Friday, December 31, 2010

IG in 2010: The Top Ten Worst Moments

2010 is coming to a close, man that year just flew by didn’t it? Let’s close out by looking at the Top 10 Worst IG/CB Moments of 2010. Yeah, no “end of the world” speech this time. Chris’ output this year was embarrassing. He somehow did worse than last year. You can read that list here: http://irategamersucks.blogspot.com/2009/12/ig-in-2009-top-ten-worst-moments.html Two Irate Gamer videos (Educational Mario Games [counting both parts as one] and Cool Spot) Seven Neo “reviews” (Ghostbusters, Dante’s Inferno, the 3-in-1 review, God of War III, Xbox 360 Comparison, Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, and Donkey Kong Country Returns) One History of Video Games (Early Atari arcade games) Three movie “reviews” (Top 10 Summer Movies, Iron Man 2, and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time) Two “Breakfast Rant 2.0” videos (Kool-Aid Flavors and Garbage Pail Kids) TWENTY-ONE E3 videos that amount to saying “vewy coo’” at pre-rendered trailers, awful interviews with the same questions asked again and again, and information that has been available a good MONTH before these videos came out EIGHTEEN “Other” videos (that includes trailers, bloopers, updates, and contests) Disgusting. So as you can see I don’t have much to choose from. But let’s try shall we? HOLD IT! What about History of Video Games Part 4? Aren’t you going to wait for that? Yeah, I don’t think it will come out today. If it does then it’s a 2011 video. UPDATE: What do you know, it didn't come out on the 31st. #10: Who needs substance? I only care about flashy effects! The only moment on here related to his movie reviews. This year’s Top 10 list showed the only thing Bores is looking for in a movie is special effects. Yeah I know he’s done that before, but here it’s really egregious and very annoying. It surprises me he dislikes Michael Bay considering he’s the target audience of his films. The fact he put The Sorcerer’s Apprentice at #2 solely on the effects shows how much he loves shiny things. Oh and he broke another promise. He said at the end he would review most of the movies on the list. He only reviewed two. Bad form Chris. #9: Hours of research = Al “Acorn” and fake footage In the time leading up to History of *yawns* Part 3, Chris made multiple bold statements. Including “doing hours of research”, finding footage of games that exists nowhere else on the Internet, and saying it took a long time because “info on the Internet is inaccurate”. Ignoring the hypocrisy of that last one, the final result showed that most of those claims were outright lies. Most of what he said was copied exactly from Wikipedia. He got the name of Atari’s lead engineer wrong (it’s Al Alcorn not Acorn), tried to pass of Nolan Bushnell seeing the Magnavox Odyssey as a myth rather than a fact (spoiler: it’s a fact) and outright stealing footage from better documentaries on the subject. Oh, and recreating 2 of the 6 games… BADLY! Hours of research huh? #8: The laziest God of War review in history! At the end of the 3-in-1 video, Bores announced he would review God of War III. He finally got to it… four months later. Obviously the delay was to make it good right? Hahahaha no. Instead we got a review that was less than two minutes long and told us information we could find by reading the back of the box. His fans were outraged at how lazy this was, people unsubscribing in droves. Some thought it was the trailer, then they realized this was the actual review. I’m shocked GotGame allows him to get away with this. #7: Every Castlevania fan wants Simon Belmont in all the games! Bores was upset that a certain Castlevania character didn’t show up in Harmony of Despair. The original hero Simon Belmont. Oh wait, it wasn’t just HoD, he’s upset that ALL the new Castlevania games don’t include him. Bores, the original Castlevania took place in 1691, Simon was 24 years old. All the new Castlevania games take place centuries after that, sometimes before. Order of Ecclesia in the 1800s, Portrait of Ruin in 1944, and Dawn of Sorrow in the not-to-distant future of 2036. Again, this is nothing new. You’re not a Castlevania fan, stop lying! #6: A split timeline plot without any differences The first IG review of 2010 was for games already covered by the AVGN. As usual, people called him out on this. When the videos came out, Bores did something much different. Not that it was a good thing. IG used a Sliding Doors plot where we saw separate timelines depending on which game he chose. What makes plots like this work is spotting the differences between the two. In the Frasier episode “Sliding Frasiers” (where Bores clearly stole the idea from), the story splits between Frasier wearing a suit or wearing a sweater. In the Malcolm in the Middle episode “Bowling”, the story splits between Hal taking the boys bowling or Lois taking the boys bowling. When you watch you try to spot the differences between the timelines. That’s the fun of it. In Bores’ video, the only difference was Ronnie. In both timelines, Ronnie showed up out of nowhere. In one timeline Bores tells him to leave, and in the other says he can stay. Then Bores breaks a gas pipe in both timelines (just go with it), leading to the ultra-predictable conclusion. Of course for this to work Bores couldn’t know what gas smells like and pretend that there’s nothing wrong. Hack writing at its best. #5: The pace of History of Video Games I included this on last year’s list because he only made three videos and only reached 1972 (I’m saying three now since he didn’t release the Odyssey videos at the same time, like he did with the ET and Educational Mario Games