Wednesday, October 28, 2015

"Testimony of a Former Irate Gamer Fan" by Robert Howard

Hey everyone. I've got something special today, another fan submission!
You ever want to see in the mind of an Irate Gamer fan? Thanks to today's post from Robert Howard, you can see the how and why, as well as the reason Chris has been bleeding fans for a while now.
Enjoy.

Hello, readers of the Irate Gamer Sucks blog. My name is Robert Howard. I have been following this blog for around a year and a half now and I have very much enjoyed reading BatDan’s posts and the comments that everyone makes. Over the past couple of weeks, I thought about sharing a story detailing my experience with following the Irate Gamer. I decided to e-mail BatDan and ask for his permission to share my story through one of his posts and after he said yes, I began to type it up. So, let’s begin.

I am a former Irate Gamer fan. Yes, I used to believe that his videos were some of the funniest and most creative videos on the Internet. I would like to use this story to explain how I became a fan of the Irate Gamer, what happened to make me lose my appreciation and respect for him, and where I stand now.

Let me start with some background information. In 2008, when the so-called “Internet War” between James Rolfe’s fans and Chris Bores’ fans was happening, I was not aware of any of it. At that time, the only way my family could access the Internet was through the one computer that we all shared and even then, my mom didn’t want me and my brother to be wasting time on YouTube. So, during the time, I had no idea who James Rolfe or Chris Bores even were.

However, that changed in the summer of 2009, when I used all the money I collected from birthday presents to purchase an iPod touch. For the first time, I was able to freely access YouTube without having to ask my parents for permission to use the computer. I spent the first few days watching all sorts of videos and I eventually started making some of my own. I admit that the quality of my old videos were really awful but I had a lot of fun making them.

After a while, I decided to try and find some footage on YouTube of one of my favorite video games at the time: Super Smash Bros. Brawl. After watching some videos of other people play the game, I came across Irate Gamer’s review of it. I watched it and I really enjoyed it. I was so amazed by the fact that there were other people who loved the video games I loved and who shared their love for those games by making reviews of them.

I decided to watch some other videos that he made and that’s when I came across his Super Mario Bros. 2 review. What really attracted me to this review is that I owned Super Mario Bros. 2 for the GBA and that I always loved playing it when I was younger. However, after watching his review, I went on to convince myself that the game was bad. Even though he had said positive things about the GBA port, I still believed that the game was bad simply because Bores said it was bad. I have played the game a couple of times since then and I regret ever hating it.

I went on to try and watch every single one of his reviews and I believed every word he said about the games he reviewed. After all, I am not an old-school gamer. I was born in 1996 and even though the first video game I ever played was Super Mario 64, I really didn’t get into video games until the Wii came out. So, I believed him because he seemed to look like he knew what he was talking about and I didn’t think he would have any reason to lie. I honestly believed that the star moved that slow in Super Mario Bros. 2. I honestly believed that there was no way to reach some of the red jewels in Aladdin. I believed him because I looked up to him and trusted him to tell the truth.

My fandom for the Irate Gamer reached such a high level that I began to memorize chunks of his videos and recite them back to some of my friends to see what they thought. I also tried to enter all of the “pick me” contests that he held, never winning. I had basically become a fanboy. Now, I wasn’t the kind of fanboy who constantly commented on his YouTube videos, defending his every actions. However, I was the kind of fanboy who believed that he could do no wrong.

Now, I know some of you might be asking, “How on earth could you have enjoyed Chris Bores?” Well, I have two reasons. The first reason is I thought his videos were unique and informative. Like I said before, I had no knowledge of video games made in the 80s and 90s so I thought what he was saying about the games was true. I believed Zombies Ate My Neighbors was a bad game because he said it was and he seemed to know more about it than I did.

The second reason is I thought he was funny. I was only 13 at the time and I thought his Family Guy style of jokes was hilarious. I showed the videos to my 12-year-old brother and he thought they were funny too. I talked about the videos to my friends and they seemed to think they were funny too. Granted, there were some jokes that I never found funny (“Someone call 911 because I was ROBbed” Really?) but for the most part, I found his videos to be really funny.

However, as you might have guessed, the inevitable happened. In late 2010, while telling one of my friends about the Irate Gamer and his videos, he told me that there was another YouTube channel called the Angry Video Game Nerd who also did reviews of old video games. So, I decided to check him out. The first video I saw was Rolfe’s review of The Wizard of Oz and I thought it was really funny. I noticed that his style of reviewing old video games was very similar to Bores’. At the time however, I didn’t think much of it. I just thought that they were two guys who shared a similar interest in reviewing video games and I thought there was nothing wrong with me being fans of both of them.

A couple of months later, I came across a YouTube video titled “top 10 stupidest things said by irategamer” uploaded by irateqaymer. My first thoughts on the video were that the creator of the video was bullying Irate Gamer for no good reason. At that time, I was still unaware of all the plagiarism, research mistakes, censorship, and false-flagging that Bores was accused of doing. Therefore, I thought that irateqaymer was simply jealous of Irate Gamer and was making a video just to make him feel bad.

Then, in early 2011, I came across a video made by the Archfiend titled “The Irate Gamer Is Better Than You. ‘Deal With It Bro’ –Chris Bores.” In the video, the Archfiend talked about how Irate Gamer cyberbullied an unknown YouTuber by telling him that he will never be as good or as successful as him. The Archfiend also included links to pictures and a video, which proved the cyberbullying. I was completely shocked and partly in denial. I honestly couldn’t believe that Chris Bores, someone whom I looked up to and respected, would do something so cruel and disrespectful. I didn’t want to believe it but the evidence seemed too convincing.

Shortly after, I began to watch the Archfiend’s other videos about the Irate Gamer, along with some other critical videos made by other users, and that’s when I first learned about the claims that the Irate Gamer was a rip-off of the AVGN. I learned about the plagiarism accusations, the censorship in the comments section, and the false-flagging. I couldn’t believe that the Irate Gamer would do those kinds of things and I was starting to lose a little bit of respect for him. However, I still considered myself a fan of his work and I still thought that there was nothing too wrong about being a fan of both him and James.

