddly named sequels and media being named differently in different countries.
 * His more educational segues when he talks about old neglected consoles and trivia about games' source material (particularly horror movies and Looney Tunes cartoons).
 * Episode 102 is a making-of documentary which shows how James goes through the process of making an AVGN episode, ending on a three minute review of Barbie for the NES.
 * AVGN Special: Contra Memories features James Rolfe recalling the first time he beat Contra.
 * Someone Has to Do It: In a couple of occasions he has claimed this is the reason he plays shitty games, as a warning to other gamers to avoid them.
 * Song Parody: "You're a Mean One, Mr. Nerd".
 * Sophisticated As Hell: The Nerd could go from talking logically to swearing like a sailor.
 * The spiel at the end of the second Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde review has to be his biggest example of this.
 * From the Godzilla episode:

"AVGN: To begin with, the music and the graphics are quite good. But my senses indicated a large deposit of bullshit."
 * Especially prevalent in the Star Trek review, parodying the series.

"Nerd: Whoever came up with this game is an ass$#&%! (looks at the screen) Ass. Hole? Ass$#&%! (shakes head) Television makes a lot of sense."
 * Sound Effect Bleep:
 * In the Godzilla video games' review, as a rare use that Unreveals a new curse word.
 * Used at the end of his crossover with Captain S, using the "Mario dies" sound effect from Super Mario Bros..
 * Used in his Action 52 review when he showed what a TV version of his review would be like when he gets bleeped for saying asshole. Obviously this was parodied:

""Wow, that's great. Just what you need, some really upbeat music to go along with Noah getting murdered by a bunch of fucking goats.""
 * Soundtrack Dissonance: The Nerd lampshades this while playing Super 3D Noah's Ark and listening to some upbeat music:

"Nerd: Oh yeah, it's that bad."
 * Spin-Off: Board James; started out as the Nerd doing a review of a board game, then diverged into a distinct character after the first review proved popular.
 * Spit Take: In the Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout review.
 * Spock Speak: Done intentionally in the Star Trek review.
 * Spoiler Opening: Averted. Many of the opening sequences actually depict stuff that The Nerd has actually not covered yet. Such as him with large Neo Geo cartrdiges in 2006. Not to mention, he is also shown in a video playing "Phalanx", as well as having a game box dropping down on them.
 * Squee: Being the collectors they are, Pat and the Nerd had their moment of this when they realize they have a gold Nintendo World Championships cartridge.
 * Staggered Zoom: On the LJN logo during his Terminator review.
 * Stock Footage: Used in some of his reviews as a Call Back to a previous review. An example is showing footage from his Simon's Quest review in Super Pitfall or Milon's Secret Castle.
 * Stunned Silence: Not as frequent as some of his other reactions, but they do happen. Typically with his mouth agape. James has said these are his favorite moments in the AVGN videos.
 * Superpower Lottery: The Nerd can shoot fireballs, clone himself, fly into space, fire lasers out of his eyes, and summon Super Mecha Death Christ 2000. Many of his videos feature him beating up a character from the reviewed game. And that's when he's not wearing his NES suit. Seriously, The Nostalgia Critic is lucky to be alive.
 * Super Serum: He uses Billy Mitchell's Hot Sauce to give himself sufficient gaming powers to beat the ultra-Nintendo Hard Famicom Transformers game.
 * Suspiciously Similar Song:
 * The Nerd's theme is this for "Smells Like Teen Spirit".
 * In the DVD version of the Rocky review, he uses a Jimmy Hart version of Gonna Fly Now, due to copyright issues.
 * The Nerd notes how the main music in Hydlide is the Indiana Jones theme with just a few notes changed. In fact the only other piece of music is just a similarly altered bit of a different part of the Indiana Jones theme
 * "How the Nerd Stole Christmas" features a sound-alike to "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from The Nutcracker.
 * Sword Over Head: The Nerd grapples with his urge to vaporize Star Trek (NES) with his phaser. Uncharacteristically, he spares it.
 * Take Our Word for It: The Nerd is so angry at the end of the Godzilla episode that he has to invent a new swear word, which is bleeped out.