reviews). One year later he’s only made one episode, talking about Pong and other early Atari games. It’s taken 19 months for Bores to get this far. In that time a sensible filmmaker would have finished it by now. Only covering important events and not every single fucking console ever made. The only explanation I can give to his claim of the SNES being Part 40 is if each part is one console or one event in video game history. That’s my theory anyway. Give up Chris. Your fans don’t care about video game history, all their comments are “Lol I find Waldo”, “TYE fihter that so random lololol” or “Lololol 64 devil lol”. And if people really wanted to learn the history, they wouldn’t go to some asshole that thinks it’s “clever” to include a 2001: A Space Odyssey parody in a video intended to inform. #4: HD video makes everything better! In the months leading up to the Cool Spot video, Bores bragged that with an HD camera his show will be taken to the next level. He was ignorant to the fact that High Definition only improves the picture quality and does nothing to help his writing. But he was confident that his series will evolve in HD. The final result… the same shit he’s always been doing. He still had lame sketches, he still failed at playing the games, nothing about this video indicated a “next level” other than a clearer picture. Which in the long-run really only works for modern games. It also doesn’t help when you still use the stock effects from Particle Illusion! #3: Subscribe, join this site, and win a PS3. It’s totally not a scam! A while back Bores put up a video announcing a contest. The winner would get a PS3 and five games. All you had to do was subscribe to his channel, sign up to DealDash.com, bid on items, and leave a comment with your DD username. THIS SOUNDS TOTALLY REAL! As you might suspect, DealDash is a complete scam. Even if Plagueus1742 did receive a PS3, in the long-run the whole site is shady. Plus, Bores didn’t contact DealDash. They contacted him and many other YouTube partners. Including TheArchfiend, who used that knowledge to expose Bores for falling for such an obvious scheme. Strange how this contest started a few days after a certain review was uploaded… #2: Bores goes to E3... AGAIN! Uggggh. It’s bad enough that he went last year, it’s worse that he went for a second time! Since GotGame is run by morons, they invited Chris to E3 again. Not only that, but they gave him more interviews! Didn’t those idiots see the ones he conducted in 2009? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RpyHyuuqaA G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySdAvVboxls Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 This should have been a foreboding sign. He can’t handle himself live. Which is why he kept asking the same questions over and over and over and over! It’s insulting that a clear fraud gets to go but people that really do care about video games are left out. Shame on you GotGame. If it’s any consolation, he’s absolutely awful at Marvel vs. Capcom 3. #1: The entire 3-in-1 “review” Like the Aladdin video, the 3-in-1 special represents everything that is wrong with the Irate Gamer. Failure to do research, piss-poor writing, absolute laziness, side characters that have nothing to do with the game, and bashing a great game for insanely idiotic reasons. Chris did this video for the sake of “honoring” requests. His idea of that is play for an hour and call it a full review. He outright admitted he only played Brutal Legend for an hour, and his one complaint made zero sense (WHAT SOUND ISSUES?!). He judged Tekken 6 on the beat-em-up campaign and not the actual fighting portion. Then he re-released the video where he does play the fighting portion, revealing he has no clue what Tekken is and that he’s too retarded/lazy to look in other menus. Also, his “joke” about getting paid off sounded sincere and not sarcastic. As for TMNT: Turtles in Time Reshelled. You can tell he didn’t get past Sewer Surfin if you have knowledge of the Arcade and SNES versions. Reshelled is based off the Arcade version so it doesn’t have stages and bosses added to the SNES port. Since Bores complained that they “replaced” the Roadkill Rodneys with boxing robots, it’s obvious he’s not familiar with the Arcade version. I also believe he didn’t get past Sewer Surfin because in the SNES port you fight the Rat King then go into the Technodrome, while in the Arcade version you go straight to Prehistoric Turtlesaurus. This video proves that Chris Bores is a lazy moron that only cares for money. He never cared for his fans or the games he plays. How GotGame allowed this deplorable video is beyond me. Well then, that’s it for 2010. I know there are some moments I left out, but hey there will be more embarrassments next year. I wish you all a Happy New Year. I hope you have a pleasant one.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

IG's Fans and Why They're Always Wrong

I wasn't going to make another post until Bores released History of Lies Part 4 or until January 1st where I would give my list of the worst IG/CB moments of 2010. But something caught my attention. *There was something here, but the situation became confusing so here's a rant about how his fans can't argue* IG's fans only have one defense. You don't like him because you think he's an AVGN rip-off. Even if you bring up other points without mentioning him, they'll somehow bring it back to The Nerd. It shows exactly how young and immature his fans really are. Then there are those that whine about the hate saying "it's okay to like both". To those fans I say "your standards are too damn low." You don't have to be a genius to see the gaps in quality between the two. Even if Bores claims to put "2 months of work" into a video, it doesn't show. It still looks cheap, it still looks rushed, and it always looks awful. I want to see one IG fan tell me why I'm wrong WITHOUT bringing up the AVGN. If you can, then I'll give you a prize. Of course, going by the comments on his videos this is an impossible task. That's all I wanted to bring up. Later.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Redux Recap: From Pranks to Plugs