And then, I learned about LadyBuggin777. In mid-2012, I watched an Archfiend video which showed a picture of the comments section of Bores’ Silver Surfer review. The picture showed the accidental reveal that Bores is LadyBuggin. Since I usually didn’t like to read the comments sections of videos at that time, I didn’t know who LadyBuggin was. At this point, I was really curious so I decided to do a Google search to see if I could come across any more info. I found Bores’ Encyclopedia Dramatica page and I was first shocked to see how cruel the writer of the page was to Bores. (I didn’t find out until later that the point of the website is to be cruel.) Then, I read LadyBuggin’s section of the page and I learned about all of the horrible things she did. I saw the constant examples of cyberbullying and her inability to listen to reason. To think that this was all done by Chris claiming to be his mother made me furious. What LadyBuggin was doing was terrible and my respect for Chris became smaller and smaller.

Shortly after that came the Cheetahmen 2 “scandal.” I’m not going to talk too much about the original video since I still don’t understand all the details regarding the scam but from what I know, James apologized for his involvement and I accept that. When I saw Bores’ “Ebegging: The Spoof,” I began to feel a mixture of both shock and outrage. I couldn’t believe that Bores was bullying the person who inspired him to make reviews simply because he made a mistake. Don’t get me wrong; criticizing someone for making a mistake and trying to help them realize their mistake and improve so they don’t make the same mistake again is fine. But the only thing Bores seemed to be doing was rubbing the fact that James made a mistake in everyone’s faces and trying to act like he was so much better than James because of that. What made me angry the most is that in the video’s description, Bores criticized James for deleting comments but still running ads on his video when Bores has been doing that since 2007. That was the big turning point for me. That was when I had lost all respect for Bores.

During this entire time, Chris was busy making his story arc so I would like to now briefly talk about my feelings regarding that. When he uploaded the first episode in 2010, I was really excited to see him incorporating a story into his videos and I wanted to see what would happen next. At the same time though, I thought the story arc would only last two or three episodes and that he would have it finished by the end of 2010 or the beginning of 2011. I was very annoyed to have to wait until June 2011 for episode 2 and I was also very annoyed to learn that episode 3 was not the end. It honestly felt like he was dragging the story out way too much and the story was getting worse and worse every single episode. It was also very annoying to watch three straight episodes where nothing happened in the plot, which made me think that he had given up. In 2010, I would’ve never guessed that he would spend 12 episodes and three and a half years on the story arc. To put things into perspective, when he uploaded the first episode, I was one month into high school. When he uploaded the last episode, I was one month away from graduation. It also didn’t help that I didn’t find the episodes to be funny and that the ending was very anticlimactic and bad, which made me think the whole story arc was pointless and a waste of time.

After watching some of the episodes he made in 2013 and not finding them funny, I began to question whether the Irate Gamer was even funny to begin with. I went back and watched his old videos that used to make me howl with laughter and I found myself not laughing even once. I questioned why that was and I came up with two reasons. The first reason is that I was growing up. Irate Gamer’s comedy style has been pretty much the same since day 1 and while it might be entertaining to 12-year-olds, it certainly doesn’t entertain most people above the age of 14. The second reason is that I knew the truth. I couldn’t find myself able to laugh at a guy who was trying to become famous by ripping off someone else. Other people might be able to but I am not. It was at this point that I stopped believing he was funny.

Near the end of 2013, I came across DLAbaoaqu’s “I Can’t Believe It’s Not AVGN” series and unlike Bores’ videos, I found DLA’s to be hilarious. There was something about DLA’s harsh criticism towards Bores accompanied with his humorous tone that I found very funny. I also found DLA’s videos to be informative, as they taught me for the first time about Bores’ constant research failures. It was very enlightening to see Bores claim that he knew a lot about 80s and 90s video games yet make mistakes that a quick Google search could have easily fixed. After watching DLA’s videos, I was 100% convinced that the only thing Chris cared about was the money.

At the beginning of 2014, a friend suggested that I watch Linkara’s parody of the Irate Gamer. I did and I thought he did a very good job at imitating Bores’ style of reviewing. In the credits, I saw Linkara thank BatDan and his blog as well as FFL2and3rocks, also known as Third Rate Gamer. I decided to look both of them up. I started with Third Rate Gamer. His parodies were really, really funny and I enjoyed spending an afternoon or two watching all of them. His videos made me laugh harder than Bores’ videos ever did.

After watching Third Rate Gamer, I looked up BatDan and that’s how I found this blog. I began reading the articles he wrote on Bores and I could tell the blog was something special. It was a way to criticize Bores and his actions and inform people of the truth without Bores being able to do anything about it. After all, he isn’t able to false-flag the articles. To me, this showed how much BatDan didn’t want people to be deceived by Bores’ lies, which in turn shows how caring BatDan is.

Now, how does my story with Bores end? Well, the final nail on the coffin was the “Opening Up” video. When I saw that Bores had uploaded that video, I thought that this might’ve been his final chance at redemption, at least in my eyes. I thought that the video would be a chance for Bores to acknowledge his past mistakes and apologize for them but at the same time, accept what happened and move on from there. I saw the entire video and I did not believe it for a single second. I heard him make claims about James yet constantly found myself asking for proof which was never provided. I saw how he neglected to mention the closing of comments, the false-flagging, and the blocking of any user who criticized him. I listened to some of his statements, knowing that there was evidence out there to prove that he was lying. I never once remember him apologizing for anything. He simply used the video to try and justify his actions while trying to make himself look innocent. Even my roommate, who was listening to the video with me and who had no idea who the Irate Gamer was, said, “Does this guy ever shut up? He sounds so whiny and full of himself.” I think the best response I can give to the video is a quote from Kyle Broflovski from the South Park episode “Fishsticks”:

“That's how people like you work! Your ego is so out of whack that it will do whatever it can to protect itself. And people with a messed up ego can do these mental gymnastics to convince themselves they're awesome, when really, they're just douchebags!”

