Sunday, December 25, 2011

Year End List: Top 15 Worst IG Moments of 2011

It‘s almost 2012 everyone! The year of our supposed doomsday… Pffft.
It’s also time for me to reflect on the worst Irate Gamer moments of the year. Poorly-made videos, stupid ideas, the usual lunacy that comes from a hack writer.

But first, the video tally! IG actually did much better than last year, but that isn’t saying much.

Three Irate Gamer episodes (RoboCop, RoboCop Part 2, and Masters of the Universe)
I’m counting the RoboCop videos separately as they were three months apart. Next to no improvement from last year, and if he keeps up this level of pacing then we’ll be at the Playstation 5 by the time his storyline has any resolution.

Eight IG Neo episodes (Kirby’s Epic Yarn, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Sonic Colors, LittleBigPlanet 2, Mortal Kombat, Video Game Roundup, Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection, and Batman: Arkham City)
Once again, he puts out more Neo videos than anything else, which makes me wonder why he still bothers with the retro stuff. It doesn’t matter as most of the time he reviews the games months after they come out.

One History of Video Games episode (Pong Consoles)
… Seriously? This is getting sad now.

Five 80’s episodes (TMNT Cereal, Micro Machines, Masters of the Universe figures, Madballs, and Kinnikuman/M.U.S.C.L.E.)
Once thought to be a dead series, I Rate the 80s (Breakfast Rant 2.0) had an out-of-nowhere comeback, with more updates than his regular IG videos. Prompting many to believe this is his regular series now, which makes it confusing why he still calls himself the Irate Gamer. It’s just as stupid though.

One movie review (Top Ten Summer Movies)
I’m counting the 2-part video as one because both parts were released within a few days of each other. Why did he even bother making this list if he was never going to review any of the movies? He can’t even use his “busy schedule” as an excuse, his movie reviews have zero effort put into them. Maybe we can declare the movie reviews just as dead as the Chris & Scottie Road Trip?

Two sketches (Aflac Auditions and Ronnie Sings Deck the Halls)
In one of his ego-stroking videos, IG announced he would be doing sketches with his side-characters. There was panic, followed by indigestion. First we got a video where IG and his side characters audition to be the new Aflac duck after Gilbert Gottfried was fired from the role. It was unfunny and stupid, and IG made himself look “so perfect” compared to his other creations. I am not counting the “deleted scene” (see Other below).
The other video was a Ronnie the Skeleton Christmas Special and… read the list to see.

Twenty-Seven E3 videos
I stand corrected, he put out more overly-idiotic E3 coverage than anything else this year (not counting the final category) and it was just as blindingly stupid as last year. Vague questions, no new info, released long after E3 ended while many other sites had better coverage within the same day! … It’s really no different from last year. It dragged on and on and on.
I’m also counting the two videos he did with Raychul Moore because those had just as many stupid moments.

Thirty-Four “Other” videos
“Other” refers to videos that don’t count in the above categories. These include update videos, trailers, contests, non-E3 news, trailer “reviews”, videos stroking his ego, as well as the Aflac Auditions “deleted scene” and HoVG Part 1 in HD (remastered video thus it doesn’t count). As you can tell, he had plenty of time to make this kind of shit.
This was a difficult one to count up as he actually deleted videos from his account, so this number may not be 100% accurate.

With all that out of the way, onto the list! Because there was an increase in videos this year, it’s now a Top 15 instead of a Top 10.

15. Sonic 4 wasn‘t refreshingly new enough? But you said…
IG looked at Sonic Colors this year and surprisingly he didn’t bash it, then again Sonic Colors was actually a decent game. Of course, he took this opportunity to bash the other recent Sonic games again, notably Unleashed (might I remind you, he only played it for 90 minutes). He took a brief aside to talk about Sonic 4 to say he wasn’t impressed because it wasn’t refreshing or new. WAIT A MINUTE! In his Sonic Unleashed review, he bashed the game for being too different and wanted Sega to back to the basics. But when they do he doesn’t find it “refreshing” enough? You are the king of hypocrisy Chris Bores.

14. “I’ll eat this 20 year old cereal, what can go wrong?”
In the “triumphant” return of I Rate the 80s, Bores talked about TMNT cereal. Predictable given his love of the food. Most of the video was him talking about the box, and it was duuuuuulllllll. Who the hell wants to hear what’s on a cereal box?
But the dumbest part is at the end, where he decides to take a bite. Unsurprisingly, he spits it out in disgust. Well, no shit! It’s 20 year old cereal, of course it’s going to be rancid!
What really gets me though is that on Facebook he revealed he did SIX TAKES of him eating the cereal just to get “the right shot”. There is something seriously wrong with you.

13. “Early review of MvC3? Better milk the fuck out of it!”
It’s rare that Bores reviews a modern game 2-3 weeks within release, so it came as a major surprise when he released a review of Marvel vs. Capcom 3 the day before it came out. Almost like a professional reviewer. Granted, it was a bad review with the usual research failure and side-tracking away from important topics (I’m going to spend most of it talking about unlockable characters). Now, a normal reviewer would move onto the next game. As we’ve learned, IG isn’t normal.
Along with the game review, we got “reviews” of the game’s four opening cinematics, which amount to playing the entire clip and saying “that was really cool” afterwards. With such brilliant insight like “I liked it when Spider-Man climbed the wall” and confusing C. Viper for Jean Grey (showing he never played Street Fighter IV). The fourth video even had a glitch that caused the entire clip to play again. Oddly enough, he removed two of the videos ( and no, not the glitched one).
That’s not all, at GotGame he posted a video of him playing the game. He showed footage, then it cut to him “Winter Gaming” and then it cut back to the footage. What’s the purpose of this video? Hell if I know.
Maybe GotGame will learn to never send him early copies again.

12. Why does History of Video Games still exist?
IG claims he started this series because “books weren’t visual enough”, but the real reason is an attempt to convince the haters that he really is a gamer. Five videos later, not only has he not convinced anybody that he’s a gamer, but he’s made things worse. The single video about Pong Consoles isn’t making him look any more credible.
He can claim job security all he wants, but there’s no reason for this series to go on or even exist.
What makes me laugh is that he’s planning a DVD. The logic center in his brain must be malfunctioning, you can’t release a DVD titled “History of Video Games” that doesn’t even cover the Atari 2600, much less anything from Nintendo, Sega, or Sony. Just… wow.

11. MOI-CHENDISNG!
In 2007, Chris started selling an Irate Gamer t-shirt. It was bland and unappealing. Shortly afterward he released a rushed DVD of his first 11 episodes. People quickly called it out as garbage and an obvious cash-grab to beat the AVGN’s first DVD. Afterwards things were silent for a long time.
This year, we got a lot of shit. Not only did IG have his first DVD “professionally pressed” with a new box art, but he released volume 2 and 3 at the same time. Along with that, a new t-shirt and a… mouse pad?
The t-shirt and mouse pad have an extremely ugly design that looks like a kid was playing with mustard and chocolate. Why anyone would want to wear something that ugly in public is beyond me, and I’m blind to fashion. The mouse pad also looks like it was made with tissue paper.
I can’t say much else about the DVDs as nobody has uploaded the contents online and there’s no way in hell I’m giving him my own money. Judging by Charlie/2600theatari’s video of him spazzing out over the DVD, it looks just as flimsy as before.

10. “I’m a huge Mortal Kombat fan, but the classic games aren’t very good”
IG has gone on and on about being a massive Mortal Kombat fan, even using it as a flimsy justification for hating Tekken 6 (which was already a bad excuse for not knowing Tekken is a fighting game). So when he released a video reviewing Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection, people were expecting a heavily biased love-fest that would bore us all to tears. What we got instead was Bores outing himself as a massive hypocrite.
Going on about how he loved the originals, playing the first on Sega CD (such an obvious lie) he ended the review saying “these aren’t good because the new one left me jaded”. What the hell does that mean? The best I can think of is “I’ve been lying this whole time but I suck at covering it up” It would be like a Zelda fan that loved Link to the Past and Link’s Awakening, gush about them for ages, play Skyward Sword, play the old games and say “Wow, those old games were really lame”. IG was never a Mortal Kombat fan.

9. “People think I’m turning decent? I can’t have that! I‘ll dress as Skeletor!”
Despite the stupidity of eating 20 year old cereal and talking about a box for three minutes in his return to I Rate the 80s, people still found it better than his normal output. He followed up with a Micro Machines video that even some of the haters said was decent (I don’t see it). Prompting people to believe he’s finally redeeming himself and he’ll actually become- NOPE!
He followed with a look at Masters of the Universe action figures. It had research failure, horrible gags, non-existent reviewing (listing off the figures is the same as reviewing right?) and idiotic sketches with Chris dressed as Skeletor (without wearing a shirt), IG doing the laziest He-Man transformation ever (no changes!) and a completely random reference to the Trix Rabbit (that still shows research failure, it was the kids that said “Silly Rabbit, Trix are for kids” not the Rabbit!) This video made people realize this “I Rate the 80s” stupidity was just as bad if not worse than his regular output. The Madballs and Kinnikuman videos furthered that.

8. The pacing of his “Shadow Overlord” story arc
Normally, I’d point out the insanely slow pacing of History of Video Games. But after two years it’s tiresome. Instead I’ll point out the absurdly slow pace of his storyline. Storylines in internet reviews are nothing new (Linkara, The Game Overthinker, JewWario, Apollo Z. Hack, etc.), and while enjoyable to many, some are negative towards their existence. Some stories are dropped *cough*Apollo*cough*, but IG is insistent that his is an “on-going epic”. That would be nice if it MADE ANY PROGRESS! Not just in story pacing, but in actual video releases. People would probably care more for your dumb villains and “heroics” if they were more common. But no, it’s just as sluggish as … everything else he does.

7. “Robot invasions are boring, I want to tell a fantasy story!”
When IG started his storyline, the first arc was a robot invasion story. His Odyssey was stolen (7-Up Spot) and it somehow made robots that started invading a nearby city (RoboCop). What did IG do? Send out the newly-reformed R.O.B. to one-shot them all as he sat on his ass playing RoboCop games. … Weaaaak. For added let-down, Evil Gamer attempts to stop R.O.B. but doesn’t put up any resistance as R.O.B. casually shoots him. For someone that complains about the endings in video games all the time, you have major issues setting up your own.
At first, I didn’t think it was the ending as his website listed the following episode as the “Robot War Aftermath” (Pffft, war). … We didn’t get that.
Instead we got a complete shift in tone and genre. Nothing about the previous arc was brought up other than R.O.B. being his sidekick and a brief mention of Shadow Overlord. It’s almost like it never happened.
Instead of robots and sci-fi, IG gets a magical sword that powers him up a/la He-Man but lazier (all he did was change into a red shirt, and somehow that’s still better than the transformation mentioned above). Then the ending reveals he’s “the chosen one” that must defeat Shadow Overlord, further cementing his massive Sue status. The jarring transition only serves to show that Chris is obviously making this up as he goes along, and for someone planning out a story this is a BAD MOVE!