I love April Fool’s Day, at least when it comes to the Internet. There’s a sense of glee that comes from watching people flip out over fake news and site changes. Announcing an impossible merger, showing clips from a movie that will never happen, or saying “I quit” followed by a “just kidding!” Maddox has the best pranks overall, but this article from GameSpot should deserve special mention for how freakishly prophetic it was. http://www.gamespot.com/news/6146958.html So let’s check out IG’s pathetic attempt at an April Fool’s joke with his review of Q*bert. Wait, why that game? It’s Q*bert, it doesn’t really need a review. My guess is he couldn’t find a game to fit his stupid storyline so he just chose something that’s popular. 0:18 - 0:31: The video starts with IG saying he hasn’t made a video in over a month (if we’re going by his retro reviews, that is correct) and YouTube told him if he doesn’t make another video he’ll be fired. Really, is Chad Hurley or Steve Chen going to send you a pink slip signifying they’ll no longer put ads on your videos? If not making a video in a month constitutes getting fired, you would have lost your job before the Aladdin review. Maybe earlier than that. Also, consider some of the people YouTube has “hired”. Shane Dawson, nuttymadam, RayWilliamJohnson, Fred, yeah you’re not going anywhere. See how this prank falls flat? So “against his own will” he’s going to review Q*bert on the NES. 0:32 - 0:40: IG goes on saying that if you’ve been in an Arcade or had an Atari 2600 then this game should be familiar. By those actions, your fans will not recognize it. Silly Bores, thinking his fans are over 11. 0:40 - 0:50: He wonders what a “Q*bert” is and if you try to break the name down you come up with more questions than answers. During this he shows the name and replaces it with pictures of Q from Star Trek and Bert from Sesame Street. This is where RESEARCH comes in handy. Q*bert’s original project name was “Cubes”, and the little character was going to be called “Hubert”. Then a member of the project combined the two words into “Cubert”, followed by art director Richard Tracy (heh, Dick Tracy) changing it to “Q-bert” (the dash was eventually replaced with an asterisk). He probably ignored that in favor of more references. 0:51 - 1:11: So he starts to explain how the games works, as if we really needed this. He notes one of the enemies is walking on the wrong side of the cubes and asks “Hey buddy! What do you think this is, an Escher painting? I don’t think so!” Once again your lack of research continues to shine. Artist Jeff Lee took great inspiration from the works of M.C. Escher when designing the game. In a way, this is an Escher painting. By the way, nice job mispronouncing his name. 1:12 - 1:49: Bores starts complaining about the controls and how they’re confusing. You’re aware you can make this easier correct? When you start a new game, you’re given a screen explaining the controls and if you’re okay with them. You can alter them so they can be easier (you can change going Up-Right from simply Up to Up + Right). Hopefully this makes sense to the people reading. He says you’d need a degree in “Q*bert physics” just to figure out the controls, as he says this he's reading from “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Q*bert”. LOOK AT MY PHOTOSHOP! ISN’T IT HILARIOUS? He continues complaining about the controls and how he forgets which button does what and blah blah blah blah. 1:50 - 1:55: He notes how if an enemy gets him, Q*bert starts “swearing worse than a video game reviewer”. Hmm, stealth-reference to the AVGN and Armake or egotistical reference to himself? You make the call! 1:56 - 2:15: IG remarks the only way to defend yourself are the discs to the side, and how they sometimes clear out the enemies. However he complains that they don’t work all the time. Actually, they only clear the enemies if you can get Coily (the snake) to jump off the pyramid at the same time. It’s tricky but it works. 2:16 - 2:35: He says the results of the discs are just as “random” as the game show Press Your Luck. Chris, Press Your Luck wasn’t random. In 1984, Michael Larson, an ice cream man from Ohio, went on the show and won over 100k because he learned the board only has a few set patterns. By using a VCR he memorized these patterns and used this knowledge to his advantage. After Larson’s episode, the board still wasn’t randomized it just added more patterns. The 2002 revival “Whammy” used a computer that always generated random patterns. But either way, Press Your Luck was not random. However, explaining all this was pointless because that reference was setting up another lame sketch. This one with Bores playing and getting a Whammy, followed by the little red demon flipping the bird at him (and he follows suit, good lord his face is red). You’ll also notice that the board was completely hand-made. This is one major problem I have with IG’s videos, he spends far too much time on pointless gags like this one than he does his own writing, acting, or overall quality. In the comments, he said that he spent hours recreating the board. A better alternative would have been taking footage from the show and imposing it on screen. Even better, not doing the joke at all! 2:36 - 3:05: Moving on, Bores points out an enemy that changes the tiles back to normal. He declares he’s had enough so… montage. Ugh, it’s Q*bert it doesn’t need a montage! As usual, we get forced anger shots and unconvincing Pac-Man Fever. At the end he mouths “motherfucker” and Q*bert’s curse balloon appears over him. Gee, did that take more time than the script? 