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New AVGN episode was done in one take!! No time? Muh kids? Not today!!

Husky

THE Prey 2 fanatic
Glad to see I'm not the only one who thought it was trash. James looks so awkward constantly staring off-camera at the script, and he can't even pace his sentence delivery right. If he's gonna perform it like a play, he's at least gotta memorize his lines, man.
And, yeah, hardly any footage of the actual game. And what we saw was an angled camera recording. Nice.
 
I have not loved a lot of his AVGN content for a while, but he tries and it is not cringey like, say, Doug Walker.

I want to see James and Mike Matei (the latter more for leh outrage lulz) go onto RLM for some horror BotW. James has kind of done that with his friends already, but I'd love to see him interact with RLM Mike, Jay, and Rich. Especially Rich.
 

brap

Banned
Glad to see I'm not the only one who thought it was trash. James looks so awkward constantly staring off-camera at the script, and he can't even pace his sentence delivery right. If he's gonna perform it like a play, he's at least gotta memorize his lines, man.
And, yeah, hardly any footage of the actual game. And what we saw was an angled camera recording. Nice.
Yeah, it's like he wants to make the first AVGN without any cuts then he goes and writes a fucking novel for the script he can't even remember lmao.
 

HarryMason

Neo Member
I've been a long time fan, but I gotta say his videos have been pretty shitty lately. The Trespasser video was awful even though he seemed to put a lot of effort into it. I guess the effort was put in the wrong place, too much cringe, not enough game. I think that vid was like 25 minutes too. This one looks like garbage too.
 
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Katsura

Member
It's been pretty clear for a while now that he'd rather talk about movies than games. From what i've read, he was always more of a games collector than a player anyway. For gaming, i'd rather watch Mike and James mondays or what ever it's called. Besides, he has been doing AVGN for so many years, he must be running low on truly terrible games to play
 
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Call me crazy, but the best part of his videos to me has always been him explaining what makes certain video games bad. "What were they thinking!?" is what I'm there for, not the scatological humor. Based on that, the angled situation made it really hard to properly see the game he was making fun of, so I didn't even watch this video once I saw that was how the whole review was going to go. I hope he never does that again.
 
It's nice that he's experimenting though I have to agree with the others that this didn't come out very well. Found myself skipping through it after awhile.

Also doesn't help it's really not that bad of a game in the first place. =P
 
yeah, I know he's just experimenting but this format just doesn't work. There's really no need to do a oner. To use his own quote against him "WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?"

The problem with AVGN is that he's just running out of material. He's pretty much covered 99% of the bad games out there. Unless IJN suddenly comes back and makes shit games, it's pretty hard for him to find new material.

Tbh, he should consider streaming, sometimes in character, sometimes not.
 

TheContact

Member
I love me some AVGN but this seemed almost like an experiment for him. Clearly an example of why editing is necessary.
 

MayauMiao

Member
Maybe its a very busy month for him with Monster Madness content that he has to do. Won't abandon him just because of a few bad videos.
 

brap

Banned
Maybe its a very busy month for him with Monster Madness content that he has to do. Won't abandon him just because of a few bad videos.
Yeah, it must be hard for him to sit there and nod his head while somebody else talks about a movie or while Mike plays a game. The last good AVGN episode was Earthbound.
 

MayauMiao

Member
Yeah, it must be hard for him to sit there and nod his head while somebody else talks about a movie or while Mike plays a game. The last good AVGN episode was Earthbound.

Its like someone else wrote a nerd episode and he is just there to do a cameo while reading from a script. It just doesn't feel right.

 

brap

Banned
Its like someone else wrote a nerd episode and he is just there to do a cameo while reading from a script. It just doesn't feel right.


Honestly he probably doesn't even write anything anymore. The screenwave guys say they help out but I feel like they just write everything. It's also why I don't bother with AVGN anymore except for this one. James shows up to read some lines and that's basically it.
 

Gargus

Banned
Video wasn't very good but I gotta say, I haven't liked his stuff for a long time now.

It reminds me of sunny in Philadelphia. It was once funny and great but they grew up too much and now feel like they are going through the motions, checking all the boxes, and just trying to force themselves to do what used to come more natural and trying to shoe horn themselves into their roles.
 

Keihart

Member
Amazed to see lots of fan of their more daily content. Personally i keep coming back to the channel for the higher production content since the only other similar show is John Tron.
I still find AVGN episodes great but the peak for me was the ending season of Board James with AVGN episodes. I have the understanding that the old Monstermadness videos took a lot of production through the year to bombard them daily in October, but that is something that i miss now that they have to work around the youtube schedule.
 

Hestar69

Member
I liked the episode :X. I will agree with G Gargus though. The new season of It's always sunny has been very meh. How many years of waiting for only 1 good episode so far? really?
 

Xaero Gravity

NEXT LEVEL lame™
Yeah, it must be hard for him to sit there and nod his head while somebody else talks about a movie or while Mike plays a game. The last good AVGN episode was Earthbound.
You didn't enjoy the Pepsi-Man or Resident Evil Survivor episodes?
 

Zero7

Member
Dick Tracey was my fave. I think his anger was genuine in that episode.