6. “Here’s my Christmas special. An annoying Jewish stereotype singing!”
IG and holiday specials have never got along.
In 2007, all he did was release a montage of his videos with a snow overlay, then cut to him saying Merry Christmas to everyone followed by a random Bullet Bill flying by him. Because “herp derp I can do sprites” or something. Oh, and an Elf Yourself video with IG, Tony, Ronnie, and Devil Bores (because nothing says Merry Christmas like the prince of darkness!) This video got removed from YouTube.
2008 saw the most effort with two Top 5 lists of his favorite NES and DS games.
2009 had a shoe-horned bit at the end of his Kool-Aid Man video.
2010 had… nothing! I think all we got was some text on his site.
This year though, he did something vastly different. Something… wretched and foul. A macrocosm of concentrated annoyance.
Ronnie the Skeleton *sighs* singing.
Ronnie invites his… family. This includes his “French brother” Dirk and his mother *holds back vomit*. Then they start singing Deck the Halls with Ronnie and Dirk trying to upstage each other, along with some really lame slapstick. The Three Stooges they are not.
Yes, it’s the same Dirk from the “Days of Our Skeletons” joke. So he hired his brother to be an actor, and why does his brother have a French accent anyway? God damn it I’m over thinking this again!
At some points, Bores doesn’t even bother disguising his voice. It really is a painful video, I wouldn’t be surprised if you couldn’t sit through all of it, and it’s only 2 minutes long!
Here’s the best part, he’s actually SELLING an MP3 on his site. Annoy your friends with a nasally Jewish person singing a Christmas song. How does Bores not notice Ronnie sounds like a stereotypical Jew?

5. “I don’t like change! Kirby must eat not play with yarn!”
At E3 2010, Bores kept saying he was not impressed with Kirby’s Epic Yarn. Months later in his review of Donkey Kong Country Returns, he called Epic Yarn a “let-down”. After bags of hate-mail he released a review of it in January.
What we got was a highly hypocritical whiny review that amounted to “Waaah I don’t like change!”
His constant complaining about the easy difficulty only made him look like massive hypocrite given his constant complaints about games being too hard. He clearly had no idea how the medal system or beads worked. What’s strange is he loves the Lego Star Wars games and those have a similar punishment for “dying”.
Given his obsession with food, I imagine Kirby’s inability to eat enemies is why he hated this game. It got so whiny that he complained that there were TOO MANY bonus levels. What kind of shithead does that?
That’s not even getting into the horrible “Facepalm” gag he was doing. We’re not eight years old Chris, we know what a Facepalm is!
Even after the review came out, he continued to salt the wound by reminding us how much he hated Epic Yarn in small videos about Kirby’s Return to Dreamland. We get it! Move on!

4. “FREE STUFF FREE STUFF! Please subscribe to me I neeeeed it!”
Chris is no stranger to contests, having given away a free PS3 and some free energy drinks in the past. It often seemed like a way to regain lost subscribers after putting out really bad videos.
2011 saw a massive increase in contests. It was such a scam yet nobody saw it. Giving away obsolete plastic shit or his own merch, either way it was obvious subscriber bait.
At one point, he started doing WEEKLY contests. He was screaming desperation now. He couldn’t even keep up with it as after a month he declared they’d be bi-weekly now, and even then he hasn’t kept that promise.
Strange how a guy that got his start ripping off people better than him has now reduced himself to giving away stuff in order to keep fans, rather than produce actual content.

3. The RoboCop review
Of the three regular Irate Gamer episodes released this year, this is the one I disliked the most. It was long, boring, and even offensive in some places. Completely forgetting the only crossover he ever did (SWAGshow must be so proud of you) we got an episode reintroducing Tony as a violent asshole, a horrible Days of Our Lives parody with Ronnie, a review that shows IG has never seen the movie, an unfunny scene with IG shooting the cast of That 70’s Show, the most generic robots ever, an out-of-nowhere heel face turn for R.O.B. that Tony somehow built of nowhere since he disintegrated in the R.O.B. episodes, and overall it suuuuucked. Yet somehow we’re supposed to buy this his epic storyline when it’s about as “epic” as grating cheese.
Oh and a joke that’s not only worse than “Call 911 I was ROBbed”, but overly explained because he thinks we’re idiots.

2. “Three games in six minutes? I can do better! How about four games in three minutes?”
My worst moment from last year was the abysmal 3-in-1 review. It showed that Bores not only doesn’t care for his show, but he doesn’t care for his fans. Requests my ass! There was even fan backlash, something rare for IG since he blocks all kinds of criticism.
Did he learn from this and realize he should honor & respect his requests? NOPE!
In fact, he did worse. He reviewed four games and gave even less time and effort to them. Green Lantern has upgrades? Yeah, like every other God of War clone. Lego Star Wars has new stuff? Like what? That’s literally all he said! Mario’s Sports Mix is repetitive? Well yeah, it’s a sports game. They usually are! Shattered Dimensions got the most time and even then it was half-assed. The video was lazy, sloppy, and represents everything wrong with the Irate Gamer.
What shocks me is that the fans were saying it was amazing. Seriously? Are you that easily entertained that “it has new stuff” is good enough for you? This only further convinces me that most of his audience consists of kids.

1. “Blowing up game companies is hilarious! There’s no way this can backfire on me.”
GotGame once again brought IG to E3 this year, and somehow gave him even more interviews and press access. He got into every major conference… except for one.
Due to overbooking or other issues, IG (and perhaps the rest of the GotGame crew) couldn’t get into the Ubisoft conference. A normal person would be disappointed but they would move on. IG on the other hand… good lord.
He made a response video outside of the theater the conference was taking place, talking tough like he’s someone you shouldn’t mess with, tells his camera man to take out a “button” which was really the camera’s lens cap, IG “presses” it, and it cuts to an image of Ubisoft’s office exploding. … What the fuck?
This is immensely unprofessional. Say what you will about Spoony screaming “BETRAYAL” after seeing the new XCOM, at least he didn’t threaten violence! This only shows Chris Bores is an unprofessional douchebag that shouldn’t be allowed at events.
But you hear the fanboys saying “oh it’s a joke, don’t take it seriously” NO! Directly addressing a major company with a THREAT OF VIOLENCE is not a joke. Not only does it look bad for Bores, it looks bad for GotGame. I wouldn’t be surprised if at next year’s E3, Ubisoft forbids them from entering because of that video. I’m surprised GotGame didn’t punish him or kick him off the site for that.
And why did IG care so much? Is he a major Ubisoft fan? Is he obsessed with Assassin’s Creed and needs to find out if the next game has Ezio or not? What games has he even reviewed from Ubisoft? *looks* Turtles in Time Reshelled. That’s it! So why did he care so much?
The video was a disgusting display of journalism, Bores should be ashamed of himself and if GotGame has any sense they won’t bring him to E3 2012.

So those are my Worst IG Moments of 2011. One hell of a year everyone. It was so bad that I asked you to give your worst moment, and here they are!

Arthur Arneiro: Kirby’s Epic Yarn review
The Bastard Gamer: Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection review
BattleFeverJ: Ubisoft E3 video
blueluigi: Bringing back I Rate the 80s
claudiocardenas92: The ROB-O-Cop joke in the RoboCop review
Cody S.: The 4-in-1 Video Game Roundup
Deliverance115: The overabundance of contests
Derek: The Days of Our Skeletons joke in the RoboCop review
DLAbaoaqu: The 4-in-1 Video Game Roundup
Doresh: Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection review
Dromador: The Facepalm joke in the Kirby’s Epic Yarn review
EricKirby: Masters of the Universe video game review
F.A. Whitehead: Kirby’s Epic Yarn review
fattoler: Shirtless Skeletor Bores in the He-Man action figures review
gostars3000: Showing footage of China instead of Japan in the Kinnikuman review
Gr. Rock-River: Eating 20 year old cereal in the TMNT cereal review
Guru Larry: Ubisoft E3 video
Hegerfors: Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City E3 video
InanimateGamer: The continuity failure in the RoboCop review (Tony being hand drawn in high school when he used to be a sprite, Wise Sage knowing him in high school despite the Contra review).
Jamin T.: The ROB-O-Cop joke in the RoboCop review
Keith: The re-branding into “Irate Entertainment”
Locus Ceruleus Media: His semi-misogynistic behavior towards Raychul Moore at E3
lordlaharl: The 4-in-1 Video Game Roundup
MortalKombat2007: Harping on starting over in the RoboCop Part 2 review
Neoguest: Masters of the Universe action figure review
Pohger: His hypocrisy in the Sonic Colors video saying Sonic 4 didn’t add anything while back in his Sonic Unleashed video he complained they should go back to the basics
Random Man: Wanting a gritty adult Legend of Zelda as stated in his Top 5 E3 Disappointments
RJ: Ronnie the Skeleton sings Deck the Halls
Sabertooth: Madballs review
Shadow19: Wanting a gritty adult Legend of Zelda as stated in his Top 5 E3 Disappointments
Shaolin Dave: Shirtless Skeletor Bores in the He-Man action figures review
Soverign64: Ubisoft E3 video
Speeddasher: Kirby’s Epic Yarn review
St. Lizard: Aflac Auditions
starofjustice: Making his storyline a generic “good vs. evil” plot
The-CRZA: Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection review
ThroningErmine8: Ubisoft E3 video
TTBurger88: Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection review
TheUltimateBastich: Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection review
UltimateCharm: Ubisoft E3 video
Vex: Ronnie the Skeleton sings Deck the Halls

So that’s all for 2011. I hope you enjoyed reading this insanity the past year, not entirely sure what to expect in the next one. Actually, I foresee research failure, boring reviews, heinous sketches, and empty promises. Either way, I’ll keep myself on my toes.
Thank you all so much for reading and contributing, I’m really surprised that so many people continue to look at this. Then again, as long as Bores continues to put out garbage I’ll continue to write up posts debunking him. Showing people that he’s not as brilliant as he says.
Again, thank you all so much.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Want Your Thoughts In The Year End Post?

2011 is coming to a close, meaning my annual "Worst IG Moments" list is on its way. However, I want to try something different this year. I want you, the readers, to give your thoughts.

What is your worst Irate Gamer moment of 2011? Tell me and I'll include it.
Just post a comment or drop me an e-mail at BatDanKnight@gmail.com along with the name you want to be called.

RULES:
1. Please be specific. Don't say "Everything he does". It can be a moment, a series of moments (running jokes), or an entire video(s), but it can't be "everything".
2. It has to be from 2011. No Aladdin, no 3-in-1, and no Harmony of Despair (even if the YouTube version went up in 2011, it was originally a 2010 video).

The deadline is December 31st.
Have fun.

EDIT: I should mention this is YOUR personal opinion. They will be shown after my list.