After that video, I convinced myself that Bores would never admit to what he did so I decided that I will probably never be a fan of his work again and that’s where I stand today. My younger brother is no longer a fan either. All I have really done this year regarding Bores other than watch some of his videos and read the blog posts is post a couple of sarcastic remarks on his videos calling him out, which caused Bores to delete the comments and LadyBuggin to block me. I still watch James’ videos and even though I don’t find them that funny anymore, he still does a good job at reviewing games and I still get the sense that he really cares about his fans. I am also still a fan of the Archfiend, even though I disagree with his stances on James and Chris. So, that is how I became a former Irate Gamer fan.

So, what’s my point in saying all of this? Well, I have a few points. The first point is directed to Chris, in case he ever reads this: your deception is more harmful than you think. By acting like the star is that slow in Super Mario Bros. 2 or like Aladdin has no way to obtain some of the red jewels, you cause some people to believe those things. You can claim that they’re jokes all you want but I believed they were true and I wouldn’t blame someone else for believing they’re true either. I know you might not think this matters because it’s just the Internet, but what would you do if you wanted to apply for a job in a business outside of YouTube? Your potential employer can easily search you on the Internet and find out your entire YouTube history. Do you think they will want to hire you, knowing that you have a history of deception and censorship? If you want to gain respect and trust, then the best way to do that is to tell the truth. You’ll at least gain a little respect from me. (Maybe.)

The second point is directed at LadyBuggin: if you really are Chris, then just admit it. There is quite a bit of evidence out there that suggests you are Chris and absolutely no evidence suggesting you are his mother, except for a profile picture that could be of any random woman for all we know. Do you realize how sick it is to say such horrible things to people and then claim that your mom is saying them? Just remember what I said about deception. If you really are Chris’ mom, then why don’t you just prove it to shut us all up? Granted, you don’t have to but as long as you don’t, you need to accept the fact that people won’t believe you when you say you are his mom and stop calling everyone an idiot who claims that you are Chris.

My third point is directed at BatDan and the followers of this blog: informing people of the truth does matter. I think Chris had his chance to improve but he has proven time and time again that he is unwilling to listen to criticism. However, I think the blog is about more than just criticizing Chris; it’s also about trying to stop people from being deceived. There are too many people out there who are ready to believe the statements of someone who is popular simply because they are popular. However, there are also many people out there who are trying to be open-minded and willing to listen to what you have to say. I believe that if people are willing to look past the negative connotation the blog’s title has, they will see all of the positive that the blog is trying to do.

My final point is also directed at BatDan and the blog followers: there is hope. I used to be a close-minded fan of the Irate Gamer who didn’t know or wouldn’t try to learn the truth about him. It’s six years later and I am now in college, more open-minded, and more willing to listen to what people have to say. If I have changed over the years, then surely there must be others who have as well. I know it might be frustrating to see people constantly support the poor quality work that Chris puts out but it will pass. I know that fanboys will always be replaced by new fanboys but Chris won’t be able to do this forever so the fanboys won’t be able to either. I know that there will always be people who don’t grow up and who still act like fanboys even though they are in their 20s or 30s but the number of those people doesn’t even compare to the number of people who will grow up. Fanboys will change and they will discover and accept the truth and it is ok to take pride in knowing that you helped at least one person (me) see the truth.

That’s all I have to say. I will gladly answer any questions you might have in the comments section. Thank you all for reading and thanks to BatDan for sharing this on his blog. I hope you all have a nice day. 

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Bores Cheats in Real Life with Fake Amazon Reviews

Bores, how many times have I stated that cheating is wrong? Nearly every instance you use Game Genie, or other cheating devices, I call you out. But you never learn. Whether it's God Mode in Ghosts n Goblins, skipping to the end of Goonies II, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Monster Party, infinite lives in TMNT III: The Manhattan Project, the times you used it for Contra, and even recent stuff like maxing out your stats in Final Fantasy III for DS. You have a loooong history of cheating.

Still hasn't changed now that you're a "published author".  Bores noticed all the negative reviews his book has gotten, so he did the very unethical thing. He used a "review bot" to inflate his numbers.
In the span of a day, a slew of 5-star positive reviews suddenly appeared on his book's review page. Many of them in unintelligible English, making it possible that Bores used something like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSfXYi2T5_c

You can see the reviews here.

Notice how many of them repeat the same keywords (as shown in the video above), and are written in a very stilted and unnatural way. Making it clear that Bores is cheating to make his book look better than it really is. Plus, all the new reviews suddenly have multiple people rate them "helpful". That's not suspect at all!

Here's the thing, this is illegal. Amazon can find out about this and permanently ban Chris and his book from the site. Did you really want to take that risk Bores?
I don't know if there's a way to report this to Amazon, if there is let me know. This is just wrong.

Of course, this all relates back to the fact that Bores is incapable of taking criticism, and he continues to show that with a couple of comments about his Kung-Fu review.

First comment comes from totallyterrificpants who gives some pretty good contstructive feedback about the video. How it was a random mess, his use of "NES System" (yes I missed this, but I think he used it before and I'm just so used to his style of speech that I miss stuff like this) and suggests IG talk about the game itself instead of finding ways to include jokes.

Chris' response was... awful





Wow, the guy offers real criticism without insulting you and you just say "That's the show asshole, screw you for telling me to change it". Also, when was this "always" the show? In the past you at least attempted to "review" the game, now it's just jokes. It's nothing but jokes. You're full of it Bores.
Oh, but that's nothing compared to the next comment.

Over on Facebook from Mario Mario, who also happens to be Facebook friends with Chris, he asks Chris to go back to bad games. Understandable, Chris bashing on classics is boring and terrible.

Chris' response is in this IMGUR page. 
Thanks to Rick Lee for spotting this.