I'm not a fan of all these set's and guests he's been bringing to his episodes lately. I like just him in his basement ranting and cursing about crap games. That's classic AVGN to me.
 

Gavin Stevens

Formerly 'o'dium'
Yeah really disliked this one, the obvious card reading out me off, and it just wasn’t very good. Shame, this is the Halloween one...? Bugger, I always look forward to these too :(

Plus that white dead pixel was REALLY distracting. On a 65” it’s about 19feet wide... Give or take a few mm.

Oh well, at least I’ve got the Best Of The Worst special in a few days, they never disappoint.
 

nkarafo

Member
Pre-HD nerd was the best era. Just him, a handycam, and a shitty game.

But that could be nostalgia talking (Ironic that I'm nostalgic for a show about nostalgia :messenger_dizzy: )
Soon his first season episodes will be older than how old those NES games were when he was reviewing them back in 2006. A few of these games might have passed that point already.
 
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Not the best AVGN episode but one take videos are very hard to do, especially with that much dialogue, so that was pretty impressive.
 

Fret Runner

Member
The castlevania-athon was his peak. I can rewatch those episodes anytime.
Nearly everything after that though, one watch and done.
He has sadly become "old man who remembers that when he was young things were differant"
Dude lost his passion for this around the time he had a kid. Not shittng on him for that, of course, but I feel it's clear when the drop in quality happened.

The James and Mike mondays thing is some serious out of touch rambling crap also.
Mike: Remember old game, James?
James: Ah, indeed I do, Mike. old game good. but do you remember other old game?
Mike: Other old game?......oh yea, I remember other old game now. Old game tough, unlike new game which are easy.
James: Yea hahaha
 
His older episodes were much better.
As said above, he did start a family now. So you can understand why quality has taken a dip. Also explains why you see a lot of him in front of the screen talking with others as it's easier to make. Again totally understand. Sucks the way there is no proper old school type monster madness anymore as well.

Dude just has other priorites.
That said there was a time when I see an AGVN episode and had to instantly watch. Now it's like "i'll watch that later" - sometimes much much later lol.
 

Shrap

Member
Its like someone else wrote a nerd episode and he is just there to do a cameo while reading from a script. It just doesn't feel right.


That's exactly what it is though. The screenwave guys write, produce and direct everything. He's just an actor now. That's why the videos aren't good and feel off. It's also why the Earthbound video was so good - it was the last video James did completely on his own.
 

deriks

4-Time GIF/Meme God
I don't really like those super produced videos of him, but this one I kinda dig it for trying something different.

But the old fashion review of him with maybe other person still are the best stuff on the internet. Can't love enough the Toxic Crusaders, the Battletoads and the Castlevania series. It's great stuff.
abc.gif
 
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JordanN

Banned
I liked it.
The presentation reminds me of those old video game shows that would air on TV, like Video & Arcade Top Ten.
 
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Yeah, I think it's time to end the nerd videos. The idea to do this in one take was cool, but like others have said you can tell James is mostly reading a script off camera. And also the fact that you can tell that James wasn't the one who wrote it in the first place doesn't help either.

I really like the Cinemassacre stuff, but the nerd character has run its course.
 

Nickolaidas

Member
Yeah, I think it's time to end the nerd videos. The idea to do this in one take was cool, but like others have said you can tell James is mostly reading a script off camera. And also the fact that you can tell that James wasn't the one who wrote it in the first place doesn't help either.

I really like the Cinemassacre stuff, but the nerd character has run its course.
He can still create the ocassional gem, but he needs the game's aid. Seaman and Big Rigs were somewhat recent and I think they're his best works. But the fact they're total crazy or total ass played a major part.
 
Definitely a weird episode but I was entertained by it. How obviously he's reading off a cue card is destracting, though. They should have had multiple cards set up in different locations so he could at least look around more naturally.
 

TheSHEEEP

Gold Member
I really appreciate the effort that must have gone into this. Wonder how many re-shoots it took.
But yeah, it's not too pleasant to watch as a result. Way too much reading of text from cards or such instead of looking at the viewer.
 
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Digity

Member
Yeah, I think it's time to end the nerd videos. The idea to do this in one take was cool, but like others have said you can tell James is mostly reading a script off camera. And also the fact that you can tell that James wasn't the one who wrote it in the first place doesn't help either.

I really like the Cinemassacre stuff, but the nerd character has run its course.
The nerd still has some life left in him. The earthbound episode is easily one of his best episodes. This episode was a bit of a dud though, the behind the scenes stuff was cool to watch.
 

JordanN

Banned
The nerd still has some life left in him. The earthbound episode is easily one of his best episodes. This episode was a bit of a dud though, the behind the scenes stuff was cool to watch.
The Nerd is self-aware because he made that Mega Man episode that was kind of its own self critique of when should a successful series take a break to keep itself fresh.

James has always been a filmaker who does his own thing so I don't see him giving up the Nerd unless he gets bored of acting or making his own B-movies.
 
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AVGN hasn't been the same in a few years now. its hard to blame him he got older and we got older. hes not gonna be the same person. some episodes are pretty good every once in a while tho
 
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