Monday, December 12, 2011

Informative Tidbits

You ever wonder how many subscribers a YouTube user gains or loses in a day? How about a month? Well, thanks to the site SocialBlade you can find out! http://socialblade.com/youtube/ Looking up the Irate Gamer's stats is... pretty telling. Earlier this month, YouTube had a redesign. It sucks. Along with this, they did an account purge. Inactive and suspended/closed accounts have been deleted and a multitude of YouTube users lost subscribers. Including IG, losing over 100 subscribers. This may not seem like much but considering his fairly slow growth rate (he NEVER gets more than 60 subscribers a day) that's saying a lot. Considering he was one of the first YouTube partners, having a cushy spot on the front page next to WhatTheBuck and smosh, it says a lot that he barely gets subscribers now. However, the purge is long over and he's still losing subscribers. These look to be genuine unsubs. Sounds like people are finally tired of his slow schedule, lack of content, and overuse of contests. I can't blame them. That's not all I wanted to discuss. IG does not have a title card artist. Well, he has Drew but he's not consistent. He only did like... three? All the other title cards were made by Bores himself. Nowadays he doesn't even bother making them. I learned from a source that wishes to stay anonymous (they also gave me the above info about SocialBlade) that fans on deviantArt have actually offered to make title cards for him, even sending them to Chris. He even accepted them, only for the fans to get burned when the title cards were never used at all. In fact, that seems to be common. BigAl2k6 said in a vlog that he was friendly with Bores and even sent him footage to use for the show as a Gaming Expert. As you can tell, this footage was never used in the show. It sounds like Bores often has people do things but never puts them in his videos. In fact, he turns down help a lot. Guru Larry has publicly said on Twitter that he's offered to help him proofread his scripts and point out any inaccuracies, but Bores declined. I have no idea why Bores declines outside help so much. It may actually benefit him. According to my Facebook informant, Bores says the next couple of videos he's planning are History of Video Games episodes, further delaying his stupid storyline. So, not only will his History of Video Games series never end, his plot with the Shadow Overlord will never end either. I sense more broken promises. Just like Deadly Towers, the NES Simpsons games, Need for Speed Undercover, Castlevania, and the return of the Genie. That's all for now.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Kinnikuman Should Deliver a Kinniku Buster to IG

The new I Rate the 80s is out, and sadly it’s not MTV. Making that last scene in the Madballs video a full-blown Big Lipped Alligator Moment. He probably saw that Family Guy episode with the same joke and thought “I have filters, I can do the exact same thing! I don’t care if it doesn’t make sense.” Instead he’s going back to M.U.S.C.L.E. oh joy. At least he knows the series real name now, Kinnikuman, and put it in the title. Though, that’s just the title, he may not say it in the actual video. *reads description* A new 80s toy? Isn’t that an oxymoron? 0:05 - 0:38: “Today we’re turning back the clock” Ugh, he sounds like a kid’s show. “We must first travel to Japan” Do I sense green-screen bullshit? Actually, we just get an effect where footage falls on top of him. Footage of CHINA! That’s not Japan you damn idiot! Not all Asians are alike Bores. He brings up how the series started in Shonen Jump. Which one? The weekly one or the monthly one? Okay he says “weekly comic series” but remember there were two versions of the same magazine. He also pronounces Kinnikuman’s name wrong. Not that shocking. If he couldn’t be bothered to pronounce Alexey Pajitnov, issues with Japanese names wouldn’t surprise me. He mentions how it started as a joke comic (neglecting to mention how it was also an Ultraman parody) until it developed into a wrestling action series. Kind of like how Negima started as a Harem series, then became an over-the-top action series. Or how Medaka Box started as a slice-of-life comedy, then became a meta action series. Or how Bleach started as a bland Yu Yu Hakusho rip-off, then became a horrifically god-awful Yu Yu Hakusho rip-off. What? 0:39 - 0:52: He lists off some of the crazy wrestlers, then a voice rings out “That’s right!” Team Rocket? No, it’s his Kinnikuman M.U.S.C.L.E. figure appearing out of nowhere, growing in size and jumping on top of him. Wooow, that was a bad effect. I sense this is going to be a running joke… 0:53 - 1:23: He briefly mentions the anime (and no he never says manga or anime at any point in this video) and then gets to the figures. He brings up the first series having Kinnikuman, his sidekick (you mean Alexandria Meat?) his father (Mayumi Kinniku, what is with you and names?) his friends and enemies. Since he brought up Benkiman earlier (or, the urinal with legs) he mentions he came in a later set. Then we get a scene with Bores trying to find a bathroom, stumbles across Benkiman, and he suddenly grows eyes and says “aw crap”. … Even though this was probably their intention, somehow I imagine Takashi Shimada and Yoshinori Nakai would be ashamed of this. 1:24 - 1:39: More history, Mattel brought the action figures over to America. Oh no, another young Bores sketch. Why does he look like Mario? Also, if he’s supposed to be a kid, why is he taller than the store shelf? We’re supposed to buy that Bores is six years old here, and unless he was some freak of nature as a child then he shouldn’t be that tall! I’m sorry, but if you’re going to do stupid sketches like that then I’m going to point out how fucking stupid they are! 1:40 - 2:16: He brings up that they brought over the toys but not the anime or the manga. Well, for the anime it had to be heavily HEAVILY censored. Keep in mind this was still the 80s when G.I. Joe was forced to laser guns and toilet humor was not allowed. Don’t forget that anime was not popular in the 80s. Sure you had Voltron, you had Battle of the Planets, but outside of small circles it was not well-known. Plus, Kinnikuman’s unique art style would make it difficult to pull a “Carl Macek” and combine it with other unrelated shows. As for the manga, well… the market was non-existent. Sure there was stuff like Barefoot Gen, Golgo 13, Lone Wolf and Cub, but there was really no market for it overall. Not like today. Plus, if they were going to make it for kids then it would require even more censorship. Because what’s intended for kids in Japan is MUCH different than what’s intended for kids in other countries. Fist of the North Star? Meant for kids. Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure? Meant for kids. See what I’m getting at? He then goes into how Kinnikuman was renamed Muscle Man (which is a completely accurate translation) and some other annoying name changes. I would be fair to this part, but he ruins it with another scene of his Kinnikuman figure jumping on top of him. I knew it would be a running joke. Watch as he Kinnku Drivers it into the ground. 2:17 - 2:46: He notes how the American figures were different due to a bigger size and harder plastic. Wait, did you really waste money buying the Japanese versions? Why? He found the idea of putting them in a garbage can case “cool”, notices a figure shaped like a garbage can (I’m not sure if that’s true), then Kinnikuman walks on. IG shoos him away, then he jumps on him again. COME ON you just did that joke! It’s dead now, don’t do it again. EDIT: The "garbage can man" is actually a blender man named Mixer Taitei. Thanks to RW64 for this info. 2:47 - 3:12: He brings up other M.U.S.C.L.E. merchandise like colored figures and a poster that reveals there were 233 figures to collect. He mentions one figure he has that was left off the poster and is “highly collectible”. Kinnkuman walks on screen AGAIN and IG tells him to back off. Thankfully, he doesn’t jump on him again. But if he’s still using him, he will eventually. Also, there were 236 figures. The poster was just missing a few. 3:13 - 3:39: IG mentions figures that were released only in Japan He lists a few off, ending on a baby Kinnikuman (Mantaro?) IG looks at it, tosses it into his disposal, and destroys it. What’s wrong with babies? No really, why did he do that? 3:39 - 4:29: He brings up how everything was over in 1987, the manga was done, the anime was over, and the toys stopped. But then he brings up a giant box with all the figures released years later. Okay so that’s how he got the Japanese versions. He didn't spend days scouring eBay for them. Well, he probably scoured for this box but still… He says it’s awesome but then gets angry because he wanted the anime dubbed in English. You know, fansubs exist… oh wait if your Tekken 6 video is anything to go by then you hate reading. Yeah, an English dub isn’t happening. He does bring up Ultimate Muscle (Kinnikuman Nisei in Japan) but that was a sequel series and… oh no he’s planning to do an episode on it? It wasn’t made in the 80s, how can you… forget it the video is almost over. He moves onto the rating. He loved the figures as a kid, but was disappointed they never aired the anime (again, censorship) giving it a “Nostalgic Mediocre”. Just because they didn’t air the anime? What kind of reasoning is that? Angered by this rating, Kinnikuman appears and tries to jump him again. This time IG stands up and they start “fighting”. Oh dear lord these effects. It would have been less embarrassing to fight the actual tiny figure. The two go behind the desk, the giant hand action figure taps the table three times, and IG gets up “victorious”. He’s the only one, I feel like I was just mindfucked. That was horrible! His logic behind the rating made little sense, the sketches were painful, the effects were vomit-inducing, he mixed up China and Japan, and the review portion was just as dull as usual. If this is the dominant series now, this is going to get painful. On the bright side, we won’t see a review of M.U.S.C.L.E. for the NES since he already did one! … Wait, why didn’t he bring that up? This would have been perfect to get more ad revenue from that video. Did he seriously forget? Given how he says he doesn’t remember the games he reviews, I wouldn’t be surprised. You know, I make jokes about him covering AIDS and Saddam Hussein since he declared he’ll cover “everything” from the 80s, but then I realize that there are only two things on this show. Toys and food. Is that all we’re going to see? That’s just sad. I’m hoping this is his last video of the year. He’ll probably do some dumb contest or trailer review, something not worth covering. However, his site says the next History of Video Games episode is coming Winter 2011. So by the end of this month. We’ll see if that really happens. What the fuck is a muscle? UPDATE: Turns out Bores had a reason for not using anime and manga. When asked about it from a YouTube user, he said "I refrained from using those terms for the mass audience" ... Where do I start? 1. It's not 1985 anymore, anime and manga are fairly mainstream! 2. What mass audience? The people likely to watch your videos know exactly what anime and manga are. You aren't getting old people wondering what this "new-fangled animu" is, most of your audience is kids! 3. Screw you, you insulting shit head. Once again, you take your audience for idiots. This is why people hate you Chris. Special thanks to Zidane Tribal (a user, not the FFIX character) for getting this screencap: http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/5426/proofirategamer.png