For those that don't want to click it. Bores tells him that plenty of people already review bad games and "[his] opinion is pointless"

Wow... fuck you Chris. You're outright telling a fan that you don't care what he thinks. That is video maker suicide. And you wonder why you're losing viewers? That is DSP levels of awful. At least Chris isn't making 30 minute videos crying about his views..
Also this comment showcases that Geoff Mendicino (the baseball hat douchebag at the end of the Kung-Fu review) is a complete asshole. I've known about Geoff for years, he's a notorious troll and it's best to ignore him.

So what are you going to do Chris? Are you going to log in to LadyBuggin777 and cry and bitch and moan about how I'm the worst person in the world? You can't hide from this stuff forever Chris, you have to face up to it someday.

Monday, October 19, 2015

Kung-Fu Review: Like a Flying Kick to the Face Delivered by Jackie Chan

*week of October 12th goes by* No videos again. Feels like old times doesn’t it? Maybe ghosts haunted his hard drive or something stupid like that. Pfffft.

It’s the week of October 19th now, no idea why I’m checking his channel because he doesn’t post anything on Mon- There’s a new video up. What the hell?

Yeah, new video on a Monday. So much for schedules! It’s a regular IG review too.
With Halloween less than two weeks away, will Bores “grace” us with a themed review? Doesn’t look like it because the classic he’s going to bash this time is Kung-Fu on NES. Seriously?!
Maybe he’ll bring up all his “martial arts training” that he used to brag about back in 2008? I wonder if he used that to talk to ghosts somehow. Considering his claim that the E3 interviews he conducted were “practice” for that, anything is possible.

*reads description*
“Another Madcap episode of The Irate Gamer!” There’s that word again, “madcap”. Did you just lose your thesaurus? Well that shouldn’t be possible considering you have a working internet connection.
Heh, some good synonyms for “madcap” include “stupid, foolish, and thoughtless”. Now those are better words to describe your videos.
“This time we are taking a look at the classic video game, Kung Fu. Contains some classic homages to the cheesy kung fu movies.” I can already sense this will hurt… a lot.
“Be sure to subscribe, We've been Parapper the rapper free since 2007!” Okay first of all, it’s “PaRappa” not “Parapper”. Do some fucking research for once in your life. Second… what? Is that meant to be a reference to the first song with Chop Chop Master Onion? Maybe it’s a reference to something in the video? We’ll have to watch and see.

0:00 - 0:27: We open on a stock image of a temple, the very same one that Chris used in the video that announced his return (the one that’s currently auto-playing on his channel).
In fact for the first 16 seconds, it’s exactly like that video. Isn’t laziness fun?!
It changes up when the Legend of Zelda Old Man starts talking. That is not the voice I would have given him, way too deep and stern.
The Old Man pulls out Kung-Fu (with a Zelda sound effect). IG says he’s “up for the challenge” with purposely bad dubbing. Yep…

*insert intro here*

0:43 - 1:14: “Kung-Fu was one of the first video games where players could hone their martial arts skills” Ah yes, all two skills of “punching” and “kicking”. The game’s good, but it’s a launch title so it wasn’t very advanced.
“… couldn’t excape playing this…” What’s a second take Bores?
He explains the plot, that Mr. X kidnapped Thomas’ girlfriend Sylvia and to save her you have to get to the top floor of his temple (or dojo as he calls it, but I’m going by the game’s Wikipedia). He then wonders why Thomas won’t just rent a helicopter. Because we wouldn’t have a game, duh. Why doesn’t Mario just rent a helicopter and fly to World 8 herp derp derp?
Though he likely just said that so he could put in a pointless DuckTales reference (showing Launchpad flying Thomas to the top)
“Righty-o Mr. McT” There’s no “Mc” in his name! You really don’t seem to get why he called Scrooge “Mr. McD” do you?

1:15 - 1:39: He starts the game, kicks and punches enemies, gets annoyed because they have the “home-field advantage”, notes the Knife Thrower enemy, says something about “waking up early in the morning to kill (him) with a weapon” but then he gets killed by the first boss (the Stick Fighter). “He must wake up at sunrise!” You want a laugh track Bores? Then suddenly a random appearance from Foghorn Leghorn. What is the joke?

1:40 - 2:30:  He gets a game over, then the Old Man appears holding a stock image of a rice bowl (I love how he says these videos take a long time to edit) saying that his “ninja skills suck”. Uhh, Thomas isn’t a ninja, he’s a Kung-Fu master, those are completely different things. Considering this game is loosely based on the Jackie Chan movie “Wheels on Meals”, then Thomas is also a restaurant owner. I wonder if he’ll bring this up.
IG says to “give (him) a break” as he hasn’t played the game in 10 years. I thought you bought your NES collection in 2007? Oh right, I forgot he’s under the delusion he’s been playing these games for well over 20 years now.
Then the Old Man says “no excuses” and throws the rice bowl at him. That’s a plus, people treating Bores like crap in his own videos. Usually it’s the other way around.

He beats the first boss and moves on. He notes the addition of snakes and dragons, comments that he thought this was a dojo and not a zoo (blaaah), says the dragons are easy and that the snakes are hard as he has trouble kicking them. He dies to one, throws his controller, then plays a clip of Indiana Jones delivering his “Why did it have to be snakes?” line. Neat, random copyrighted material. It will fit nicely on the DVD, next to the one with all the Power Rangers footage.

He then notes one of the Exploding Confetti Balls (that’s what they are according to the Wiki), calls it a “fancy disco ball” and… gets killed by it. Okay, you did that on purpose. It’s not funny when you die on purpose.

2:31 - 3:06: “This animal farm” Sorry, not enough pig allegories.
He then brings up the Tom Toms (the short enemies) and calls them “Santa’s elves” (uggggggh) and asks if there’s Reindeer Games next. Then a herd of… Stantlers appear? Weird, I never thought I’d see a Pokemon in his videos, especially one that isn’t part of the original 151 that so many people hold up on a pedestal. Maybe he just looked up “reindeer sprites” and found those since it’s clear Bores isn’t a Pokemon fan at all.