"AVGN:"Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, you know what? Everybody, happy holidays, and if you have a problem with happy holidays, then happy shut-the-fuck-up.""
 * Take That:
 * The opening to the Winter Games review, which is a Mythology Gag to this:

"Super NES: Why don't you just make a completely new system?! Genesis: Fine, I will: Sega Neptune. Super NES: Really. Well aren't you coming out with the Sega Saturn? Genesis: Yeah, we're hurrying it along. Super NES: Then what about the Neptune? Genesis: Uh, that? It's cancelled. Super NES: Too many systems, huh? Genesis: Uh... fuck you. Super NES: Fuck you! Try making some games next time!"
 * In his "Best of Godzillathon" compilation he adds the M. Bison OF COURSE! from Street Fighter: The Movie in response to his comment about aliens always wanting to take over the world. The Nostalgia Critic tells him to knock it off after stealing his joke.
 * The Nerd's suggested changes at the beginning of the Nintendo Re-revisited /Back to the Future trilogy review video reference the changes made to the Star Wars films (especially A New Hope and Return of the Jedi ).
 * In his Star Wars Games retrospective, he makes fun of players who use cheat devices and emulator save states to remove the difficulty of hard games with his invention, the Beat a Game Button. For added measure, when he rants at his games that they should all consider themselves beat now that he has the button... the imperial march theme plays.
 * Sega's questionable business practices are exaggerated in the Console Wars video.

"AVGN: Why is all of this necessary? Do we really need to see their whole daily routine? Changing clothes, lifting weights, playing with cats, trying on more clothes, playing air guitar with a plunger? Oh, so is [John] a plumber? Well, the game's called "Plumbers Don't Wear Ties", so I guess it makes sense. He's a plumber, and I don't see him wearing a tie- Cue shot of John wearing a tie. AVGN: What the fuck?? You can't even trust the damn title!"
 * Taking You with Me: The end of his Crazy Castle review.
 * Talking Poo: The Nerdy Turd (which allegedly is cloned from his own fecal matter) in his Odyssey review. It doesn't really talk (it farts) but same system.
 * A Taste of the Lash: The punishment of the Dark Castle cartridge and CD.
 * The Teaser: Many episodes have this kind of intro before the theme song:
 * His look at Nintendo Power starts silently with a pile of magazines, when The Nerd jumps out and screams "ASS!"
 * The first CDi episode features a scene where The Nerd shows off a stuffed Donkey Kong figure.
 * His review of Milon's Secret Castle features pre-title gameplay footage of the character getting killed by lightning and The Nerd replying with "Fuck."
 * Plumbers Don't Wear Ties episode features a scene from the game.
 * The Zelda CDi episodes feature animated sequences from the games (and the Nerd reaction to them).
 * The Pong consoles episode starts with him playing Pong by himself.
 * The Action 52 episode starts with the Nintoaster.
 * The Wayne's World episode starts with the intro from the SNES version of the game.
 * Technology Marches On: The Nerd's analogue TV can't tune into TV signals any more.
 * And the reason he still owns an analogue TV is because certain games—such as those that use a light gun—interface strangely with a flat panel.
 * Tempting Fate: The ending of the Winter Games review begins with a listing of safety tips for handling the cartridge. He follows through all of them, albeit substituting the contents of his hip flask for a cleaning solvent.
 * This exchange from "Plumbers Don't Wear Ties":

"AVGN: Can you imagine just sitting around, minding your own business and all of a sudden, some naked chick breaks in and starts humping the crap out of you? (looks expectantly at the door, but nothing happens) AVGN: You know, that's really not fair. I get Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger and Spider-Man, Bugs Bunny, but no naked chick. Fuck this shit."
 * Lampshaded and deconstructed by AVGN in "Atari Porn":

"Captain S: You must be the angriest guy I ever heard. AVGN: Well, I'm the Angry Video Game Nerd. that's kind of my thing."
 * That's All, Fucks!
 * Theme Tune Cameo: Played for laughs with the Christmas Carol ghost, who announces he's going to "Take [the Nerd] back to the past!" The Nerd stares skeptically and retorts, ""To play the shitty games that suck ass"? No thanks."
 * Also in the Captain S crossover, sort of:

"AVGN: You know, thats no fair. I mean I get Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Bugs Bunny, Spider-Man, but no naked chick."
 * Theory of Narrative Causality: Subverted at one point while reviewing the plot of a pornographic game and remarking how weird it would be if a chick came into the room and started humping the crap out of you... and it didn't happen.