Thursday, November 24, 2011

For Making This Idiotic Video, I'm Sending You to Arkham City

It’s Thanksgiving! Stuff your gullets full of bird and bread while watching family movies on TV. With the Irate Gamer though, this gives him an opportunity to release two new videos! First is, as usual, more contest shit. Giving away download codes for BurgerTime World Tour on XBLA. How sad is your company that you have to rely on the Irate Gamer to give away free copies of your game? He also says the next video is another I Rate the 80s. So you’ve just given up on the regular IG show? I blame the people that said “this is actually decent”. Turns out it was just as shit as his other stuff! The other video is an IG Neo review of *sighs* Batman: Arkham City. Watch him ruin an amazing game with his lack of knowledge. At least the game is only a month old this time. 0:07 - 0:26: The video opens with IG reminding us it’s Thanksgiving with some stock turkey sound effects playing, not a good sign if I’m getting flashbacks to that dumb Donkey Kong Country Returns video. He announces he’ll review Batman: Arkham City and gets confused wondering what that has to do with Thanksgiving. The exact same question can be asked with Donkey Kong Country Returns! You don’t have to make this Thanksgiving related. “Let’s check this bad boy out!” Ah, seems Thanksgiving is also the day where IG decides he must horribly overact his lines. 0:27 - 0:41: “If you’re a fan of the gritty Batman that was reintroduced in the past few years” Past few years? I’m looking at these comics from the 1980s and these are fairly gritty and dark. “Now the details in this game are what makes this one pop, and there are tons of them” Like? “Details” is a rather vague word Chris. You have to give details yourself and can’t rely on your stupid fans to take your word for it. 0:42 - 1:20: He brings up the villains, said they did a good job with the Penguin and that Joker and Two-Face are in it. Any mention of how Joker is voiced by Mark Hamill in his final appearance as the clown prince of crime? He’s just being really vague about this, it’s like he’s taking lines from his other reviews and replacing the names. There’s a clip of Two-Face saying “Bring out the defendant”, then a random shot of IG holding his controller, then it cuts back and Batman is facing Solomon Grundy. … That’s not how happened in the game. It was Penguin that had Grundy prisoner, not Two-Face. Two-Face was actually pretty inconsequential to the plot. After you tie him up at the beginning of the game, he doesn’t appear again until Catwoman’s final episode. For some reason, IG doesn’t like the appearance of Grundy and remarks “I guess they can’t all be winners.” Screw you, Grundy is awesome. He says that another villain done right was Catwoman. Actually, she’s more of the anti-hero Catwoman in this game considering you play as her. “She looks so much like the Gymli’s version, it’s almost eerie” … What does that mean? What‘s a Gymli? *gets note* Ooooh he means famed comic book artist Jim Lee. See, he didn’t put any space between the given name and surname and added “the” at the beginning so it sounded like he was talking about some rejected Tolkien character. Enunciation? Second takes? Pshaw, Chris Bores doesn’t need those! By the way, ever consider the characters were made to look and act like they did in the comics? It’s almost like Rocksteady gave a shit! Unlike you and this review! Seriously, no mention of Mr. Freeze, Ra’s al Ghul and his daughter Talia, Harley-Quinn, hell you don’t even say Hugo Strange’s name and he’s basically the main villain! 1:20 - 1:55: “Now in this game, you’ll be running around this huge open landscape, which is Gotham City” While he’s not a Batman villain, I feel the need to quote Lex Luthor. *ahem* WRONG! It’s not Gotham, it’s a sectioned off piece of Gotham called “Arkham City” (it’s almost like it’s in the title). If you actually LISTENED to the story, you would know this! He says exploring the city is fun because of all the sidequests. Care to name some? Like helping Bane get rid of Titan, saving hostages from the Riddler, finding his riddles, locating phones to trace Victor Zsasz’ calls before he murders his own hostages, no not going to mention them? “You get to fly around the city” Batman doesn’t fly, he glides. There’s a difference. He then brings up how they brought back the voice actors from Batman: The Animated Series here. Yes, they did that in the last game too. Care to say their names? Kevin Conroy & Mark Hamill (*cough*final appearance*cough*). “And I think Harley-Quinn as well” You’d be right if this was Arkham Asylum. However, Arleen Sorkin did not reprise her role here, instead Harley is voiced by veteran voice actress Tara Strong. Honestly, you couldn’t take five minutes in IMDB or Wikipedia to find this? 1:56 - 2:24: He mentions how you use detective work to figure out puzzles, saying that some of these puzzles are headscratchers and can even kill you. Funny how the on-screen footage isn’t showing a puzzle but basic plat forming. There are puzzles in the game that kill you, but those are mostly set-up by the Riddler. Which makes sense given how the Riddler puts Batman into various death traps. IG then says it’s okay because even dying is cool, showing a game over screen with Harley Quinn mocking you. Just like the last game, if you die the villain mocks you. 2:25 - 2:43: With 30 seconds left, IG realizes he needs to move onto the final verdict since these videos can’t be longer than 3 minutes for some reason. “I simply love Batman Arkham City, and it contains a great storyline” A storyline that he brought up at NO POINT in this video. Nice going there! He then recommends it for your Christmas list. Honestly, if THIS was the video I had to go by then I’d forget this game even exists. The video ends with… oh screw you Bores. He impersonates Batman saying “I’m the Irate Gamer”, holds a cape in front of him, delivers his dumb catchphrase and leaves. Then after the credits card, he holds a Batman action figure to the camera and says “Happy Thanksgiving”. What kind of ending was that? God that was stupid. Overall, this was just another dumb, generic IG video. He explained next to nothing about the game, anything he did mention was written to be as vague as possible, that ending was beyond horrid, and did he really have to make this a Thanksgiving episode? It’s rather easy not to make a Thanksgiving episode. No mention of map challenges, Riddler challenges, THE GADGETS, the use of stealth, playable Catwoman, DLC Nightwing and Robin, nothing about the storyline, just a big pile of “Dis game are good and… that’s it”. It’s quite obvious he never played the first game. That’s all for now. Let’s see how long it takes for that I Rate the 80s video to come out. I’m kind of hoping it’s MTV, not because I want to hear him talk about it, but I want some explanation for that out-of-nowhere ending involving A-ha’s Take On Me in the last video. I get the feeling it’s just going to be a Big Lipped Alligator Moment…