He then reaches the second boss, the Boomerang Fighter.
“BOO-ER-RANGS?!” Pffft. I’m sorry, that’s what it sounded like to me. Completely skipping over the “M” sound.
He complains about this because he claims he to have seen a lot of kung-fu movies and has never seen someone use a boomerang. *Googles “Kung-Fu movies with boomerangs”* *finds list on io9 that mentions a movie with one* Here we go, 1966’s “The Magic Serpent”, the protagonist Ikazuchi-Maru encounters a group of ninja, one wielding a boomerang. Boom, only took a few seconds. Why is this so hard Bores?

Buuuut this was likely done so he could make a joke about how the boss should be in a Mega Man game instead. Then he imposes the boss over the Mega Man 1 stage intro saying “that looks about right”. Ugh, no it doesn’t. It looks out of place and this joke is stupid. Your attempts at jokes just hurt my mind.

3:06 - 3:40: Onto the third level, fighting more enemies, and reaches the end to fight the third boss (the Giant according to GameFAQs), but he believes him to be Shaft. … Are you high Chris? That looks nothing like Shaft. Shaft isn’t bald, or 7 feet tall, yes Richard Roundtree is 6’2’’, but the Giant is meant to be, well, a giant. He also plays a bit of the Shaft theme. Oh, I wonder if the video will get hit with a Content ID claim, and Bores won’t make the pennies he would have made normally.
Then a gag where Thomas kicks the Giant out the window. Yawn.

He then consults the Old Man (calling him master) and he says he still sucks and throws a tea kettle. He speaks for the audience, I like this guy… he’s going to get rid of him isn’t he?
Forgot to mention the first time but when Bores gets hit with something he lets out this really lame sounding cry. Is that meant to be pain? Still need to work on that acting…

3:41 - 4:29: He reaches the fourth level, comments on the “birds” (they’re actually poisonous moths, checking GameFAQs, seriously Bores this stuff is probably in the manual) and edits one of them to have a letter for him. An acceptance letter to Hogwarts. … What the fuck? Then he leaves and goes to a stock image of Hogwarts (but it looks like it could be some random castle) and demands to be let in. Okay few things. Chris, you aren’t British, Hogwarts is the Wizarding school for people in the UK. There is in fact an American one that will be touched upon in the upcoming “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” movie. Also, you’re over 30 years old, you’re way too old to be admitted to Hogwarts (you need to be 11). This bit was pointless!

He reaches the boss, the Black Magician, or the “Hunchback of Pagoda Dame” as he calls him, tries to fight him, gets attacked by his clone, aaaand runs out of time. Complete with over-the-top reaction and music sting (you know I haven’t really mentioned the music stings when he does these reactions). The Old Man calls him pathetic and throws a … giant bag of rice at him. While the correct use of the Rule of Three (making the last object the craziest), it was still painfully unfunny.

4:30 - 5:40: He gets mad, says he’ll defeat him before he duplicates, which he somehow does instantly, then he says “triplicate” and a third clone appears, and he repeats this gag until there’s six or seven clones. Obviously this is an edit and not a very funny one. Wasting time wasting time.
Then a filter appears with kung-fu movie music and he looks at the first issue of Nintendo Power to find out what to do. Because that’s how kung-fu masters work, they read magazines. More intentionally bad dubbing, and he beats the boss.

He claims Sylvia better be worth it as he lists off many of the enemies he fought. Ah, the patented Bores “Pad for Time List”, feels like I haven’t seen one of these in a while.
He reaches Mr. X, cue more copyrighted material! No seriously, The Final Countdown starts playing. He is totally going to get hit with Content ID. No money for you Bores.
He beats Mr. X, saves Sylvia, she hugs him, and does a dumb joke about all the “rotting corpses” behind him keeping him from “performing”. Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb.

The video ends with more intentionally bad dubbing as he comments that he saved the day. Sylvia appears and jeez she looks freaky that up close. Sprites like that aren’t meant to be blown up like that. IG says to “thank his chef”, referring to the Old Man. Apparently he taught him how to make “knuckle sandwich”, then Mr. X appears for some reason, and they do one of those “Everybody Laughs Ending”, and then some douchebag in a baseball cap appears in the corner. Who the fuck is this? What the fuck is that about? What the fuck is going on? Maybe the “plz subscreeb” endslate will tell me something. … NOPE!

Stupid video was stupid. Barely a review, more of an excuse to tell terrible jokes. He really does feel like self-parody at this point.
No mention of the Arcade version, no mention of its ties to Jackie Chan, nothing informative at all.
His tributes to poorly-dubbed Kung-Fu movies were just lame. It feels like he hasn’t actually seen these old movies and just knows that a lot of them were poorly dubbed into English.
And calling back to the description, what was the point of the PaRappa reference? Because it has the Kung-Fu rap? That’s a terrible reason to reference it! It makes no sense! Where is the point Bores? Where is the sense? Where is any substance?! *sighs*

I would be surprised if there’s anything else this week.

Monday, October 12, 2015

Gore Orphanage? More like No Bores Orphanage!

What's this, a post on a Monday?!
Yep, got some pretty big news.

For those that don't remember: Some time in 2014, Bores reported on Facebook that he would be appearing in a movie (and stroked his ego on how he got the most lines). We've heard nothing about this for months until March 2015 when he revealed the movie's name. Gore Orphanage, based on an urban legend in Ohio.
Brought to us by young production company Principalities of Darkness. Known for schlock like Breeding Farm (which looked really gross) and Pro Wrestlers vs Zombies (which should be awesome, but I doubt it is. It's also one of Roddy Piper's final movies. RIP), I expected that Gore Orphanage would be just like that. Direct-to-DVD garbage.

Months passed, no news, no announcements, nothing from Bores. Sometime last month I got curious and looked it up. Turns out the movie came out in July! Yeah, that slipped by. Why hasn't Bores mentioned this? Well, there's likely a good answer.

Long-time reader of the site d4iven was also curious about the movie, also learning it came out in July. He watched it and found the truth.
Bores isn't in the movie!
Yeah, he got cut out. That is golden!
It was probably late in production as the movie's end credits still list Chris Bores. But he's nowhere to be seen, and he watched the whole thing. I tried watching it, but holy crap it was boring. Boring boring boring. Fitting that Bores was almost in it.