3:05 - 3:18: IG points out how in later stages you have to jump on the tiles twice to get the right color. Once again, complaining that progressing further in a video game increases the difficulty. *sighs* Bores declares the review is over and doesn’t care what YouTube thinks. “What’s the worse they’re going to do, fire me?” But didn’t you say earlier that if you didn’t do anything YouTube would fire you? So wouldn’t the same thing happen if you made a short video, it’s not like they’re run by the mob. Also, if making a short video gets you fired, you wouldn’t have a job after God of War III. And just like a predictable comedy, a title card shows up saying “The All New Irate Gamer Show”. We then see that Bores has been replaced by *sighs* Michael Buckley of WhatTheBuck. For those unaware, WhatTheBuck is another one of the many awful shows supported by YouTube. A campy gay guy makes jokes about celebrity gossip that are about as funny as unused iCarly jokes. The rest of the video has Buckley telling “jokes” involving a drunk Lara Croft, Michael Vick running illegal Pokemon fighting, and Princess Peach’s choice of fashion. If getting an airport cavity search sounds better than these jokes, then congratulations you’re over 12 years old and sane. This video sucked. The subject of the prank immediately fell through the moment he said he would get fired, the choice of game was completely random, and that was less of a joke and more of a shameless plug to another shitty YouTube Partner. I’m not sure if back then IG was more popular than WhatTheBuck, but it looks like Buckley no longer needs his promotion. He’s nearing 1 Million subs while Bores is constantly losing them. I don’t see the appeal, if I wanted to watch someone make fun of celebrity and excess, I’d watch The Soup. At least Joel McHale isn’t an annoying gay stereotype. Next redux we’ll look at a video where Bores says “You think I can only steal from the AVGN? Ha! You ain’t not seen nothing yet!” *looks at his site* He promised two videos before the holidays. You think he can do it? He still hasn’t released the trailer for History of Lies Part 4.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Showing Trailers for Ad Money. This is Beyond Lazy

Originally, I wasn't going to make a post about this. There was just one video and I felt it didn't need a recap. Now there's two videos doing the exact same thing. For those wondering, IG has released a couple videos giving his first impressions of the newest trailers for Batman: Arkham City and Mortal Kombat. I'll give him credit for not calling these videos "reviews", but there's no substance to them. The videos start with Chris in front of his greenscreen (which has some swirling purple background) saying he saw an awesome trailer, then he shows the ENTIRE trailer, then gives the same "vewy coo'" statements that he gives to every trailer/demo. That's it. He doesn't rate the trailers, he doesn't commentate over them, he just shows the entire trailer and gives his thoughts at the end to make its seem like a real video. A good example of how this is done right is The Game Heroes "Trailer Trash" series. When they show the trailer they have a meter in the corner that measures how hyped up they are from the footage. Then they end it with a discussion followed by a rating. "But Daniel, other channels upload trailers. How is this different?" Well, Chris tried to make this seem like an actual video when in reality it's a lazy way to get extra ad revenue. Channels like Machinima and IGN showing trailers makes sense, they're professional companies that provide news and info on upcoming releases. Bores is some guy making crappy videos. Is there anything offensive coming from him? A couple of things. He called the VGAs mediocre. That's a way good way to tell he's not an actual gamer, the VGAs are an abomination. If anything, "mediocre" would be a step-up. This year's show was horrendous with unfunny sex jokes, painful sketches, a disrespectful parody of "In Memoriam" when real people in the industry died this year, and an obviously rigged "best voice actor" award. "Look at the visuals, freakin' sweet!" I'm sure the actual game will look like that, this totally wasn't a prerendered trailer made for the sole purpose of revealing Hugo Strange. "Kratos might be fighting" MIGHT? I'm fairly sure that he's going to be a playable character! Why else would he be there? Other than that, nothing too stupid. Once again, the part that gets me is that these videos are lazy. He could focus on doing some actual videos for me to make fun of and to please his small fanbase, but instead he wastes time with this. In turn making his fanbase even smaller. In fact, his fans are calling him out on his laziness and that he's only making these videos for money. Looks like they're wising up. OH! Almost forgot. Remember IG's sc- err contest involving the energy drinks and how we never heard the results? A while back I saw a comment asking for the winners, and LadyBuggin777 yelled at him saying the drinks have been sent out already. Bores, it might have been nice if you had told us this! You never made a video announcing the winners or saying that the winners got their drinks. I shouldn't have to hear about this from your delusional mother!