Monday, November 14, 2011

Redux Recap: Chris & Scottie's Unfunny Expeditions

It’s been pretty slow lately, and he hasn’t uploaded anything new since Halloween. I think a Redux Recap is in order. For the longest time, we thought Chris’ non-IG series were done with. Haunted Investigators hadn’t had a single new episode since 2006-07, but now he’s announced it’s returning. Breakfast Rants seemed dead, until it was re-tooled into I Rate the 80s. That series itself seemed dead until he released FOUR in a fairly short span of time. However, this is the one series I can safely say is done for good. The Chris & Scottie Road Trip, an attempt at Bores trying to combine information and comedy. It went about as well you’d expect. The premise is that Chris and his friend Scottie go around the world (stand in front of their green screen) with Chris giving poorly researched facts and Scottie acting like an idiot. Lines resembling jokes are delivered. As if the idea didn’t sound bad enough, we have to buy Chris Bores as the straight man. We are in trouble. There were only three episodes of the series, the first was only put on the (now dead) Chris & Scottie Road Trip web site. You can read that recap here: http://irategamersucks.blogspot.com/2010/01/lost-road-trip-random-thoughts.html It was made after my cut-off for the Redux Recaps (they’ll end when I get to Resident Evil 5). The second was made in 2005 and happens to be a holiday-themed episode, Independence Day. Set off a sparkler and get ready. Pre-intro: The video begins with Bores introducing us to what we‘re about to see, telling us he made this back in 2005 and that he has more episodes in the works. Oh ho ho ho. Hindsight is a bitch. Intro: The actual video begins with Chris & Scottie in a green-screen kitchen. Come on, you couldn’t actually record that in your own kitchen? I can feel the dread already. Chris announces they’ll be staying in the USA for this road trip. As they leave, Scottie gets confused over what direction he’s in. So, was that a joke? Groom Lake, Nevada: The dopey duo head to Area 51. Scottie begins freaking out over the possibilities of UFOs and aliens, and one can see where this is headed. After another fact I’m sure is incorrect, a bad spotlight effect that’s intended to be a UFO appears in the sky. Chris really abused the default effects in Particle Illusion/After Effects for this trip. The two run away. Niagara Falls, New York: Oh wow, he didn’t even spell it right. The two pinheads stand in front of the titular waterfall, rather some really bad water effects Bores found in Adobe. Scottie does a “funny” voice when Chris mentions this is the tourist attraction for lovers. Chris mentions you can see Canada on the other side, Scottie tries to see but trips over the extremely flimsy barrier. If that were the real thing, far more people would have died at Niagara Falls. Carson, California: The two head to the Home Depot Center (which Chris calls the Home Depot Arena, oops). Of all the sites in the United States you could have visited, why a stadium that opened in 2003? At least do one with historical significance, like Wrigley Field. That’s been around for nearly 100 years. Chris mentions it was built for Soccer, with Scottie dejectedly putting it down. “A lot of people watch soccer” It’s only the world’s most popular sport, duh! No, instead of mentioning that he brings up the food. Who cares that this is the largest Soccer-specific stadium in MLS? There’s food! Cause stadiums normally don’t have that? Scottie doesn’t care and says soccer sucks, prompting a rather tiny soccer ball to bean him. I like how it cuts to a close-up for that part because there’s obviously no one else there to throw the ball and Chris had to do it. Death Valley, New Mexico: Whoa whoa whoa! Death Valley is not in New Mexico. It’s on the border of California and Nevada. If you didn’t want to visit two California locations in a row, you could have tried something else or said Nevada instead. Scottie is doing exaggerated “it’s too hot out” poses when suddenly we get footage of Wile E. Coyote in Looney Tunes: Back in Action. I’m sorry what? The rest of the clip cuts between the duo and the Coyote. Scottie sees the Looney Tunes footage as a mirage. … Moving on. Las Vegas, Nevada: The two are in front of Hoover Dam (which isn’t in Las Vegas). Chris provides the dam’s height, length and base width in the form of a question, which Scottie answers “a penguin!” … No. Just no. “Welcome to Boulder City, New Mexico” Oh come on! Quit mixing up the locations! What’s sad is Boulder City is the Nevada city where Hoover Dam is located. Research is for losers! “Construction started in 1930” You’re a year off, it was 1931. But no time for that, we have more Looney Tunes footage! Scottie claims he sees the Coyote again, but Chris tells him he’s seeing mirages. I know Nevada is a desert, but I’m fairly sure mirages don’t happen at a populated area like the Hoover Dam! Wile E. Coyote fires a rocket and since this is Chris’ own world, he successfully blows a hole in the dam. Cue the shitty stock effects! The Bronx, New York: They head to Yankee Stadium. See, now there’s another worthy stadium, even if the one featured here has been torn down. Scottie scoffs because he doesn’t like the Yankees. Get it? Chris goes on about his facts while Scottie taunts the green screen and continues to be a jerk. We then get a repeat of the “soccer sucks” joke as Scottie declares the Yankees suck and gets beaned with a baseball. There’s going to be Rule of Three Abuse isn’t there? Even in 2005.… Burbank, California: The two are standing in front of Pixar Animation Studios, and Bores is wrong about locations again! Pixar’s headquarters is located in Emeryville, California, not Burbank. They’re not even close to each other. “Pixar is most well-known for its movies Little Nemo and Toy Story” It’s FINDING NEMO! Little Nemo was a 1989 love it or hate it animated film with a sordid development history based on the early 20th century comic strip about a boy and his adventures in a dream-based world. Finding Nemo is a 2003 CG animated film about an overprotective clownfish single father searching for his son. There’s a difference! Then a mouse walks by, which happens to be another default effect. I told you he abused them. Suddenly more default effects show up as Chris gives more history, including a dust cloud that’s meant to be Speedy Gonzales (you can tell by the Spanish). Chris, Speedy Gonzales is a Warner Bros character, Pixar is owned by Disney, there’s no reason to make a Speedy Gonzales reference. Noticing Scottie fidgeting because of the effects, Chris decides to let him choose the next destination. Greece: What happens now is an unfunny gag where Scottie wants to go to Greece but they keep ending up in the wrong location. What I wonder from this is how are they traveling? Are they flying to each destination? If they are, then they shouldn’t get Greece wrong multiple times. After Scottie gets it wrong FOUR TIMES (the last time being a Crisco Factory… hur hur), Chris takes them to the real Greece but immediately leaves because “we’re only doing the United States”. Scottie whines a bit about doing something but we’re never told what it is. That whole gag was pointless! I have a feeling it was only made to make Chris look good. Las Vegas, Nevada: Again? Oh wait, first time wasn’t actually Vegas. Oh look, a casino. What are the odds? Chris gives some facts that are blatantly incorrect before mentioning a Star Trek museum. Quite a leap from “talking about casinos” to “there’s a Star Trek museum!” After mentioning the museum, Scottie beams in and tells him to try the transporter with Chris confused about what just happened. Join the club! Detroit, Michigan: Another stadium? I have a feeling I know what happens here. Scottie is fidgeting some more as Chris arrives late. Scottie yells at him but Chris tells him he’s not in the mood after the “Greece fiasco”. Because switching the green screen four times is sooooo draining. As Chris talks about the Joe Louis Arena, Scottie is mocking him in the background. Why does Bores sound like he’s about to cry as he’s giving his history lesson? Scottie continues to whine about Chris being late, prompting Chris to yell “hockey sucks!” and Scottie gets hit by a default effect that’s supposed to be a puck. We have rule of three! Thank God it’s almost over. Outskirts of Town: Because it’s tough to spell Sandusky. The “road trip” has finally come to an end, they say their good byes and for some reason get beamed up by the Enterprise. Pointless? Perhaps. Followed by a weird zoom-in and the title card. I like how the early episodes called this the “Scottie & Chris Road Trip” but every other time he calls it the “Chris & Scottie Road Trip”. Sounds like Chris’ ego got in the way again and couldn’t allow Scottie to have top billing. While that wasn’t as offensively bad as the pilot, it was still awful. The usual lack of research shines though, along with painfully unfunny jokes, Scottie is an unlikable annoyance, and this really should have stayed in Chris’ vault. Normally, this is where I would end things. However, there’s one final episode to get through. Made three years after the last one, it’s pretty telling from this episode why the series never had another one. Intro: We open on the new title card, now with Chris getting top billing over Scottie. Scottie also got a haircut. I really don’t understand the purpose of doing a green-screen kitchen, can’t Chris clean his up for filming? Shouldn’t take too long. This time, they two will be going around the world. As they leave, Scottie trips. Because he’s the comic foil and has no other purpose than to get hurt. London, England: The two arrive in an excessively foggy London street. *sighs* Why not add some rain? Or a Buckingham Palace guardsman with bad teeth? The two complain about the fog. “I can’t even see my own sandwich in front of my face!” You’re holding the sandwich! Learn how your fucking limbs work! “You’d be surprised that London was once the largest city in the entire world” Chris, he was talking about his sandwich. How does that lead into “London was really big”? “Now one of the titles London retains is having one of the worst crime rates in the world” Are you kidding? In what crimes? There are countries with genocide, drug lord, FAR FAR worse than what you’d find in a first-world country! But guess what, that was setting up a joke! Scottie has his sandwich stolen, then Chris’ watch is stolen, and the power of editing steals Scottie’s shirt. This is more like the pilot, stereotypes everywhere! Pisa, Italy: Um, how is the tripod not sliding over? Even if one was in the Leaning Tower, they wouldn’t be filmed at an angle. Perspective? Oh and I see Scottie got his shirt back. “Our next stop on our tour brings us to the Leaning Tower of Pisa” “Pizza?” … How old are you Chris? Did you really think anyone over the age of 10 would find that funny? Don’t blame Scottie, you’re the one who write the line. He merely delivered it. Scottie thinks it’s pizza because he’s so hungry because he couldn’t get his sandwich in London. In the time it took for the two to travel from England to Italy, at no point did Scottie consider getting something to eat?! Where’s the sense in this? Is Chris staving him? Does he not understand geography? “No Scottie, we got a show to do” Oh, he is starving him. Such a kind man Chris. “It’s hard to stand in here” No, that’s not how the tower works… ugh And since it was so funny the first time, they do the “Pisa/Pizza” joke again. I smell Rule of Three. “Now people all over the world come to see the Leaning Tower” “Of pizza!” Tired of the joke he wrote, Chris pushes him off the tower. Murder, lovely! Yucatan Peninsula: Having somehow survived his fall, the two arrive at an ancient temple. Scottie still complaining that he’s hungry. Maybe you should work for someone else since Bores is obviously starving you. But Chris promises him a sandwich, though Scottie wants a hot dog now, hoping there’s a vendor around there. With Chris telling him there’s no chance of a vendor being out there. This sounds familiar… After a vague fact, a hot dog vendor appears out of nowhere with Scottie going to grab one. … You know, it’s one thing to reference The Simpsons, it’s another to quote The Simpsons, they’re in the dictionary now! However, this scene is neither a reference or a quote, it’s theft! Taken from a gag from the episode “’Round Springfield” with Homer wanting a hot dog in an inappropriate place (watching a surgery and a funeral) and a vendor shows up out of nowhere. This is the exact same joke! Defend the AVGN theft all you want, there’s no excuse for this. Then an ice cream truck shows up, whatever I don’t care. What location are you going to now? New York, New York: Seriously? Of all the things you can show in New York City, a cultural capital of the world, you show a fucking post office! Why?! Post offices aren’t exciting! “Blah blah blah biggest post office” ADRENELINE-PUMPING ACTION! Scottie runs excited that he won ten million dollars, but it wasn’t his mail and Chris tells him he could go to jail for opening it. Then, Scottie pulls out a copy of Action Comics #1. I love how Bores is looking at the back cover like THAT’S the impressive part. Chris’ tone changes and he goes to take it to the “proper authorities” with a devilish grin on his face. Wow, Bores is a real asshole in this video. Starving his friend, pushing him off a tower, stealing mail, I wonder if Scottie noticed this. Hell, Michigan: *sighs* Well, I know what joke is going to happen now. Blah blah blah history blah blah blah. Scottie keeps asking if there are other reasons it’s called Hell, eventually causing fake fire to appear. If you saw this joke coming, congratulations you have at least passed the second grade. Downtown: Downtown what? Downtown LA? Downtown Chicago? No it’s back home, they’re done. Wait, Michigan? He lives in Ohio! So they went from Hell to an unspecified Michigan city? Would have been nice to say something other than “Downtown”! Chris takes out the copy of Action Comics #1 he stole from the post office and Scottie notices. Chris lies that they let him keep it because he’s the “host” with Scottie realizing he’s the host too and the video ends. Somehow, that was worse than the 2005 video. Along with being painfully unfunny with predictable jokes written by 8 year olds, it was also annoying. Scottie was somehow worse than before and Chris was a major dickhead. I am so glad that this show never got anymore episodes. I would hate for them to visit Chicago. And unlike Haunted Investigators or I Rate the 80s, I don’t expect this to get an out-of-nowhere return. The Chris & Scottie Road Trip website is gone, and while I’m not 100% sure about this but Scott Mitchell (his real name) seems to have severed ties with Chris. Hopefully someone can confirm this with me. *slumps back* That’s it for now. Next Redux Recap is Zack & Wiki. Let’s see if Chris actually does a new video.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Madballs Drive IG Mad But Make Me Roll My Eyes

It’s that time of year again, IG attempting another Halloween special. 2007 gave us Zombies Ate My Neighbors, a horrible video where he bashed an excellent game. 2008 gave us Monster Party, a turning point in IG’s videos where sketches have a higher priority than reviews. 2009 gave us the “premiere” of I Rate the 80s where he talked about Fruity Yummy Mummy, an awful cereal that was discontinued (with Bores showing how little he knows about business). Last year it was Castlevania: Harmony of Despair .
This year, it’s more 80’s crap. He’s going to look at Madballs, toy rubber balls that incorporate gross out humor (because that was popular for some reason). If it’s anything like his Garbage Pail Kids video, I better grab the most potent caffeine I can find.
0:04 - 0:18: IG’s set is all “dark and spooky” like the MK Arcade Kollection video. Seriously what’s with the cauldron?
“Short lived toys that brought on a whole new meaning to sports balls” First line in the video and it’s fucking stupid. Madballs were toys, they weren’t going to be a big sport or anything. They weren’t going to held on the same level as a baseball or a soccer ball, they were just rubber balls with faces.
0:19 - 0:43: “Back in 1985” Will you stop using modern day footage when establishing a year? It’s horribly anachronistic!
He brings up the Garbage Pail Kids and how they were huge hit. Never mind that Wacky Packages came first and in fact were the reason Garbage Pail Kids even existed.
IG holds up a baseball, but turns it around to show it’s one of the Madballs. My question is why did he “react” when he turned it around? He had a straight face while looking at the Madball part, but “shocked” when he turned it around to the blank side.
0:44 - 1:02: He lists off the original series Madballs, ending on Crack Head so he can bring up how its name was changed to Bash Brain due to the slang term for crack users. He also shows a picture of Paris Hilton. Yes, I’m sure she was doing crack at age four. At least show a drug user from the 80s. Like Eddie Van Halen, or Drew Barrymore.
1:03 - 2:02: He brings up how “smart” it was to not make them hard like baseballs. It’s more common sense than smart really. If you’re going to make a collectable in the shape of a ball, don’t make it hard enough to hurt someone and get sued.
Wait wait wait, his set is bright again! What’s the point of using the “Spooky Set” in the opening if you aren’t going to use it again? Consistency is for losers!
IG talks about “fan favorites” bringing up Oculus Orbus and Hornhead. For some reason he pictures of them float next to him. Hornhead speaks… oh God this is going to lead into a painfully unfunny sketch.
Bingo! Slobulus appears and argues that he should be on the promotional material. Screamin Meemie appears for no reason. They argue a bit, IG tells them they’re all gruesome enough to be on promotional material, calls Crack Head ugly, then Crack Head appears and hits him. Screamin Meemie laughs at him. Where’s the humor in this? Where’s the joke? How is this funny?
2:02 - 2:36: IG lists off the second series Madball, ending on Lock Lips. Why? Because it’s one he had as a kid, leading into… oh no he’s doing the JD stare.
A fucking flashback sketch. So *sighs* Little Chris here (dressed as Mario for some reason) bounces a Madball, it hits him in the head, and he starts crying. Could these sketches be anymore stock? Also, “Little Chris” here didn’t take much effort. It’s just Cousin Joey wearing red. He didn’t even bother to make himself look smaller, all he did was sit down.
2:37 - 3:10: IG notes that by the second series they’ve run out of ideas. Cue more annoying sketches!
Hornhead and Lock Lips tell him to explain himself. He says a couple are unoriginal (look in the mirror Chris) and that Snake Bait looks like a clown medusa. This causes Snake Bait to appear, hit him again and for Screamin Meemie to laugh. This will happen once more, god damn Rule of Three.
3:11 - 3:54: He brings up the various tie-in merchandise, lists off a few of them including a comic book from Marvel.
He then gets to the animated cartoon, but says it was only cancelled after one episode. Actually, there were two episodes made. Both released on VHS.
“I can’t recall if this ever aired on TV” It didn’t, they were only released on home video.
He mentions that it must have been horrific to be cancelled after one episode. Like the Chris & Scottie Road Trip? Oh wait, that had 3 episodes. My mistake.
His comment about the show has him get by a Madball and laughed at by Screamin Meemie (and we have Rule of Three, shocker of shockers). IG hits the laughing baseball.
3:55 - 4:39: Madballs were losing steam, so they attempted to release bigger ones (the Super Madballs as they’re called but he doesn’t mention). He mentions they “closed shop” after the toys started failing. Was that vault door necessary? These visual effects are distracting. … That might be his intention, so people won’t pay attention to his acting and bad writing.
He brings up the short-lived revival and how they “didn’t have the same appeal”. So how did they not have the same appeal? Is this your opinion or was this the public opinion? Because you have to take your age into consideration.
4:39 - 4:58: He moves onto the rating. Oh joy, more “nostalgic overload”.
IG says they didn’t have the same appeal as the Ninja Turtles and he rates it “Nostalgic Mediocre”. Whoa, a different rating? Maybe he’s realized that calling everything an “overload” is fucking stupid! … Wait, Nostalgic Mediocre? That’s terrible! You really couldn’t find a better name for your dumb ratings? Also, what is his criteria? What counts as an overload? He never explained how this shit works! Then again, he only called the show “I Rate the 80s” to appeal to the morons that thought his name was spelled “iRate” and not “Irate”, and in the first three episodes he didn’t rate anything at all.
The video ends with more sketches.
The Madballs themselves aren’t pleased with the rating and all gang up on him. Oh hey, I like these guys. They’re beating up Irate Gamer. I like to think of them as all the Super Mario Bros 2, Zombies Ate My Neighbors and Aladdin fans that he unknowingly pissed off. Freaky Fullback delivers one last blow, followed by more laughter from Screamin Meemie (and he’s broken the Rule of Three, bravo Bores you suck at comedy).
He wakes up… oh no no no he can’t be. He’s animated like the A-ha video “Take On Me”, then the song starts playing and one of the wrench guys appears. What? How does this make sense? He gets knocked out and suddenly he’s in a music video? I don’t get it! Is this to set up that his next episode is about MTV? Because I’m sure there’s a ton of better ways to set that up, ways that make some actual sense! It’s like Bores just did this to show “I can do filters now guys! Aren’t I cool?”
Also, how is he planning to release this on DVD if he has music from A-ha? Does Bores have any foresight AT ALL? God damn it this video was stupid.
It’s funny, I still remember when people were telling me that Bores was improving from TMNT Cereal and Micro Machines videos. Then came the He-Man video, and now this video. Yeah, he’s still doing the same bullshit he does normally. Lack of research, zero explanation, horrid HORRID sketches, and just overall idiocy. I’m pretty sure he got that Take On Me idea from Family Guy, they did a very similar scene that came the fuck out of nowhere. Are his little kid fans even going to get that?
And no mention of the video game? You'd think for someone claiming to be a hardcore gamer, he would at least mention the Commodore 64 game. Granted, that would require him to know what a Commodore 64 was.
Well that’s all. Who knows when we’ll see something new from Bores.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