So, what happened? Who knows really? Movies cut characters and scenes all the time. A notable recent example was Shailene Woodley as Mary Jane Watson in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, all her filmed scenes were cut.
Perhaps the director felt the scene didn't fit with the rest of the movie? Perhaps a producer looked up Chris Bores and saw he was a controversial figure and wanted him out? Either way, it will probably remain a secret. ... Unless I contact Principalities of Darkness to try and get an answer. They've only got a Facebook page but it's worth a shot.

If you want to watch the movie yourself (good luck), it's on Amazon Prime Streaming.
EDIT: Or at least it was, it's not anymore. You now have to pay money for it.

This news also makes me question the legitimacy of his claim that he's going to be on Hardcore Pawn. Granted, he still brings up that he appeared on HP where as his intended appearance in Gore Orphanage hasn't been mentioned since March. That makes me think Bores already knew he was cut. Hmmm...

There's so much irony in Bores bragging that he got the most lines back when he announced this. You can actually feel the weight of it.

EDIT:
I just got a response from  Principalities of Darkness.
Seems the scene was cut due to bad weather. But it still slightly exists in the movie. After the credits roll (implying anyone would bother to watch them), there's a quick scene that shows a pair of ghostly girls screaming, then a group of people running away. Their backs are to the camera and the picture quality is horrendous. So I suppose Bores is in that shot of people running, but you can't even tell.

So I'm only partially right in that he was cut from the movie. My mistake. To be fair, this is the type of movie where you don't bother to see if they have an extra scene after the credits.

Friday, October 9, 2015

Holy Crap a Skylanders Review + Ghost Hunting 2.0 Follow-Up

It’s been an eventful couple of weeks hasn’t it? Mostly around Bores releasing his book, the negative reception, and “Linda’s” damage control. I’ll get to that at the end.

But first, what did this week bring in videos?

SKYLANDERS! FUCKING SKYLANDERS FOR BOTH DAYS!
Actually, the second video might be worth checking out.

First video is another checklist, which seem to be the only thing on his channel that still gets views. The last checklist video he made now has over 133k, which is way more than the two preceding videos. His Donkey Kong review with a little under 60k, and the Lego Minecraft video with 27k (sounds like his first Minecraft video was a fluke).

The second video is a REVIEW of Skylanders SuperChargers. After skipping over Swap Force and Trap Team, Bores finally “reviews” a new Skylanders installment. From reading the title, “Skylanders Superchargers The IG Video Game Review, Missteps and more”, it looks like he might actually show some reason and not make this a biased gushfest. But I get the feeling the missteps will be minor, or things that are common in other games. We shall see.

The video is more of a vlog with edited bits in so… no timestamps.

Right into the video, no intro.
In fact, this seems to be a continuation of the last video as he opens saying “Alright, now that I’m done talking about the figures…”
He shows that the version he got is the PS3 version. Well I imagine he got the Wii U and 3DS versions too since I can see the DK and Bowser figures. But from the looks of it he’ll be “focusing” on the PS3 version. This tells me that he still doesn’t have a PS4, GotGame likely depriving him of one because he won’t make them videos.

He mentions that the figures no longer come with cards. To any Skylanders fans reading, did anyone care about the cards? They probably got rid of them because nobody cared about them.
All the footage is from his previously posted videos at Vicarious Visions, at least it’s not a camcorder pointed at the TV.

He said he didn’t like the vehicle segments. Sounds like Arkham Knight.
So will he explain?
He says he got into Skylanders because it reminded him of Gauntlet and Diablo (no pointless God of War comparison?) but “it was for kids”. Gauntlet was considered safe for kids too, it wasn’t bloody like Diablo. Just saying.
Also, “it’s for kids” feels like code for “It’s easy because I’m really a total scrub”
He says he didn’t like the added stuff like controlling robots or vehicles and all he wants to do is “smash through the level”. So you just want a super easy game with no variety or challenge? Shit, you really are a scrub. I’m pretty sure all the “extra stuff” was added so the sequels don’t get stale.

He keeps going on about wanting to go back to basics, how he wants “element doors” like the first game again. Saying that he loves how water Skylanders walk through water, and fire Skylanders walk through lava. I don’t know why, but I find this part insulting.
He wanted them to “expand on that”. How? There’s only 10 elements, there’s only so much you can do with that. This isn’t Pokemon where the Rock-Paper-Scissor mechanic comes into play.

He likes the story and characters, but won’t say why. Of course…
He’s also glad there’s no larger figures. I remember he didn’t like the Giants back in that review (for the dumb reason of “they don’t fit in my storage case”) but I guess he also complained about them during Swap Force and Trap Team. Again, I don’t watch 99% of his Skylanders content so he could have brought this up multiple times for all I know.

Blah blah blah blah I don’t care.
Barely a review, more complaining that things aren’t like they used to be, whatever this franchise is stupid.

Onto the ghosts!

Ghost Hunting 2.0 has been out for well over a week. Reception has been… justifiably negative.
As of this writing, there are four reviews on Amazon. Three negative 1-star reviews, and a PITY review. The latter is someone outright saying they didn’t even read the book (no joke) but still giving it a 5-star rating because he feels bad for Chris. Pity reviews aren’t going to change the fact the book is unreadable trash. If anything, outsiders will see the majority negative, see the only 5-star didn’t even read the book, and realize that this is not worth looking at.

For the record, the people that did review the book did not buy it, rather they used Kindle Unlimited, or borrowed the book through Kindle, negating any possible sales for Bores.

The first review, from Anthony Devon, called it “Hopelessly amateur and poorly written”. Shaolin Dave got in touch with Anthony and asked how he came across the book. Seems a friend recommended it to him as a joke, he had no prior knowledge of Bores before that. This man went in completely blind, and he still found the book terrible. That says a lot about Chris’ writing. For the record, Anthony has written a few books under different pen names, two of which have sold 54,000 and 124,000 copies each.

