Tuesday, July 7, 2009

The Intro and Back to the Future

Thanks to the advance of YouTube and Web 2.0 in general, people have found a way to post their films and videos on the Internet to a wide audience. Within these new videos was the concept of amateur video game reviews. A pioneer in this was independent filmmaker James Rolfe and his character the Angry Video Game Nerd. The concept was a bitter man in his 20s looking back at old Nintendo games and how much they sucked.

This style of review, which involved heavy expletives and bad games, became highly popular and many followed in his footsteps including Armake21, jedite1, SpoonyOne (lots of ones huh?) and UrinatingTree, all putting their own spin on this now-popular concept. However for every great idea comes a poorly made rip-off. This is where our video-by-video analysis begins.

In 2007 a mysterious reviewer named Chris Bores AKA the Irate Gamer appeared, shortly after Rolfe got an exclusive contract to GameTrailers.com. People noticed many similarities between their works including similar concepts, jokes, and even exact lines.

As quickly as Bores was labeled a rip-off he became a YouTube Partner, got his videos featured, and now makes money off an idea that wasn’t his and doesn’t give credit for it. He would get a lot more respect if he just acknowledged his inspiration instead of coming off as original.

Because of this nearly all his videos are filled with comments calling him a rip-off and his (possibly) retarded fans defending him. But most seem to forget that his videos have far more problems then stolen scripts. That’s where these break-by-break rants come in, I will label stupid moments, bad jokes, inaccurate facts, and the pointless bullshit that excretes from every video.

With a ton of videos to rip apart, let’s begin with his first review of the NES trash Back to the Future. Just for future reference, this game was reviewed by the AVGN back in 2006.

0:00 – 0:16: The review starts with Chris Bores watching Back to the Future in a movie theater. I didn’t know theaters in 2007 still showed Back to the Future.

0:25: “Now it’s time to pop this video game in and play the game” Rule of script-writing: Using a noun twice in the same sentence is very poor and shows a lack of effort.

0:51 – 1:07: Now he’s listing off the enemies and how “weird” they are. He lists ALL the enemies in a very boring monotone voice. I’m only a minute in and I’m falling asleep, this will be fun.

1:10 – 1:18: “What are two delivery men doing in the middle of the street? Can you say lawsuit” That’s the extent of Irate Gamer’s jokes people, it only gets worse from here.

1:19 – 1:45: He starts ranting on the bees and how there’s too many of them. He wonders where they came from and shows a photoshopped poster for “Back to the Future 0: Marty vs. the Bees.” Learn to end your jokes; overly long gags are rarely funny.

2:44 – 3:08: He comments on why Marty is wearing a “black sleeveless shirt” and it should be red AS HE COLORS IN THE PHOTO! Yes because we needed to know what the color red was you jackass. Then he drags on the point by showing posters and footage. I’m sure everyone that’s seen your video has seen Back to the Future.

3:10 – 3:32: He reiterates his point about the game being nothing like the movie and suggesting Marty gets a gun. Then he uses terrible CG to show Marty firing a rocket launcher at the obstacles on screen. Again, learn to end your jokes or don’t tell them at all (because this wasn’t funny).

4:25 – 4:35: After explaining how to do the bar level he complains that the bullies come out at a faster speed with more at a time. You mean they’re trying to make the game a challenge? Oh my God! A game with challenge! Call Fisher-Price we can’t have that!

4:57 – 5:22: When he says the player has to hit 50 bullies to advance he starts comparing that number to other games that have nothing to do with Back to the Future, and I quote “There aren’t even 50 levels in the game of Super Mario Bros, there aren’t even 50 weapons in the game of Legend of Zelda, there aren’t even 50 stage bosses in Mega Man 1-6 combined.” That’s a terrible comparison. If you’re going to do one, say “The running stages are like Paperboy if you break the controls” but I’m sure he never heard of Paperboy at that point.

5:32 – 5:42: “This game is so bad it makes every movie Mariah Carey made look like a masterpiece.” Hey do you remember that bit in Back to the Future when Mariah Carey strutted out and sang to Marty and Doc? No? That’s because it didn’t happen and the analogy is bad. Then he says he’ll go back in time and prevent it from ever being made, how original.

The review ends with IG going back in time in his 4-Door Sedan (must have been the scrapped model in the first draft of the movie script), goes to LJN’s office in 1987 and shoots the CEO (which is him in a wig). Doing so erases him from existence (hooray no more videos!) but it returns to the present showing Bores playing Adventures in the Magic Kingdom and contemplating why there wasn’t a Back to the Future game (get it he altered the timeline and… screw it).

So what’s wrong with Back to the Future? Well it’s not like the movie, the music never ends, and the bar level is impossible. How are the controls? I don’t know. What about the graphics? Well his shirt is black does that count?

So yes, the Irate Gamer had a horrible start but first reviews suck either way. There’s room for improvement right? Oh ho ho ho this is only the beginning folks. Next time I’ll break down his Where’s Waldo and Goonies II reviews. The descent into madness has only started.

28 comments:

  1. Wow! This blog is much better than mine! Checking out the other posts now! =D Hehe, good deconstruction!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Issue here...

    At the end of this video, Bores kills the CEO of LJN, thus preventing Back to the Future from being made into a video game... I'd like to question how killing the CEO of a company prevents it from releasing a video game, let alone a game two years after said death occurs. But that's not my issue.