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Redux Recap: A Battalion of Yawns

Oh hey, a redux recap. I haven’t done one of these in a while. This recap is about his third Neo review, Battalion Wars 2 for the Wii. Hang on, where are his earlier videos? Oh right, “Load More”. *once* Still not there *twice* You have to be kidding me *thrice* What the hell? *four times* THERE! Jeez, YouTube can really make some boneheaded moves. 0:20 - 0:44: The video begins with Bores saying by first impressions he wouldn’t want to pick this game up, and after playing it he still won’t pick it up. Wha? He outright says he didn’t like it and shows the credit “ending” the review. But since there’s still 3 minutes left on the clock, the video obviously isn’t over. The camera cuts back to him “winter gaming” and realizing he’ll have to explain why he didn’t like it. Can’t you just say you didn’t like it and end it there? It’ll be just as long as your current Neo videos. 0:45 - 1:04: He said it’s not a bad game, it’s just not appealing to him. Then why are you reviewing it? I don’t like sports games, so you won’t see me reviewing one. He claims the game is a “strategy fighter”. That’s not a genre! There’s real-time strategy, turn-based strategy, turn-based tactics, and many others. Battalion Wars 2 is a real-time tactics game, similar to Total War, X-COM, or Warhammer. IG compares the game to Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. What? Rogue Squadron is an action game, there’s very little strategy involved. He goes on to explain multiple mission objectives and how they involve defending something. 1:05 - 1:26: Chris explains that he doesn’t like these types of games because he’s terrible at them. You’re terrible at all games Chris, how is this one any different? Also, shouldn’t this point come before your line about mission objectives? “No matter how good you are, you’ll have to be very strategic or else you’ll lose.” No shit Sherlock! Next you’ll be telling me in order to beat Killzone 2 I’ll have to shoot enemies! He continues complaining about supervising an army and constantly getting demoted, during which he loses again. Damn it, I lost. Can’t you tell how angry that makes me? 1:27 - 1:45: IG says the one thing he did like was the cut scenes, which he found “FANtastic”. Ugh, I hate how he says that word. The enunciation is completely off. He also remarks that the cut scenes remind him of Lord of the Rings. Armies gathering to fight a large battle? Sounds like your standard fantasy fare, Chris. You know, like The Dark Chap- ahahahahaha! 1:46 - 2:11: He goes on to mention how we take orders from various CO’s, giving special attention to Brigadier Betty as Bores provides us with his “Aw yeah dis is hawt” voice. *shudders* She’s a video game character. Keep it to yourself. 2:12 - 3:04: Bores continues talking about the gameplay. Noting how one annoying thing is the CO’s constantly talking, and how they tell you the most obvious things. Well, maybe if you stopped sucking they would shut up. That’s rather hypocritical considering you say the most obvious things all the time. Then he edits the footage to make it look like there’s multiple CO’s talking and fails the mission. He proceeds to blame the game. You’ve been complaining for the entire video that you’re not good at these games, it’s not the games’ fault that you suck at it. Oh yeah and he tries to tell the CO’s to shut up, but it isn’t funny. The video ends with IG saying strategy games aren’t for everyone, his biggest complaint being a major lack of Betty (I think I need a shower now) and if you don’t like the game you could use it as a coaster… and he puts a glass on it. Hilarious? This review was just unmemorable and dull. Outside of a few “Admiral Obvious” statements and his disturbing attraction to that character, it’s relatively harmless. The next Redux Recap will be about IG’s only April Fool’s Day joke, which was less of a joke and more of a shameless plug to another YouTube Partner. But what about that TMNT Comic Book video? I won’t cover that for two reasons. One: It’s extraordinarily boring! Two: morbidchid did a way better job than I ever could. Check out his video below. You did a good job morbidchid, even if I can't agree with you on the Nostalgia Critic.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

The Dark Chapters! Bores' Attempt at Published Writing