When the review was copy pasted to the GH2.0 video comments, “Linda” had this to say.



Thanks to Harrod for capturing this.
Note how she’s bragging that Bores sold… 18 copies. How is that worth bragging about? That is abysmal no matter how you slice it.

The second review from Constantino Rivas Rangel brings up something interesting. The book’s title is likely a reference to (or jab at) Grant Wilson’s book, “Ghost Hunting: True Stories of Unexplained Phenomena from The Atlantic Paranormal Society”. Kind of shows where Bores placed his ego.

The third review (technically the fourth but I’m not counting the pity review) came from reader Chico Edge. I applaud you Chico for managing to make your way through that egotistical wank.
Remember in the video he said that hopes a new branch of psychology is formed from his book? Yeah, I’m still laughing. Well, his ego has gotten so massive by the end, he outright claims he created a new branch of psychology. The delusion is fucking real!
He also brings up a humorous bit where Bores asks the readers if they want their spirits to leave their bodies through their sex organs. You know, if the peanut butter bait, singing the alphabet, the Scooby-Doo reference, and the comparison to Batman didn’t convince you this was a joke, then surely that line sealed the deal.

Basically, this book won’t convince skeptics, and it might crush the beliefs of potential ghost hunters.

I look forward to more negative reviews in the future (if any are made).

There is one more thing.

Thanks to reader You Tubed for this image. “Linda” has clearly lost her god damn mind (more so than usual).



Seems I’m on the same level as Christopher Harper-Mercer, the man responsible for the massacre at Umpqua Community College in Oregon last week. Yeah… screw you Chris.
First of all, I don’t like guns. I will never feel the urge to grab one and go on a killing spree. That is horrifying.
Second, going by the date You Tubed posted the screencap, this was three days after the shooting. Too soon.
Third, you’re using a tragedy to forward your agenda of trying to make me look like a complete monster. It’s rather sad and pathetic that you go so far as to compare me to a killer.

And Chris, if this really is your mom and not you pretending to be her, how about having a  talk with her. Her behavior is getting worse, she is beyond batshit insane now. Maybe tell her to stop listening to Alex Jones.

And to my readers, this will not go on the Year End list. I really wish you guys would stop saying “This should go on the list or that should go on the list”. I will decide what goes on the list. Of course this year I’ll have waaaay more options to choose from but that’s still two months away and who knows what will happen then?

Have a good weekend everyone.

Friday, October 2, 2015

I Guarantee There's Better Books and Sound Devices Out There

Hey everyone. Sorry for the lack of updates. I’ve just been busy, life getting in the way and everything, though I mostly had a complete lack of motivation to tackle his videos. I think I’m ready to get back into things.
Quite a few things to cover.

The week of September 21st saw two videos, both related to books.

First one is about TMNT. The “Ultimate Visual History”.
*opens video* “Hey gamers!” … You’re not talking about a video game! You’re talking about a book, based on a franchise of comic books, cartoons, and movies! Yes I know there are games, but they’re all based on the cartoons or movies. Why not open the video with “Hey Ninja Turtles fans” or something that makes sense!
Nitpicky rant out of the way.

The video is mostly Bores flipping through the book, pointing at a page and saying it’s cool. I just saved you eight minutes. There’s no substance, and he basically just spoils the book. Why even buy it now?

The second video is about the book he wrote. Ghost Hunting 2.0, I still can’t believe that’s the title. Hoo boy does he spout bullshit.
I mean, ghost hunting is already bullshit, and the only audience for this are the ignorant unwashed masses. … *looks at comments* GAAAAH! Why did I do that?

At the time of this posting, the book is out. I do not have a copy because my wallet will cut off my fingers if I pay for it. I imagine someone will buy it and leak it all over the internet.
The video is nearly ten minutes long, I’ll go over the highlights.

“You’ll be able to find it on Barnes and Nobles dot com”
Nobles?
He says if you buy from his site, he’ll autograph it. Let’s see, if the book costs $14, and in three years the value will be about 25 cents, then an autographed copy will be abooooooouuuuuutttt 27 cents!
“For me to title a book Ghost Hunting 2.0, you better know your crap” Good to know Bores calls his passion “crap”
“I tried to make this easy to read, easy to digest” From the excerpts people have shown me, you have failed.

He goes over the chapters.
The first calls out skeptics and critics (pffft)
The second goes over the “rise and fall” of paranormal TV. The real answer is that it was a fad. Fads come and go, and paranormal TV was just another one. Sure Ghost Hunters is still around, but it’s much more niche now than it was before. Though I imagine Chris’ explanation is way more pretentious.
The third chapter is about his first couple investigations. Like the one where Alan tripped and he claimed someone pushed him?
The fourth is about his tools. Pretty sure most of those have been debunked as useless. But who needs facts and science?
He mentions his appearance on Hardcore Pawn, which has not aired. Bores claims he keeps watching and he’ll let us know. Why subject yourself to that trash at all? You can easily just look up when the new episodes will air online. You don’t have to watch it again and again. It would explain a lot if he did…

Then the next chapter is about the tools only he uses (or so he believes). Alright, I looked up ghost hunting books on Amazon, and there is a lot. Like, I estimate hundreds. There is surprisingly a lot of competition for this crap. It’s very likely that Chris’ so called tools are used by other people, and he just doesn’t know it.
This is where he brings up his “psychology” and “philosophy”, somehow “world religions” are a tool and… quantum physics. Don’t bring actual science into your pseudo-science you hack.

Of course he brings up his “ancient texts” and dedicates an entire chapter to the Tibetan Book of the Dead. One of my readers, the Necro Critic, actually did some research into the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and found it’s a terrible tool to try and communicate with ghosts. It’s actually a very inaccurate translation of the Bardo Thodol, an ancient self-help guide about getting ready for your next reincarnation, various forms of meditation and mentions identifying states of death. It’s a religious text for a specific sect of Buddhism. Bardo Thodol was poorly translated into English with random Hindu terminology in the 1920’s, becoming the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
Basically, Bores is using a thoroughly debunked book to source his findings on the paranormal. HOW DOES ANYONE TAKE HIM SERIOUSLY?!
Thank you Necro Critic for finding all this out.