You've Turned Shao Kahn's Throne Into One of Lies!

Huh, turns out he’s still doing IG Neo episodes for GotGame. I still wonder why he removed the site link though. Maybe he figured out he’s not the only person on the site and by linking it, his fans will see the other, sometimes better reviewers there. “NOOO they can’t learn about them! It’s all about me! Me me me!”
Anywho, what’s he looking at this time? Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection. Oh joy, get your helmets on cause the bias steamroller is rolling on down.
Wait, a modern review of a retro game. I’m surprised he didn’t try to make a regular Irate Gamer episode out of this. Then again it probably wouldn’t fit into his dumbass plot.
0:00 - 0:24: That “opening title” thing he does is decked out in jack-o-lanterns and orange, signifying this is Halloween-related. You couldn’t have chosen an actual horror game to review Bores?
There’s Dead Space 2, Limbo, Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, Splatterhouse, House of the Dead: Overkill, Amnesia: The Dark Descent (oh wait, he doesn’t do PC games), Dead Island, hell Plants vs. Zombies would be more appropriate. I know some of these aren’t too recent but when the hell has that stopped him?
IG’s room is dark with orange lights, he has a pot in front of him. Going by this and his latest contest video, this seems to be his “set” for Halloween.
“After the success of the latest Mortal Kombat game, I decided to go back in time and look at the Mortal Kombat Kollection now offered on the Playstation Network” And Xbox Live Arcade. By the way, the Kollection came out after MK9 did. I know what he means but the lines still sounds off-putting.
0:25 - 0:43: IG starts the game and gets an update notice. “ Gosh dang, I hate these things.” How is this a big deal? Just about every PS3 and 360 game has them when you first boot up a game after the initial launch. Patches are important to improving a game, and that’s what these updates do. They get rid of glitches and other issues. Also, gosh dang? What are you nine?
“After waiting for that damn thing to download” Yes, all 29MB of it. Sure takes foreveeeeeer to download something that big. I think Chris is off his Ritalin if this is a complaint.
“… the start-up screen here allows you to choose between the first three Mortal Kombat arcade versions… of the game” Technically no, you do get MK1 and MK2, but you don’t get Mortal Kombat 3. You get the updated Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. There is a difference.
0:44 - 1:01: IG tells us that “back in the day” (pfft) he liked playing the Sega CD version of MK1 because it was identical to the Arcade version. Hahaha oh wow. Completely forget about the load times Bores? Or graphics that aren’t Arcade perfect? I really doubt he owned a Sega CD as a kid, he’s just pulling more stuff out of his ass.
“Playing the chure Arcade version is the way to go” What does that mean? I’m pretty sure “chure” isn’t a word. *gets note* Oh… apparently he was saying “true”. Would it kill him to enunciate?
He then brings up that he plays the game with his MK Arcade stick. I’m sure GotGame is glad their wasted money is being used, instead of being played for an hour and thrown away.
1:01 - 1:31: “Now this game is pretty much the exact same as the original” That’s not entirely true. There are sound issues and replaced sounds that weren’t in the original.
Blah blah blah nostalgic feeling blah blah blah.
It cuts to IG “Winter Gaming” with the PS3 controller. I thought he was playing with the Arcade stick? Consistency is for losers!
“And then I get my ass kicked? That’s just great…” Haw haw, I mean oh well.
“In case you’re wondering, all the Fatalities are here” *headdesk* Nobody was wondering that! It shouldn’t be a surprise that Arcade ports of Mortal Kombat have all the Fatalities! I’m 100% convinced, Bores doesn’t care for the actual fighting game part of MK, he only cares that there’s blood and gore.
1:32 - 2:00: He goes back to the menu and… gets another update. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He’s really doing this isn’t he? It’s like he couldn’t think of Mortal Kombat jokes, or any realistic jokes so he saw the patch update and thought “This will be my recurring joke, I don’t care if it doesn’t make sense”.
He moves onto Mortal Kombat II, says it’s good and violent, and loses again. Cue the constipated look of anger while staring at the camera! Man, he hasn’t done one of those in a while.
2:01 - 2:16: He heads to the menu and changes the difficulty to Very Easy (HA!). However, he claims that he felt no difference with the adjusted settings. Ahhh there’s the problem, it’s not too hard you just suck.
Well, the computer AI was designed to be cheap in order to suck more quarters out of players. But despite IG’s claim, there are differences in the difficulty. If one is a tiny-bit competent, they will win. Once again going back to him sucking. Man, imagine if Bores picked up an SNK game. It would end him.
2:17 - 2:39: IG brings up the Moves List, or “Cheat-sheet” as he calls it, in the pause menu. Yes, just like every other fighting game you’ve looked at on your show. Not sure how this is a big surprise to you.
He wins a match, performs a Fatality but… *sighs* that update shows up. The Rule of Three has once again been eviscerated, can’t have an IG episode without that happening. THIS ISN’T FUNNY!
“Ah son of a bitch.” His reaction was just as dull as that joke.
IG gets to the “final verdict”
“This one is best suited for old-school fans of Mortal Kombat” TELL ME MOAR!
He then says he got bored after a while. Wait wait wait. I thought he was a fan of Mortal Kombat? He always goes on and on about how great it is, and when he actually reviews the old games he says he was BORED of them? Once again, we have another lie from Bores. They just keep piling on and piling on and it is getting disgusting.
He also claims he was felt jaded because of the new game. That’s not what “jaded “means Chris. It would mean you didn't like the Kollection, and it sounds like you somewhat did.
Video over.
Well that was… lame. As expected he barely went into the games, focusing more on the violence. That update joke was dreadful and really out-of-place. And once again he LIES to us, he never was a fan of Mortal Kombat. He just claimed that to sound “cool” because it’s violent and liking violence means you’re cool or something. I don’t know, it’s just beyond comprehension at this point.
Then again, it's pretty obvious that he isn't a fan since he didn't spell it "Kollection".
In non-IG news, Bores announced that Haunted Investigators is coming back next year. Either this is another lie for more attention, or he's delusional enough to think that people were clamoring for more of that snooze-inducing tripe. Oh boy, can't wait to watch two idiots walk around an abandoned building finding nothing. Maybe one of them will run into a wall and blame the ghosts!
EDIT: Forgot to include the update video!
Here he DOES mention that it's also available on Xbox Live Arcade. Gee, you'd think a detail like that would be worth mentioning outside of an update video.
He says that DatBoiDrew needs help with his new game because he's "a friend of the show". I like how he says "the show" like it's really big and isn't just one guy sitting in a room, or he's unable to say "a friend of mine" for some reason.
And next is a Halloween episode of I Rate the 80s. I really hope it isn't Count Chocula...