"AVGN:"You're dead. Your friends are dead. Your family's dead. Your fucking pets are being skinned alive. Your mom's a fucking whore. You suck at life. The whole world hates you. You're going to hell. Live with it. Game over.""
 * This Cannot Be!: The Glitch Gremlin gets one of these when the Nerd manages to beat one of the later bosses of Mega Man 5... even though the boss' key attacks were made invisible by a glitch.
 * This Is for Emphasis, Bitch: Should this surprise anyone he uses this trope?
 * This Loser Is You:
 * There's an understated but undeniable theme in many of the Nerd's reviews that the character sometimes regrets all of the time spent playing videogames, calling the time "wasted childhood". Sometimes it makes you wonder.

"AVGN: "The only kids who own this (the Power Glove) were usually the richer ones who thought they were cool. Well, they're not cool. I'm not cool either. Look at me, you think I'm cool? I got a fucking glove on my hand. I'm trying to play a fucking game with it. I look like an idiot with a fistful of shit!" * Cue in for his pistol gesture towards his hand that comes down to his middle finger.*"
 * Then there's the Power Glove in his eponymous review part 3 of his first Halloween special as the Nerd.

"AVGN: "This is the kind of game, that you'd rent for the weekend. You'd play for about five minutes. Get stuck. And then, your whole weekend is wasted!""
 * From his review of Milon's Secret Castle:

"AVGN: "Is this what you want to do with your life? Putting wrenches on controllers... it's senseless! But that's what happens, man.""
 * From his review of The Terminator on NES:

"AVGN: "I hate this game, but why am I playing it? Well, that's the question everyone has asked themselves, and they all have the same reason. Because you're angry and you want to win. You want to beat the Nintendo, but the cold fact is that nobody cares but you"."
 * During his "Karate Kid" review:

"AVGN: "This is it, this Ghostbusters on Nintendo. This is my wasted childhood you're looking at...""
 * When he starts playing the Ghostbusters game, after explaining how many expectations he had for that game when he was a child:

"AVGN: "I just wanted to point out that for a game titled Bart vs The World, there really isn't a lot of the world in the game. No shit, right? Just Egypt, China, the North Pole and Hollywood, pretty fucking educational, right? When I was eleven years old, my whole world was videogames, just locked up in my room playing Bart vs the Space Mutants and all this crap. I wasted all my time on this shit, I want it back. It ruined my life.""
 * From the conclusion of Simpsons episode:

"AVGN: "Jeez, I could do something much more productive with my time. I could learn a new foreign language. I could study microbiology. I could train Siberian tigers. Instead, I'm degenerating my brain cells into 8-bit pixels!""
 * From the Nintendo Days Revisited episode:

"AVGN: "Fucking video games. We wasted so many hours of human life with this vile crap. We failed in our existance when we were cursed with the technology to invent such horrible mind rotting catastrophes. We were better in the fucking medieval times. I wish we were just sitting on the riverbank playing with fucking rocks!""
 * His monologue in the R.O.B. episode:

"James: "There's nothing more sad than a grown man all alone, wailing in his sorrows, watching Godzilla's Revenge. Let alone making a video about it.""
 * Even in his Godzillathon video there's a similar theme:

"Whoever made this game is an ass****! Ass! ...Hole? ...Ass****! ...Television makes a lot of sense."
 * He points out that Lester the Unlikely really doesn't work because of this trope, and it makes Steve Urkel look badass.
 * This Trope Is Bleep: Discussed in the Action52 review:

""Frankenstein's coooool." [cue beatbox music]"
 * Title Montage: The opening song is often accompanied by clips from the series, and occasionally not (such as AVGN holding up "Mischief Makers"). The clips change with most every video, which is pretty neat.
 * The Title Montage is averted in certain videos; for example, CDi Part 1 merely features the camera panning over the massive amount of video game memorabilia he owns.
 * Toilet Humour: Used fairly frequently, mostly in reference to feces, and particularly diarrhea.
 * Took a Level in Badass: Bugs Bunny when he returns to force the Nerd to play the Crazy Castle games. Rather than a punching bag, he gives the Nerd just as bad a beating, and he even takes a shit on his head.
 * Totally Radical: Upon playing ''The Adventures of Dr. Franken", The Nerd imitates the on-screen character by putting sunglasses on the Franken-Nerd.