“No other ghost hunter uses the Tibetan Book of the Dead for their research” Probably for the reasons I listed above. Even so, don’t act so sure. Have you read through all those ghost hunting books on Amazon?

Bullshit bullshit bullshit.
The more I listen to this, the more my brain wants to die. “Ghost hunting is stuck and I know why!” No you don’t, it’s stuck because it’s all crap.
He goes on about his stupid psychology. Pretty sure you need to see an actual psychologist Bores. This ghost obsession can’t be good for your mental state.

“I believe if the right people read this, a new branch of psychology could be created” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA You are delusional.

Says the finale is talking about the message he “received” and “decoding it”. Using a bunch of different religions like Kabbalah, Judaism, Buddhism, and more fucking Tibetan thinking. How about the religion of LOGIC?! Oh wait, that’s just common sense.

“If you’re a deep thinker like I am” HAHAHAHAHAHAHA No, I’ve already wasted too much space laughing. Chris, the deepest thing you’ve ever thought is “Should I have Lucky Charms or Froot Loops, and will breakfast be ruined if I pick the wrong one?”

And that’s where I check out. Rest of the video I don’t even care. He mentions meeting Grant Wilson of Ghost Hunters but I do not give a fuck.

The book has to be crap, I mean this is Bores we’re talking about.

I’ve actually gotten some interesting info about it. First comes from Kevin Edward, who found the book on Amazon and looked at the inside preview. Right off the bat he found a mistake, he indents the first paragraph of every chapter, a major negative in published works. Open any novel and you’ll see the first paragraph is never indented. How did Bores make such a rookie mistake?
Kevin then left a comment on the video pointing this out and telling him there’s also spelling, grammar, punctuation and format errors that shouldn’t be in a published work. Chris called him a liar.



As you can see, Kevin was not happy. Pointing out that every book on Amazon previews the first several pages. Chris then responded to that by saying “I formatted the book to my liking”

               

Note the choice of words, “my liking”. Meaning Chris does not care for your criticism, it’s “my way or get the fuck off my property”. I seriously doubt he got it proofread, and if he did, he ignored every piece of advice.

The second bit of interesting info comes from our good friend Uatu the Watcher, who has done a damn good job of getting the blog info in the past. Seems he got his hands on the book, and provided some laughable excerpts.

Here’s his comment for all to see.



My favorite bits include comparing himself to Batman, how he sang the Alphabet in front of everyone, his obvious statement about forbidden knowledge, and the part about claiming there’s proof spirits already exist.

I also love how he mentions his “55th most subscribed” achievement again, but neglects to mention that it was for talking about video games, not ghosts. Also, wasn’t he 55th most subscribed in 2008? Not 2010? He’s distorting facts again!

If the book gets leaked, let me know. I’m not giving any money for this.

Sadly, that’s not the end of the recap. We have one more video.
We’ve got another WACKY TECH REVIEW! The dislikes show that people really don’t like this crap.
This time he’ll be looking at three products from Kinivo. Really cashing in those sponsorship deals huh Chris?

“The Ki-Nye-Vo products” Is that how it’s pronounced? It looks more like “Ki-Knee-Vo”
First he’s going to look at an HDMI switch box. Oh jeez, he’s using the wacky music, you know the one that he would play in update videos a long time ago?
He describes what it does… no mention of price or reliability or design or anything. At this point, we shouldn’t expect anything resembling a “review” in these WACKY VIDEOS.
It cuts to him watching Hell’s Kitchen, and it suddenly switches over to The Gilmore Girls. He reacts in “angry shock”. Instead of doing the sensible thing like changing the channel back or turning it off, he keeps watching until he blows his brains out with one of his light guns. Classy.

Next he looks over a pair of Bluetooth headphones. He goes on about how he’s been “dabbling” in Bluetooth and how great it is blah blah blah. Random cut to him listening to My Heart Will Go On (copyright bots are going to eat this video alive). Shows the volume, tells us not to turn it up too loud, random cut to him listening to loud music and… exploding from it. I haven’t said this one in a while, for someone that hates Michael Bay, you sure like explosions as much as he does.
Mentions the “next track” button, and that the sound is good. Is it better than a popular brand name like Beats by Dre? What about other headphones on the market? You really should leave the tech reviews to the professionals.

Finally he looks some speakers. Bluetooth speakers to be specific. He mentions they still need to be plugged in (no duh) which cuts to a bit where he tries to plug it in but his outlet is full, and he freaks out. … Where’s the joke Dob- I mean Bores?
Mentions how you can plug your phone in as well. So he does that, and he decides to play something from Final Fantasy VII. Oh now you’ve awakened a sleeping giant Chris. You don’t fuck with FFVII fans.
“Yes it’s Red’s theme” His name is Red XIII (or Nanaki)! Not just Red! I doubt you’ve actually played the game. Also, that doesn’t sound anything like his theme. Is that a remix? Why don’t you have the original on there?

Then it cuts to a glass of water on his table shaking and falling over. I guess it’s meant to show how powerful the bass is, but it’s so obvious he just shook his table offscreen to get it to fall over. Why? What’s the point? That didn’t mean anything. Stop with the random crap!

Blah blah blah you can find it cheap on Amazon. Don’t care. Done.

I have to imagine this is where Chris is getting money to do videos. The views are shit, and Chris knows this. He’s going to keep shilling until he has no more soul. Is this the fate you really want Chris? To be a mindless shill for tech products while you hock your awful random humor? If only you could take criticism, and not have burned all those bridges.

MAJOR UPDATE: Seems I was wrong about Amazon. It's not just the first few pages, the ENTIRE BOOK is available for free. I'm going to look through it, see how long I last before my brain tells me "ENOUGH"
EDIT: Wait, false alarm. It's not the whole book. Pages are omitted, plus I think I got more because I'm an Amazon Prime member. Sorry about that. Still, I imagine someone will leak the book soon.