Saturday, October 8, 2011

HE-MAN and the Nonsensical Genre Shift (And There's An Atari Game)

Wait wait wait, a new Irate Gamer episode is actually out? And it only took a month? Wow, I’m shocked. Maybe he’s figured out that 6 month long breaks is fucking idiotic and… wait how long is this episode? 5 minutes and 48 seconds?! Oh no, there’s going be zero effort put into this isn’t there? *sighs*
Before I get into the episode, I should bring up that Bores announced his self-indulgent contests will now be a weekly occurrence. I normally don’t do posts about his contests because the videos are only a minute and they’re an obvious trap for him to get subscribers. In the end only his ultra-hardcore white knights win, making it obvious how much of a scam it really is. The items aren’t even worth it. Puke-colored t-shirts and mouse pads?
Onto the video. According to the title he’s covering Masters of the Universe: The Power of He-Man for the Atari 2600 and Intellivision. Oh so he’s doing a reverse of the Kool-Aid videos from a long while back. Here he did an I Rate the 80s first then an IG episode. I’m still confused if those two are supposed to be “connected”.
0:01 - 0:46: The video opens right away to IG playing his Atari 2600. Apparently he’s playing the NES version Dig Dug on there. Oh great, one second in and he’s making himself look like a TV show that puts stock music over completely different games.
Then there’s a knock on the door. Maybe we’ll finally get Bores n’ Doors material?
On the other side it’s … a sage. No, not Eric Allen, but Bores dressed as another new character. He claims to have traveled many miles to give him a sword.
IG looks at it and sees the words “Sword of Inferno” on- WAIT A MINUTE! We saw both sides of the sword before he grabbed it and there was no writing on the hilt! Great, I can see what kind of awfulness we’re in for.
IG looks back up and finds the sage gone. *looks bored* Oh uh, ooooooooh spooky!
He walks back inside and tells ROB about the sword. Really? Are we really doing another ROB sidekick? At least make him stand out, make him snarky, or secretly plot to kill him, just seeing him sitting there is boring!
“It kind of inspires me to do an old-school game” That’s all you do! Considering Neo is a separate series, all you do here is old-school games. Ugh, not even a minute in. This is going to be awful.
*insert theme “song” here*
0:50 - 1:46: He very briefly explains the game (head to the right and shoot stuff) and says the goal is to keep going right until the timer drops down to zero.
“This shouldn’t take too long” Let me guess, it does take a long time and it will end with IG getting “angry”
*starts playing “waiting” music* Space aliens can telegraph these jokes!
As he’s “playing”, his room gets darker. Oh I see, he’s supposed to be playing into the night even though he obviously used stage effects to make it look darker.
He stops this gag and speeds up the footage to get to Castle Grayskull. It cuts to IG wearing a fake beard. Why do I get the feeling this doesn’t take that long and he’s just reaching for jokes?
1:46 - 3:00: He says the goal is to reach the other side without touching the pillars or getting shot. Cue brief montage of him unable to reach the other side, I’m pretty sure he’s walking into those on purpose.
“Looks like I need help for this one” Too bad the 2600 doesn’t have a Game Genie, oh well!
No, instead this prompts a sketch. IG looks at the sword and decides to try something. He does the He-Man battle cry (only he says Inferno instead of Grayskull) and… changes shirts. Well, it’s a step above no changes at all like the action figure video but really? The best this “transformation” does is give him the same exact shirt but in red?
So, Bores feels the need to spend money on a Kool-Aid Man costume, a Skeletor cloak, a black body suit, a bunch of wigs and beards, overalls that no 31 year old man should EVER be wearing, but he won’t spend a dime on a He-Man costume with fake muscles? They do exist, I’ve checked. This is just Bores being lazy again.
IG looks at ROB, shoots him with his sword and… nothing happens. Huh?
“Alright Battle Bot, let’s try this again” What? Battle Bot? What does that… Oh lord you can’t be serious. He made ROB a parallel to Cringer, and he just turned him into Battle Cat. What is with this ROB love? Turning him good, having him solve the “robot crisis”, making him a sidekick. This feels like Bores trying to be retro again.
Also, when Cringer became Battle Cat, he actually changed! Well, maybe ROB has new abilities?
IG wins the game while the He-Man theme plays. Sooo how is the DVD version going to work? Are you going to have a cover of the song? Hello?
“That was worth wasting my time with, lame *throws controller*” You’re right Chris, this video is lame.
He takes out the cartridge and throws it to ROB who… destroys it with a laser. Nope, no changes at all! You taste the lack of effort.
3:01 - 3:30: He moves onto the same game for the Intellivision. He notes it plays the same except for Skeletor at the bottom “distracting you”. Prompting more “spechul effetz” with Skeletor running across the screen and IG flicking him away. Skeletor screams “I regret nothing!” How is it a video less than 6 minutes long feels padded?
3:30 - 3:58: He reaches the next part where He-Man goes through a field dodging things and reaches Skeletor, has a brief sword fight, and moves on to the same type of stage.
“Well that skeletal pansy-ass!” I can’t tell if he’s excited or angry.
ROB’s eyes glow but IG tells him to stand down.
3:59 - 4:45: IG goes through again and reaches Castle Grayskull, with some added music to make this “suspenseful” or something.
He goes through AGAIN, saying Skeletor is throwing everything at you. Giving us a lame gag of Skeletor throwing farm animals and somehow himself, because Bores thought screaming “I regret nothing” the first time was hilarious, that he should somehow put it in a second time.
He brings up the timer at the bottom, if you run out of time a tornado will appear and take you back to the beginning of the game. It reaches zero and nothing happens, instead of celebrating that he didn’t lose, IG creates a tornado by playing the Warp Whistle song from Super Mario Bros. 3. That’s not how it works! The Warp Whistle takes you forward, not back! Also, what did Bores do to not cause the tornado to appear? Glitch? Editing?
EDIT: Turns out that's the whistle music from Legend of Zelda, only sped-up a little. The whistle music in both games has the same melody, but tiny differences. Thanks to Keith for pointing this out.
4:46 - 5:09: IG beats the game, has had enough and decides to show it “the door”. “Epic” music starts playing as he goes out of his room, throws the game, and it somehow hits Not-Wilson outside. Laaaaaaame!
The video ends in a different location. That sage from earlier walks up to another sage and informs him he delivered the sword. The other sage, an older one with a Santa beard and a hard-to-understand voice (yes, he’s also played by Bores. Not that shocking) is pleased and says that IG and the sword will be enough to stop Shadow Overlord. Are we really doing this? … So yeah, IG is the chosen one! This is getting worse and worse.
The credit title card appears, but then we get a stinger. Ronnie (AGH) shows up, and since IG is an idiot he thinks it’s Skeletor (never mind the different voice and cloak) and prepares to fight him. Then… it ends.
WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT? Wow, this video was rushed in soooo many ways. Bores’ “super form” is lazy. He told us NOTHING about the games… again. The short length is a telling sign that he put zero effort into this.
He just seemed to completely forget about the robots from last time. Hell, the jarring transition from robots to sword & sorcery is enough to cause whiplash. Which makes it confusing since his site said this episode would be the “Robot War Aftermath”, nice to see that Bores LIED to us again. We don’t even get a reason for the change! What a joke.
Wait, powerful sages? Oh no, is he trying to bring The Dark Chapters to life?! This… is really REALLY going to suck.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Redux Recap: Stupid Smash Bores Six Million!

You know, I used to hate Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Until I really thought about it and wondered “Why do I hate it?” Until I realized “I gave into the hype”. Years later, the hype has died down, I’m a little more willing to like the game. That’s not to say it has a lot of flaws. Online has major issues, there’s still too many “clones”, the inclusion of Lucas was a huge slap in the face to Earthbound fans, the final smashes sometimes made things unfair, and a few other problems. Still, I feel better about the game now.
But enough about me, here’s IG’s episode on Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
Why did he review this game? Easy, it was popular and lavishly praising the game would get him views. And boy did it ever, IG’s video has over six million views, making it the most viewed video on his channel. Either way, it’s still a terrible video.
0:18 - 0:38: “If you enjoyed playing Smash Bros. Mee-lay for the Gamecube…” It’s “May-Lay”, you’re pronouncing it wrong! Second line in the video and we’re in trouble.
He goes on about Brawl being the same but with more stuff, and as he rambles I notice that he’s not very good at this. Playing as Bowser, all he’s doing is holding B (or whatever button it is on the Wii remote) and spitting fire, just waiting for the computer to get him. Not surprising he sucks at Smash Bros.
0:38 - 0:53: “Before I start the review, first things first, let’s talk about the roster of character” Isn’t that technically part of the “review”?
“For the past few months…” Months? Try years! Brawl was officially announced in 2006 and didn’t come out until 2008. Forums were ablaze during that time, especially with people thinking Cloud or Master Chief would be in it thanks to Solid Snake being confirmed. Hell, since the announcement of the fourth Smash Bros there’s been crazy speculation on who will show up.
0:54 - 1:19:“In Smash Bros. Mee-lay” It’s “May-lay”! Ugh…
He brings up all the clones in Melee, while showing the Japanese character select screen. You can tell he just took that off of Google Images.
He cites Mario & Dr. Mario, Link & Young Link, and Pikachu & Pichu as the clones, whining that there’s no variety. Way to ignore all the other clone characters like Captain Falcon & Ganondorf, Fox & Falco, and Marth & Roy. You never played Melee did you?
“This game takes care of that issue” NO IT DOESN’T! If anything it’s worse! Other than a different final smash, Ganondorf is still the same as Captain Falcon, Fox now has TWO clones with Falco and Wolf, Ness now has Lucas, and Young Link has been replaced with Toon Link and is still very similar to Link! It’s so obvious he’s baiting for views, the lack of research is worse than usual.
He mentions how they got rid of “the duplicates” (as in the only 3 he mentioned), then Mewtwo, which he calls “not a big loss”. First off, fuck you. Mewtwo is awesome. Second, Mewtwo is technically still in Brawl, only his abilities transferred to Lucario. Then Roy, who he says was replaced by Ike. When he says his name he shows a picture of Ike from South Park. I know others have done this joke, yet somehow Bores completely failed with it. Lack of comic timing? Poor reaction? It’s up to you.
1:20 - 1:53: He brings up “huge milestones” which to him means the addition of Sonic the Hedgehog. “Nintendo and Sega together? Holy shit! Talk about world’s colliding!” This isn’t the first time it happened. Are you forgetting that one game you talked about? The one you called a piece of shit even though your only issue was that you sucked at the game? That one about the Olympics… ring a bell?
He briefly mentions Snake (kind of obvious he’s never played Metal Gear Solid) and that the two have their own levels.
“Having these two extra characters around is pretty cool” You mean Bowser and ROB? Because that’s what the footage is showing.
IG mentions that he’s glad that Mr. Game & Watch is back because that’s his favorite character. You know why he said that? To make himself sound retro. I bet he doesn’t even know where he comes from. It’s really obvious when he’s faking it.
“I really enjoyed the addition of Kid Icarus…” It’s Pit! His name isn’t Kid Icarus, it’s Pit! Kid Icarus was the game he was in. That would be like calling Marth “Fire Emblem” or Jigglypuff “Pokemon”. It gets worse when you remember that his name is listed below him on the select screen and the announcer says his name! This only enforces my “Captain N” theory, I’ll remind you what that is later in this recap.
1:54 - 2:09: IG was worried that he would have to play with the Wii Remote + Nunchuck combo because it doesn’t work for fighting games. But is grateful when you could take out the Nunchuck and play with the remote on its side. Or you could not be an idiot and use a Gamecube controller, or the Classic controller. Not going to mention that are you?
I love how his Wii Remote is clearly off, he’s just fooling around with it and getting the footage to make it look like he’s “playing”. A practice that will sadly come back in later Neo videos. At least he didn’t call it the “Wii Joystick”
2:10 - 2:32: He says the graphics are “amazing” and sometimes found himself just staring at them. Sounds less like he was appreciating them and more like “ooooh I like shiny”.
IG brings up the stages. “All kinds of crazy places like castles and boats” Castles and boats? Shit man this game is insane right up there in the membrane! … So what games are those stages from? Anything? I don’t need the specific game, I’ll just accept the franchise it’s part of. No?
Then he brings up stages that “bring back that nostalgic feeling” and cites the Donkey Kong and Mario Bros. stages. Once again, Chris is trying to sound retro because he’s an obvious fraud.
Also, I’m noticing something else in the footage. He’s using Pit a lot, and he keeps using the same move again and again. His side-B move (where he spins his blades really fast).
2:33 - 3:02: IG moves onto Subspace Emissary and only says that the cut scenes look cool. Aren’t you going to bring up how the plot is like a bad fanfic?
“So Mario & Kirby are fighting one day with Peach and Zelda watching, when suddenly some big bad guy called the Ancient Minister appears. He blows Mario away with a cannon and traps the princesses in cages, Kirby releases them but Wario turns one of them into a statue. Then Pit finds Mario and they fight the bad guys. Then Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong’s bananas are stolen by the enemies from Mario, then Bowser shows up because he’s evil.” Yeah, kind of like that. I’m fairly sure he did beat it since he has Sonic… of course he could have just stolen that footage from other users.
3:03 - 3:15: “This game is hella fun” What are you Eric Cartman?
“Especially when there’s four people playing” You can tell I’m having fun with this footage of me fighting three computer-controlled opponents.
“There’s really nothing bad I can say about this game” Yes, just ignore a lot of the games’ faults, it’s perfect in every way… for you to get views from the crazy Smash Bros. fanbase.
3:16 - 3:25: IG wishes to see other “Nintendo legends” like Mega Man, Simon Belmont, and Bomberman? No no no NO! Those are not Nintendo characters! Mega Man is owned by Capcom, Simon Belmont and the Castlevania series are owned by Konami, Bomberman is owned by Hudson Soft! Yes they were on the NES but that doesn’t make them “Nintendo characters”. You are a fraud Bores! A fraud!
This also strongly enforces my “Captain N theory”.
Chris didn’t play games as a kid, but he watched Captain N. I imagine he took everything in that show as fact and still believes that to this day. Calling Pit “Kid Icarus”? Done on Captain N. Thinking Mega Man and Simon Belmont are Nintendo characters? I imagine Bores thought that considering they were on the show. Eggplant Wizard appearing out of nowhere in the Tetris video? He was one of the recurring villains on the show, Bores probably thought he was more important than he really is. Hailing Simon Belmont as the only Castlevania hero? Well, that’s just more of his stupidity.
Either way, the blatant mistakes like that and use of odd characters does suggest that Bores only knew about Captain N and other video game cartoons as a child rather than the games themselves.
The video ends with IG telling people to get the game if you have a Wii and this is his first “Irate Pick for the Wii”. Wow that sounds really awkward. And yet he still used it in later videos. Also, here’s the first time Bores has completely forgotten the meaning of the word “irate”.
Wow this was dumb. Overly-lavish praise on a game that really does have faults, all so he can obviously get views. No mentions of actual gameplay mechanics like final smashes or even how characters play. Plus, his attempts at trying to sound retro really fell flat here. It’s not working Bores, and it will never work… on anyone over 13.
Next redux recap, we revisit the one series that Chris really has abandoned, the Chris & Scottie Road Trip. You have been warned.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

