He’s a nerd who plays bad video games from his childhood and swears like a sailor while doing so. And he’s amassed a huge following in the past two years by video taping them and then showing them to the public. Being the fan that I am, I recently tracked down James Rolfe, the man responsible for the Angry Video Game Nerd, and got a Girls Don’t Game exclusive interview.

Monique: Older games have some pretty terrible errors and translations. So what’s the funniest line/typo you’ve seen?

AVGN: The worst ones I know I already mentioned in my videos, such as “Bimmy and Jimmy” from Double Dragon 3 (NES) and the entire “Conglaturations” screen at the end of Ghostbusters (NES). “All your base are belong to us” from Zero Wing is also classic which has bad grammar throughout, but almost everyone knows about that one.

Monique: So what’s the video game that makes you the angriest?

AVGN: Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde is the one I keep coming back to. It’s just so bad. It’s a mockery to be killed by such innocent looking things like birds and ladies with umbrellas. And then to get struck down by lightning without any explanation… it doesn’t get much worse than that.

Monique: Do you own any current systems (e.g. Xbox360, PS3,Wii)? If so, what ones?

AVGN: I’m too busy playing old games. Let alone old, but crappy ones. I do have a Wii and I’ve been playing Zelda: Twilight Princess and Super Mario Galaxy when I have time or feel like giving myself a break. I also still play Wii Sports when friends are over. If I had more time to spare, the next console I would get is an Xbox 360. The PS3…. I don’t know.

Monique: We checked out your independent films a while ago. Your zombie film “The Deader the Better” was awesome. Please tell us your persona of AVGN hasn’t taken away
from time on your other projects? Are you working on more short films?

AVGN: It has taken time away from my other stuff. And it is frustrating to have so many projects in my mind, and not have time to do them all. But the good thing is that the AVGN videos have been bringing attention to my other work. So it’s been great. And I do plan on getting back to some of my other movie projects soon. So there’s a lot coming from me in the near future.

Monique: It seems in this day and age people get addresses, phone numbers, and other personal info a little too easily. Has becoming an e-celeb caused any real life grievance?

AVGN: I get recognized in public very often now, which is fine. But overall, I haven’t been bothered too badly yet.

Monique: Any last words?

AVGN: That’s always a hard one to answer… Well, enjoy the videos, check out all Nerd News here and buy the DVD here.

Monique: Thanks, Nerd. It’s been a pleasure. To everyone reading GDG: go buy a DVD. This shit is good.

Episode 13 on Friday the 13th:

Note: because YouTube deletes and censors his video, I personally suggest going straight to his site here. I only used this link for convenience, realizing most of you are lazy and wouldn’t click a link unless it was an embedded video.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 12:59 am and is filed under Classic Gaming, Interviews, Video Game Videos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.