"AVGN: Check part 2, and we'll actually play some Jaguar games... or if you wanna be cool, you say Let's play some Jag!"
 * From the Atari Jaguar episode there's this line (And at the end of the credits of the episode there's the Super Cool Version of this same line, as an outtake):

"You know, I'm disappointed. Couldn't there have been lava on top of the spikes? With fire sharks swimming in it? Couldn't there be more spikes coming in from the sides ready to close in squash me while stabbing me at the same time? How 'bout some laser cannons or upside-down volcanoes?"
 * Trademark Favorite Drink: Rolling Rock beer. Sometimes switches to Yuengling.
 * Tradesnark™: In the Nightmare on Elm Street review, the Nerd notes that the trademark in the "FREDDY'S™ COMING!" message ruins things for him.
 * Training from Hell: He receives this while trying to beat Ninja Gaiden. It doesn't help.
 * Training Montage: In the Ninja Gaiden episode.
 * Trial and Error Gameplay: "It's a beginner's trap!" There's a ladder at the start of Super Pitfall which drops you into a room filled with spikes.

"AVGN: Top Gun may be a piece of shit, but at least it has a nostalgia factor to it. It's a piece of shit I might have some affection for."
 * An earlier review of Die Hard showed that John McClane will happily oblige if you tell him to walk through an exterior window of the building, which just leads to a fall to his death.
 * Truly Single Parent: To the Nerdy Turd.
 * Tsundere: In his own words (from the Independence Day for PlayStation review):

U-Z
"S.C.A.T. stands for "Special Cybernetic Attack Team", But "the droppings of carnivorous mammals" is what the word "scat" really means! It's as close as you can get To a Nintendo game called S.H.I.T.!"
 * Unfortunate Names: Poor Fred Fuchs.
 * Combined with Fun with Acronyms during the "How the Nerd Stole Christmas!" episode:

"Metron: By sparing that shitty game, you have demonstrated the advanced restraint of mercy. AVGN: Mercy this, motherfucker! [shoots the Metron]"
 * Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Guess who.
 * Unusual Euphemism: The Nerd is fond of using "ass" in place of other profanities, such as "What the ass?" or "Son of an ass!" Not that he isn't willing to use legitimate swears, of course...
 * Up to Eleven: In his "Dragon's Lair" review, he found it odd that most of the time, you die in one hit, yet the bat only takes away one unit of health, and eleven hits from a bat will kill you. "Why ten, when it can take eleven?"
 * Uranus Is Showing: "Sonic boom to the Moon and hadouken up Uranus!"
 * Verb This: At the end of the Star Trek review:

"No more shitty games... [...] I WON'T HAVE IT!"
 * Video Review Show: He is so prominent in this domain that almost anyone else who attempts to do this has a high chance of getting a They Copied It, So It Sucks reception. The spin-off series Board James differs from the main series in that it lies far on the "Show" end of the scale.
 * Viewers are Morons: Notes this in Back to the Future Re-Revisited when most of the levels are the same running stage only colored differently. "Do they think we're idiots?"
 * Visual Pun: During the Star Trek episode when a Klingon attacks. He asks "You want Genesis?" *holds up a Sega Genesis* "You can have Genesis."
 * In the Action52 review, he says "This game is shitting me." Cut to a picture of the Action 52 cartridge with the Nerd coming out of the back of it, while fart noises play.
 * Wanting Is Better Than Having:

"AVGN: They're like zombies! What is this, "Rocky: The Undead Edition"? You are really one sick fuck, you know that?"
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist: R.O.B. wants to turn all games into Gyromite and Stack-Up because the Video Game Crash of 1983 was a result of the market being oversaturated by shitty games. He tells the Nerd that in this new world, all the things he came to hate about games would be gone.
 * What Is This, X?: In the Game Glitch episode, the Nerd is distracted by the Glitch Gremlin messing up Rocky Balboa (Bug-Eyed Balboa) and Spider Rico (Spider Rico with no jaw) on the Rocky PS2 game:

"AVGN: "You get 4 different kinds of Pong, like... what the hell is this, Reverse Pong? Okay... Oh, now what's this? Asshole Pong? That's not fair!""
 * In the Pong episode:

"AVGN: "Does it suck? You bet Jur ass ic sucks!""
 * What Were They THINKING?!
 * When He Smiles: If you only know Rolfe as the Angry Video Game Nerd, even seeing him corpse during outtakes can be endearing, if not a little jarring.
 * Wilhelm Scream: The Nerd gets one courtesy of Super Mecha Death Christ 2000 for swearing in The Wizard and Mario Bros. 3 review. What makes it more amusing was that Super Mecha Death Christ 2000 was swearing more than The Nerd.
 * Who's on First?: James and Mike do a variation with What's the Movie?
 * A Worldwide Punomenon:
 * On the 3DO Jurassic Park games:

"AVGN: Well...never said it would be easy!"
 * Working Title: The first two episodes were labeled in the "Shorts" tape of the "Cinemassacre Gold Collection" as "Bad NES Games".
 * X-Pac Heat: The AVGN's unceasing hatred for LJN, aka The Rainbow of Death. They've earned this prejudice for several reasons. (But they are just the publishers of the games.)
 * Yank the Dog's Chain: The Castlevania 1 review is rare in that it shows the Nerd actually enjoying a game for once. But then he gets knocked backwards off a platform, and the smile begins to fade...

"Possessed cartridge: "Your mother sucks cocks in hell!" Nerd: "...the fuck did you just say?" Possessed cartridge: "I said, your mother sucks cocks in hell!!!""
 * The Nerd is ecstatic at the beginning of the Nintendo World Championships episode, as he believes he has purchased a box of games containing one of the incredibly rare original cartridges which would normally be unimaginably expensive.
 * At the end of the first Terminator review, the Nerd said that they've gotten some really bad Terminator games out of the way, so from here on out, the Terminator games should improve in quality. But then he looks at the front of the Terminator 2 NES cartridge, where LJN's logo is shown, and gets a horrified look.
 * Yet Another Christmas Carol: The 2007 Holiday special. He didn't learn a shit.
 * You Bastard: Parodied. He calls his audience sick bastards for wanting to watch more of his review about Atari Pornography, with full awareness that he's even more sick for actually owning the games.
 * Your Head Asplode: Occasionally, he mimes this when he's especially confused by something. The best example would have to be at the end of his Rambo review, when he falls out of his chair.
 * You Keep Using That Word: The Nerd seems to use the word "asshole" as referring to an idiot, rather than its more common meaning. For example, in his Virtual Boy review, he states that no one would want to wear the console in public because "you look like an asshole".
 * Your Mom:
 * In his Die Hard review, as he's grunting insults while trying to punch out a villain after running out of bullets, he blurts out "Your mother!"
 * In the game glitches episode, after the Glitch Gremlin messes up the graphics, making the game difficult to make out, the Nerd tells the Gremlin "It's ugly... like your mom!"
 * The possessed NES during his Super Mario Bros. 3 review constantly said "Your mother!" after revealing itself.

""Aw fuck! Your mother!""
 * Also during one of his many deaths in his Silver Surfer review:

""Ugh, your mother!!!""
 * During his Dick Tracy review, he grunts "ugh, your mother!" while trying to grab a seemingly unreachable clue.
 * In the Ninja Gaiden episode, when he fails at one part in the game:


 * Your Princess Is in Another Castle: In the "Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle" episode,.
 * In the Transformers review, the Nerd is about to end it shortly after defeating Megatron, until the game reveals that there is one more stage to get through.
 * Zeroth Law Rebellion:  sought to recreate The Great Video Game Crash of 1983 and replace all games with , the only games he was programmed to play.

"Th-th-th-th-th-th-th-that's all, fucks!"