All New Fan Art and More!

IG is making a lot of changes, but I doubt any of them will help him or make him look better.
On the Haunted Investigators site, I noticed a big change with the DVD. Instead of three separate DVDs with two episodes each, it's one DVD with all six episodes and it's labeled as "Season 1". Don't you mean "The Complete Series"? No, he actually thinks Season 2 is coming. Chris, the last episode of "Season 1" was released in 2007. I doubt you will suddenly revive this series after four years, especially when Jennifer broke up with you.
Speaking of that, she's nowhere to be found on the site (with the exception of an article talking about them). She's not even on the DVD cover. Interesting considering she's in the opening theme, like she's important or something.
Either way, I don't see Haunted Investigators getting another episode. If, by some miracle, it does, I'm not recapping it. It's a snoozefest.
Another big change is on IG's YouTube channel. The red layout is gone as well as that ugly banner displaying all of characters. The channel is blue now and adorned with "Irate Entertainment", listing his four "shows" (including Haunted Investigators... dude give it up). The others are Irate Gamer, "History of Video Games" and I Rate the 80s.
His list of important links still doesn't have GotGame, and considering he doesn't list IG Neo at the top I'm really convinced that he's done with them.
Off-topic but remember that Raychul person I mentioned? Turns out she's Raychul Moore, ex-girlfriend of Dan "Shoe" Hsu, former editor-in-chief of Electronic Gaming Monthly. So she really does know more than I thought. I apologize, even I make mistakes. But at least I'm willing to admit them.
On his site, IG is now selling mouse pads. ... Really? Of all the things to sell merch of, your mind immediately goes to mouse pads? I'm convinced that he's using something similar to CafePress or Zazzle. The pad also has the same ugly-as-sin design as his t-shirt. Man, I pity the poor fools that wear that vomit-colored t-shirt in public.
Small update but he's changed his archived news page to the History of Video Games episode guide page. Thankfully, you can still access his older news and find his contradictions (the ones he didn't remove) at the bottom of the site. Still, it seems redundant since the History of Video Games episode guide is still under "Video Game Reviews" too.
Now that's all out of the way, here's what you came for. The all new fan art that Bores himself deemed worthy of putting on the site. Pfffft ahahaha.
For my last scathing report on his fan art, you can read it here. http://irategamersucks.blogspot.com/2011/01/fan-art-or-how-i-stopped-caring-and.html
I'll continue from Picture 41 (IG photoshopped onto The Comedian from Watchmen). All on Page 3.
Picture 42: IG is in the center, staring at the camera (what else is new?). He's surrounded by sprites looking at each other. On the left it's Mega Man, Mario (Super Mario Bros version), Trevor Belmont (not Simon, oops), Bill Rizer from Contra, and Sonic the Hedgehog (he really stands out being the only 16-bit sprite). On the right it's Pitfall Harry (Super Pitfall version), the shark from Jaws, Mikey from The Goonies, The Noid, and E.T. (Atari version, and he also stands out).
Ohhh I get it, it's good games staring down bad games. Kid, The Goonies II and Yo! Noid do not suck! Also, when did IG look at Super Pitfall? Sadly, this is the second best picture of this batch of "art".
Picture 43: Why was this made? His 3rd DVD cover already looks like that. It's "IG for NES" shaped in a classic NES box. The picture used is Bores giving his "I don't know" pose behind stacks of games. This one is the best of the six new pictures, the rest... oh good lord.
Picture 44: 50 hours in MS Paint! No, this is just crap. Labeled "Irate Gamer and Friends", we see IG in the center playing something (wearing the black & white shirt from Monster Party, funny how that's considered his classic wardrobe) with Ronnie giving him bunny ears (He never did that in the show! Why do fans insist on that happening?) and everyone else standing off the side. I see Tony, Wise Sage, ROB (this must be recent if he's a "friend"), Kool-Aid Man (because friends casually murder friends), Creepy Cousin Joey, Not-Earl Hindman, the 7-Up Spot (that's a friend?) and... Devil Bores? He qualifies as one of his "friends"? How is he not the evil one again? Oh and for some reason he's eating cake. I don't know, this was obviously done by a kid.
Picture 45: Oh my... where do I start with this? Here's "The Irate Gamer Comic Book" with "IRATE" in gigantic letters. It's drawn in pen. This isn't art, it's a doodle. This is something a kid draws in school when they're bored. In fact, that's exactly what I think happened here. *sighs*
This is "Issue 1" of the comic book. If Linkara did an episode on this, his head would explode.
Near the logo is some floating head with a hook nose saying "you bastard". ... Is that supposed to be the goblin "character"? There's a fan that actually cared to draw that? Good lord.
In the center is IG with deformed hands, smiling (given how Bores himself forgets his character is supposed to be angry, I'm not surprised) and a worm beneath him saying "Yag Irate Gamer". Is that a reference to something? *looks closer* No wait, that worm is supposed to be saying "Yay". Nothing better than indecipherable hand-writing.
On the right are all of his "characters". There's Shadow Overlord, the Genie (oh hey, someone who actually remembers him), Satan (who looks like a Boo from Mario), Ronnie, Wise Sage (who looks like he might have an eye infection), Tony with a giant "Bang-a-lang" word balloon, R.O.B., Evil Gamer (who looks like a hippie), R.E.D. (who looks like an Atraxi given a body), and Cousin Joey (who looks like Mario). This is what I call a clusterfuck.
On the left, it lists the "events" in the comic. "Irate Gamer meets the Angry German Kid", one's an indecipherable moron that's more popular than he needs to be, the other's the Angry German Kid. Wait... I think I know who drew this. But I'm not sure.
"Nude pics of Irate Gamer" EWWWWWWWWWW. God damn it kid! Funny how he depicts IG here looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger. If he saw the He-Man video, he would know he looks nothing like that.
"Prank Call from Hell" It looks like Cousin Joey talking into a microphone. Really hard to tell here.
"Featuring Jiggliami" Wait, a Sonichu character? ... Oh my God now I know who drew this. It was Charlie. He's a fan of Angry German Kid and Sonichu (no joke, in a now-deleted video he said he was remaking Sonichu) and he's a gigantic IG fanboy. Son of a bitch. At least we know art isn't in his future.
Picture 46: *sees picture* ... *gets up, walks outside* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
I... wow. Not only does this exist, but it exists on his site. Chris found this worthy enough to put on his fan art page.
Here we have the MS Paint doodle FROM HELL. On the left is a stick figure IG that looks high as fuck right now, shooting a gun and cursing. Below him is Mega Man saying "WTF?" With a floating Mario mushroom shooting lasers at him. Arthur from Ghouls & Ghosts, Pac-Man and Tanuki Suit Mario in one group, a red Halo Spartan and I think Michelangelo from the Ninja Turtles in another. This has to be a troll, what other explanation is there? Could there really be a kid dumb enough to make this?
Picture 47: The last one! Here's it's a picture made with CRAYONS of "Johnny Awesome" and IG. The two of them giving the peace sign.
Who's Johnny Awesome you ask? Sadly, I actually know this one. He's a 9-10 year old IG fanboy. And like Charlie, he's kind of messed up. He sent Bores his autograph, not only claims to be his best friend, but also his BROTHER, stays in contact with LadyBuggin, sent him Magic the Gathering cards because IG won a "contest" he held. He even claims the AVGN is his friend because IG said he was inspired by him and thus... ugh god damn. Where are his parents? Why do the parents insist on plopping their kids in front of the internet instead of actually raising them?
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheHUNTERX619 Here's his YouTube account, he once commented on my channel.
That's all the new pictures. Again, all the blame lies squarely on Bores. If these were on deviantArt I would ignore them. But since he put them on his site, it's his fault. He really is desperate for fan art considering he once posted two pictures with hidden messages, and this latest batch is probably the worst ever.
That's all I can take for now. Whatever happens next... I might write about it. Depends on if it's another stupid contest or update video.