Before Chris Bores created the Irate Gamer, he created Haunted Investigators. A boring-as-sin ghost hunting show that lasted only 6 episodes and entertained no one. Before that he did some lame MythBusters parodies and that idiotic “Back to the Past” video. But even before that, Chris Bores was an author. Last night I got an e-mail from Shaolin Dave, he didn’t believe Bores was a Buddhist so he did some research. He didn’t find a lot of info but he accidentally stumbled across an old Geocities page created by him. What follows is pure hilarity. I’d like to thank Shaolin Dave for finding this. Back in 2003, Chris was working on a fantasy story called “The Dark Chapters”. He intended to write a trilogy a/la Lord of the Rings. Let’s see what was going to go into this aborted project. http://reocities.com/Athens/Academy/3491/ “PREPARE YOURSELF FOR A WORLD, UNLIKE ANY OTHER” What better way to pitch your story than with a generic movie trailer line! Here’s what he said in the last update. “Hello all, my book is almost nearing completion. The book itself is pretty much done. Right now I am working on the cover art which should take a few weeks. All in all, it won’t be long now until i ship it off to the publisher’s.” “In other news,over the next few months, this site will undergo many changes and new links. Many more pictures will be added along with lots of concept art. Oh boy oh boy!” Hmm, well if it was sent to a publisher then it was most likely rejected. The closest thing “The Dark Chapters” brings up in Wikipedia is a solo album from Michael Romeo, the guitarist of Symphony X (awesome band by the way). My guess is that the publisher took one look and laughed, the same way TV studios saw Chris & Scottie Road Trip and laughed. These new pictures and links never appeared because this update was 7 years old. Also, who ends their updates with “Oh boy oh boy”? There’s also an FAQ, let’s check it out. “What is Dark Chapters?” “It is a new Fantasy Trilogy written by me, Chris Bores. The First book in the trilogy will be published very very soon. Hopefully by May.” *insert book never getting published joke here* “What is it about?” “For centuries the world has been protected by a group of sages sworn to protect all of mankind from evil. As these elite group of men inch ever closer to retirement, little do they realize that unfinished business from their past dangerously closes in on them. Panic strikes when an ancient prophecy is set off by someone of great evil who is collecting together four elemental stones that they thought they had erased from human history. With each stone carrying one of the four elemental powers of the Earth, the evil threat grows stronger in power with each new stone he obtains.” “Oric, the leader of the Sage Circle is forced bring his pupil in training, Chris, into the turmoil and affairs of the group prematurely. Together do they stumble upon information that they would have rather left a secret. This group of unlikely heroes must shatter the bounds of their reality if they are to have any chance of survival. It is a race against time to stop the stones from being united once more into the hands of pure evil.” Good lord this sounds generic. Ancient evil collecting four MacGuffins that represent the elements of Earth (which are Earth, Fire, Wind, and Water… original). Then a powerful wizard forces his student to take on the evil before evil triumphs. I imagine if this was published, it would be a bigger train wreck than Eragon. I also imagine it would be just as unoriginal considering Bores’ track record. Oh, and main character’s name is Chris. This is obviously a self-insert fanfic. “Why write this story?” “This story has floating around in my head for nine years. The first draft was created back in 1996. Though, it was nothing like it is today. I feel that my story has evolved to it's full potential and high time to share it with everyone. This book has it all. It involves various religious views (taken from Christian, Buddhism, and pagan beliefs. Wow what a melting pot.), fantasy, plenty of action, compation, romance, and a dash of comedy.” This sounds like every other fantasy story ever written. I don’t see how this will add anything new to an already overstuffed genre. What’s “compation”? “How come your “About the Author” link doesn’t work?” “I'm sorry. That link will be open after the book is published. I am gonna cheat alittle and just take the about the author section from my book and add it in there. So basically I'll be plagerizing my own work, Don't worry, I won't press charges against myself.” Hahahaha wow. A young Bores talking about plagiarism, that’s just hilarious. This is followed by a question asking about other broken links, nothing too bad there. But then… “Chris, why are you insane?” “Because all work and no play make Chris a dull boy.” Good to know that even back then people thought he was insane. “So tell us about yourself” “I took many college writing courses at Ashland University which prepared me for this book. I am now a Resident of Sandusky Ohio! I used to live in Huron. I wouldn't bother on looking it up on a map. That town is not worth putting on a map.Why you ask? well because the place is the opposite of Las Vegas. They call Las Vegas the city that never sleeps, well Huron is the city THAT Sleeps! I currently work for the local Post Office” I thought he went to film school? According to Y2B Productions, he went to Ashland University for Film and Broadcasting. So, either he took both courses, or when writing didn’t work out for him he changed his profession to filmmaking and used the same university. I don’t know. Who needs maps when we have search engines? We had them back then so it wouldn’t be too much of a problem to find Huron, Ohio. Below the FAQ is a schedule for when the