    The ending for this video seems to imply that the CEO's death brought down the LJN empire, thus preventing them from making more games. But a couple videos later, Bores "reviews" Jaws, a game by LJN. So if LJN is "wiped out of existence" or something, then this game shouldn't exist. So why review it? Isn't there some sort of continuity issue at hand because of this? Am I reading too much into this?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If he went back in time to kill the CEO, and the game never got made, how would he know to go back in time to kill the CEO?

      Delete
    2. If he went back in time to kill the CEO, and the game never got made, how would he know to go back in time to kill the CEO?

      Delete
  3. Chris Bores doesn't understand the laws of Time Travel.
    Well it is reading too much into it there's one part from his MUSCLE review that really bothers me.
    When he was whining about the Kinnikuman anime never getting an American release he says "I'll have to go back in time again to fix things."
    But the first time he went back he erased himself from existence and had no knowledge of time traveling, so how could he suddenly remember that? This is basic time travel lore it's not easy to fuck it up!

    Also LJN was a subsidiary of MCA and later Acclaim, so killing the CEO would have the parent company quickly replace him.

    ReplyDelete
  4. In the real world... yes. In Chris Bores' world... probably not.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Another thing: wow, LJN was using pretty advanced phones and computers for 1987. Anachronisms, anyone?

    ReplyDelete
  6. @Anon (December 8th 5:34 PM):
    You'd think with LJN's advanced technology they would make better games? Not always being subject to the AVGN's VERY harsh criticism.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Even if you ignore the whole plagiarism thing, this is still boring compared to AVGN's review.

    James had clips of the movie reacting to his commentary as well as a brief review of the sequel.

    What did Chris have? An intro of him yelling in a movie theater, the same points James already made, and a stupid skit that shows Bores knows nothing about time travel.

    Besides, his gushing in the movie theater reminded me of someone else.

    "Oh boy! I'm so hungry, I could eat an Octorock!"

    There you have it. Chris Bores is the CD-i Link.

    ReplyDelete
  8. @Anon (December 19th 10:41 AM)
    Even when James removed the movie clips for the DVD it was still a far better review.

    Bores didn't remove the movie clips, and in the theater intro he broke even more copyrights by adding Tom Servo & Crow from MST3K.

    You're right, even if we ignore the obvious AVGN quotes it's still a terrible review. The jokes he made up are terrible.
    "Back to the Future Part 0: Marty vs. the Bees?"

    By the way that Mariah Carey line is also idiotic. She was only in 5 movies before 2007, only 2 she got top billing.

    Also, TIME TRAVEL DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY Bores!

    ReplyDelete
  9. 'There aren't even 50 stage bosses in Mega Man 1-6 combined'

    LIES! I bet he hasn't even played a Mega Man game in his life.

    ReplyDelete
  10. @Jarv156 (sorry for the late reply)
    If he said Robot Masters that would make sense, there's only 46 in all of those games.

    But he said Stage Bosses, he didn't take the many Wily Stages into consideration.
    Same with the Doc Robot bosses in MM3, the Dr. Cossack stages in MM4, the Evil Proto Man/Dark Man stages in MM5, and Mr. X stages in MM6.

    Didn't they test this review before they released it?

    ReplyDelete
  11. The Irate Gamers reviews are terrible and this one was no exception.

    I especially hated his stupid gun joke in this review. THAT WAS HORRIBLE!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  12. *scared* I'm in my happy place. I'm in my happy place. :(

    ReplyDelete
  13. What is that game he plays at the end of the video there?

    ReplyDelete
  14. @SmartyBoi
    Adventures in the Magic Kingdom for the NES. Depending on who you ask, it's either okay or really poor.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Wow. I used to be an Irate Gamer fan, and even defended him. Luckily, this was several years ago, and on a different account, (my brother's unused account). Luckily, I learned what quality is. By the way, is it sad that a freshman can speak far greater English than a 30-something year-old man?

    ReplyDelete
  16. ...Despite the fact that I just used 'luckily' and 'account' twice in the same paragraph. Hypocrisy!

    ReplyDelete
  17. @BlueMageRage
    Well, it's nice to know that his fans still have a chance of growing up to be normal people of reasonable taste after all.

    ReplyDelete
  18. This blog is brilliant. However, it's only fair to point out that some of the same complaints can be made of other, more talented reviewers (AVGN himself and also the Nostalgia Critic have an annoying habit of putting images on screen to confirm what they're saying, even when completely unnecessary). That's not a defence for Bores, though. Anyway, I laughed a lot reading some of the 'jokes' he made, especially the 'Marty vs. The Bees' one. It's funny how a written analysis of a video can be so much more entertaining than the video itself.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Actually there are 46 robot master in megaman 1-6 which is mighty close but then there also the Wily fights and many other stages bosses like the yellow devil which led up to more than 50 so fuck Bore, you failed at your own joke and you failed at video game

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He only fucks up because he only wants money and doesn't give a shit about quality or any of his 50 only fans and never gets his gaming facts right and this shit has been going on for almost 10 damn years!

      Delete
  20. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  21. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  22. 11 years later and this blog is still up and running? That's sad...

    ReplyDelete