Now that I’m up to part 3 of my Essential Youtube Gamers series, it’d be completely rude of me to forget the classics. Today, I’ll be talking about someone very well-known, as well as someone who really ought to have been known, but sadly sunk into obscurity.
Angry Video Game Nerd
If you’re reading this article, chances are you like gaming and you like Youtube. I’d be very surprised, in that case, if you didn’t already know who this guy was.
Of all the funny gamers on Youtube, he’s definitely the most well-known. I’ve even had non-gamers or casual gamers ask if I’ve seen his videos.
This is the guy that basically started it all. His format is simple, effective and often imitated by Youtube gamers: find a really shitty game, review it, get extremely angry about it and make fun of the poor design choices or whatever other rage-inducing factors the game possesses.
If you’re a fan of retro games, chances are you’ll fall in love with the Angry Video Game Nerd (often abbreviated simply to AVGN) the second he starts ranting. If you played a lot of bad games when you were younger, chances are you’re going to empathise with and love him even more so.
You can look at AVGN as just a guy getting far too angry at games and using an impressively creative array of curse words, but you’d be missing the point. AVGN obviously has a great passion for gaming and has found a greatly entertaining way to express his frustrations with the terrible games of his childhood – something I’m sure we’re all familiar with.
I, for one, laughed my arse off at his Superman 64 review; nostalgically enjoying every single ridiculous string of curse words yelled. As as child, my favourite thing to to do was save up my money and go hire a game every couple of weeks or so. I’d burn through the whole catalog of games at each store, although I knew that if I chose a bad game, that was all I was going to be able to play for the following week or two. When this very thing happened to me upon hiring Superman 64 and getting so infuriatingly frustrated at it – it was nice to know at least someone else had been through the same. ‘Misery loves company’ and all that jazz.
All the things that I found hilarious and relatable in his videos, you, no doubt, will too! This is one of the main reasons AVGN has garnered such a large fanbase.
Ron Standard
I don’t know how I found out about Ron Standard (RSJGaMeRPro on Youtube) but when I did I found like I’d hit comedic gold. Ron Standard is a british guy, accompanied by his brother Jon, both of which talk in American accents. The goal in creating these videos, so they said, was to parody the most serious of game reviews done by the big budget websites. In creating these parodies, Ron created a wholly unique experience, with his trademark nonsensical and tangential humour culminating into absurd hilarity.
The ‘reviews’ usually have very, very little to do with the game at all and more often than not consist of Ron ranting hilariously with some stock gameplay footage playing over the top. Ron also (as a running gag) is obsessed with Birdo. Yes, Birdo. The pink… thing… with a bow in its hair from Super Mario Bros. 2. In fact, Ron rates each game at the end of his reviews using the Birdometer. As odd as it is to say the following: this running gag, among others, gives the videos a sense of continuity.
Sadly, you’re going to have to savour what videos are on his Youtube channel, because that’s all there are. Ron gave up parodying game reviews in favour of recording a new show format unrelated to video games.
It’s a shame, given how low-budget the show actually was in comparison to other much more successful gamers on Youtube, a bit more fan support from fans could have bumped up the shows lifespan by a couple of years. There’s still a part of me that is hopeful one day this humble, Birdo-obsessed man will bring his unique humor back to Youtube for everyone to enjoy.
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