books will come out. The first book titled “Ritual of the Stones” will be out 2004-2005. The second “Echoes of Evil” has no release date. And the third doesn’t even have a title let alone a release date. Hindsight’s a funny thing isn’t it? At the bottom of the page are links to some free old school Internet providers… wait what the hell is this? “Borescape 3.0”, “Bores Inside Pentium II”, Boressoft Explorer”? Where’s the joke? He’s just putting his name into popular products. In fact, he still does that with shit like “Irate Mastercard” and “Irate Shady”. Does he really think that’s hilarious? The “About the Author” and “From Thought to Paper” pages don’t exist so I can’t talk about them. However, there are some image galleries. These pictures prove this really is him and not some unlucky soul with the same name. Under Photo Gallery are three images (technically four but one of them is broken). Image 1 is Bores holding his arms out creating a rainbow. Oh God really? I don’t like making gay jokes, it’s a low form of comedy. But this isn’t helping. Image 2 is set in a cathedral with Bores fighting himself using DBZ style beams. Even back then he overused bad beam effects. Image 3 is a Got Milk parody with one of his school photos. I can tell it’s a school photo from the background. I can’t read the text because the image is way too small. Moving on. The image gallery “4 Elements” explains what the four elements of this story are. Image 1: Earth Chris imposed in front of a forest while he sprays green fire from his hands. I don’t think that was supposed to be fire. Image 2: Water Chris imposed in front of an ocean as he holds the blue light from K-Mart. Oh wait that’s supposed to be water. Is he not wearing a shirt? Image 3: Fire Where is he? I see a moon, a candle, and a bunch of jet plumes. I guess he’s supposed to be spraying fire? Image 4: Wind Because nothing says wind like yellow gas and purple lightning. I suddenly have the urge to go watch Avatar: The Last Airbender. I’m not sure how these are pictures are important considering he’s writing a book. I guess just showing the elements by themselves would be silly. There’s also a page called “Tick me off’s” which includes a list of things that bother him. Since he wrote in small text “not made by me” then I have no reason to cover it. Finally a page of websites he recommends. These include two unarchived Geocities pages, Bible Inconsistencies, a list from Rolling Stone written by Tom Petty that no longer works, and iUniverse the publisher that Bores was going to use. Here’s the Wiki on iUniverse, that way you’ll see this book would have never sold even if it was published: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IUniverse I guess that makes the "publishers laughing at it" joke moot. So, that’s the entire website. Bores’ book remains unpublished and stuck in purgatory. From what we’ve read about it, that’s likely a very good idea. Thankfully, Bores can’t take this site down. Reocities has archived it since Geocities died, and since it’s dead he won’t be able to access it. That’s all for now folks, see you all later.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

A Turkey of a Donkey Kong Review

So, Donkey Kong Country. Graphically innovative and simple to play, spawning two sequels on the SNES and a crazy collect-a-thon on the N64. When Nintendo dropped Rare, the ape went into a rut that has been fixed by Metroid Prime developer Retro Studios. Donkey Kong Country Returns is a critical hit. So let’s watch IG gush about it and once again forget his character is supposed to be angry about things. Before I watch the video, I’d like to commend Bores for releasing this video three days after the game came out. Yeah I was surprised to, considering that he often reviews modern games months after they come out. All three games in the 3-in-1 review were released in 2009, and the video came out May 2010. However, this is an obvious sign that he didn’t actually beat the game. There’s another obvious one but I’ll point that out when we get there. Video link (thanks to starofjustice for reminding me): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JFuCZ6b7ok 0:01 - 0:16: “Happy Thanksgiving gamers!” GAH! Jeez, warn someone before you do that. So yeah this is a special Thanksgiving video, to emphasize this there’s turkey sound effects playing. Along with a turkey appearing on the logo card. I can tell this video is going to be a real turkey. 0:17 - 0:30: “Ever since I played Donkey Kong Country Returns at E3...” We get it, you went to E3! Stop reminding us! “Of course a game like this has a lot of expectations to live up to” I doubt people were too worried, Retro Studios hasn’t disappointed us yet. 0:31 - 0:40: “This game isn’t a bunch of bananas” As he says this a large pile of bananas falls on him. That was atrociously unfunny. How much you want to bet he’s going to do it again? 0:41 -1:00: “This fresh installment brings back everything you loved about the past installments…” This annoying redundancy is annoying and redundant. He then explains the story without telling us the villains names. Even if they weren’t given the name in the opening, I’m sure you could open the manual and find it. Oh wait, he doesn’t read about the game HE JUST GOTTA PLAY IT! 1:01 - 1:21: Chris starts talking about the graphics in the levels, bringing up a level with a shadow motif. “And a few of them really make a neat artistic statement”. That’s not what “artistic statement” means! It’s just a cool-looking level. An artistic statement (or artist’s statement) is a written document that explains the nature of their work. I doubt that level gives an insight into Miyamoto’s subconscious. He also brings up how there’s remixed music from the original games. So what? Nintendo does that all the time, Kirby’s Epic Yarn was full of classic Kirby songs along with plenty of new material. 1:22 - 1:31: Chris starts talking about the gameplay, and how it stays close to the original but also adds well-deserved upgrades. Once again, Chris misuses the word “well-deserved” 1:31 - 1:50: Here Bores brings up DK’s new attacks. “Like the ground pound” DK has always been able to do that. It just wasn’t used that much. “And Diddy’s jetpack” Diddy’s jetpack isn’t new either. He’s had that since DK64. It’s amazing how he claims to be a fan of something yet he gets so many basic facts wrong. He also shows off the Rocket Barrel and promptly dies. Forgetting he’s supposed to be “Irate” he just lets out a simple “oops”. 1:51 - 2:15: He starts complaining that in single-player you can only play as Donkey Kong, you can no longer tag to play as Diddy and he’s only available in co-op. Just more incentive for you to get a friend to play. Hello footage that obviously isn’t yours. But he says that after a while we won’t notice. Then why did you bring it up? This isn’t an issue like jerky controls or annoying sound effects that take getting used to. 2:16 - 2:42: Bores brings up elements from the original like riding animals, hidden areas, the KONG letters, and Cranky Kong. However he’s upset that Cranky isn’t an asshole. Really, because I heard he’s even crankier than before. Like if you buy a health upgrade he’ll berate you for wanting more health. He then calls him a “damn dirty ape”. Yes I’m sure your 11 year old fans will get this joke. 2:43 - 2:49: We cut to Chris laughing at his own reference (always the sign of a great comedian) as a second pile of bananas falls on him. I knew it. Well, since he’s used it twice I guarantee he’ll use it a third time. He’s that predictable. 2:50 - 3:03: “Another thing I like about this game is that it’s not too easy, but not too hard either” Wait what? This game wasn’t too hard? Now I know you barely played through the game. Everyone I talk to says this game is insanely difficult, like “World 9 of NSMB Wii” hard. Clearly you only played a few levels because you wouldn’t be saying “not too hard” if you actually played through the later worlds. UPDATE: According to reader jodanranger, when the video came out Chris left a comment saying he only played for half an hour. It's since been deleted though. 3:04 - 3:20: “There aren’t many games for the Wii that I can say are a must-have” *sighs* Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2, Madworld, Muramasa, House of the Dead Overkill, Metroid Prime 3, Metroid Prime Trilogy, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Sonic Colors, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Mario Kart Wii, Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Castlevania the Adventure Rebirth, Contra Rebirth, Final Fantasy IV The After Years, Mega Man 9 & 10, Resident Evil 4 Wii Editon, Sin & Punishment 1 & 2, multiple Virtual Console titles, Zack & Wiki, need I go on? Other suggestions from my readers: No More Heroes 1 & 2, Dokapon Kingdom, Monster Hunter Tri, Punch-Out, Dead Space: Extraction, Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort, Epic Mickey, Little King's Story He says this is one he can recommend and it’s “refreshing” (huh?) to play it after Kirby’s Epic Yarn which he then calls a let-down. Why do you hate Kirby’s Epic Yarn? No seriously, why do you hate it? I thought it would be perfect for you since you literally can’t die in this game, and I know how much you hate difficulty of any sort. Is it because you can’t eat enemies? That shouldn’t matter, it’s still a great game. Strange how you expressed dislike for the newest Kirby game when you prominently display a Kirby plushie in your room. So the video ends with Bores saying this game is worth the money. At least he didn’t use a bad pun. As he closes out, a third pile of bananas is about to fall on him but he escapes in time. Gee, I wonder if another pile will fall on him as he brags about getting away. *this happens* God damn it Bores… This video was stupid. Yeah, I gave him credit for releasing the video shortly after the game came out, but that shows he didn’t care enough to play through enough of the game. Plus, it’s kind of obvious when he said it’s “not too hard”. So, what’s next? I guess the return of Redux Recaps until Bores releases something else. Knowing him that won’t be for a while.