Saturday, September 4, 2021

Tiny Brain Talks Tiny Cars

Man, Shang-Chi was so good. If you’re in a safe area, try to go see it.
What’s that? Bores finally uploaded a new video? Wow, wonder what took him so long. This must be something intensive to take three months.

It’s Micro Machines. Okay, not something he’s done before. Yes, there was the 80’s video which is now 10 years old, but this is on the video games. Plus, he did say before he wanted to talk about this. Surely this is worth the wait! … PFFFFFFF

I should note that this was uploaded on September 3rd, but it got taken down due to copyright strikes and he had to reupload it. According to my informant, it was due to showing an entire Micro Machines commercial, and now it’s just a short clip. Rather odd thing for the algorithm to take down but whatever.
So, I’ll be watching the reupload which may be different from what some of you saw.

This one is a little over 16 minutes long. Here we go.

The video opens with IG pouring Micro Machines into a bowl like it’s cereal. Man, he just can’t get enough of cereal can he. What is his deal with it?
“A whole bowl of nostalgia!” Uggggggggh
“Breakfast will NOT be ruined!” Get it? He said the thing, only it’s the opposite. Hur hur hur… in the comments, someone brought that up, and he responded, “I’ve gone meta”. There’s another instance later in the video of something like this happening, and I’ll address the issue with all that there.

Theme song, and it’s the same animated intro. It’s still terrible.
It was changed up at the end to insert IG into the Micro Machines character select screen, followed by a “realistic” pixelated version of him looking… angry? Honestly, he looks like he’s doing the soyjak face. His mouth hanging open like that.

We cut back to him talking about how he loved to collect the Micro Machines toys, and said it was like collecting Ninja Turtles. Random drop-in from a TMNT toy. Stop doing that.
He compares them to Hot Wheels, only they were smaller, cooler, and downright rad. That feels redundant. Also, most of your audience isn’t familiar with 80’s slang Chris.

He continues talking about the toys, the commercials, okay this is just repeating what he did 10 years ago. Why is he doing this? Does he think remaking old videos somehow makes them better? It’s not like he acknowledges that he’s talked about this stuff before, he just pretends it never happened. At least when other content creators take another look at something they talked about before, they acknowledge it and reference what they did wrong back then. Like when SomecallmeJohnny did his recent Sonic marathon and acknowledges his old videos weren’t as good, or when Chuggaaconroy replayed Earthbound and provided a much more detailed and higher quality experience, even acknowledging that he isn’t too fond of his original Earthbound playthrough (which to be fair, was his first).

Sorry, let’s move on.
He brings up their appearance in Home Alone, complete with movie clip. I’m surprised he wasn’t taken down for this part.

He then notes how Galoob entered the video game market with the Game Genie in 1990. Ah yes, his best friend.
Then he suddenly explains how Game Genie works, and then starts playing Commando. Why? First of all, you’ve already explained how Game Genie works before. Second, why are you talking about Commando now? Are you trying to “capture that old Irate Gamer spirit” where you randomly went on tangents about other games? That was dumb back then, and it’s dumb now.

So, he quickly beats Commando with the Game Genie, and remarks he waited 30 years to see how it ends. Why didn’t you beat it back then? Oh right, he’s lying.
Basically, this whole bit is to get “mad” at how the game has a poorly translated ending. We know Chirs, Capcom NES games had poor translations. This is nothing new. Your obsession with NES endings is beyond stupid.

He brings up the Nintendo lawsuit that Galoob won but hurt their relationship with Nintendo. Since they wanted Micro Machines on NES, they turned to “Codebreakers”. It’s Codemasters you idiot! My god, this isn’t hard to look up!
Anyway, he brings up how it’s unlicensed, how it has a switch in the back to bypass the lock-out chip (with a jump cut for some reason), and how the cartridge is gold like Zelda. He speculates it was to trick people into thinking the game is as good as Zelda. No, it’s because they wanted to stand out among all the gray carts.

He also points out the label is upside down. Then follows with “Alright, enough nitpicking like an angry nerd”. Seriously? We get it, you’re on better terms with the AVGN.
By the way, I’m aware that James read a letter from him on a mailbag video. Yeah, that exists.

He starts the NES game and says it’s actually enjoyable. Once again, Chris forgets what the “Irate Gamer” is supposed to be about.
He claims it’s better than “other racing shits” like Mach Rider, City Connection, and “Bill Elliot’s Racecar Challenge”. Hoo boy, a lot wrong there. Mach Rider isn’t a racing game, and it isn’t bad, you just suck at it. City Connection isn’t a racing game either, I don’t know how you got that. While the last one is a racing game, it’s actually called Bill Elliot’s NASCAR Challenge. Were you afraid NASCAR would sue you if you mentioned their name? No, he obviously didn’t do the research.
Seriously, what has he been doing for three months?
Then we get a padded sequence where he plays the last game and finds it boring. Get someone to edit your fucking scripts!

Anyway, he says he played the game a lot as a kid and enjoyed it, despite its “flawls”.
“Now the controls at times, may suck ass worse than a five-dollar whore” Religious man everybody!
“This game definitely drills you in” Was he trying to say “draws”? Because it sounds like “drills” instead.
He lists off the various vehicles you can race, all based off the toy line. He gets to the muscle cars and acts surprised at the game’s depiction of them. NES game Chris.

“What the fuck is that muscle?” *breathes in* Okay. This is what I wanted to address earlier with the “Breakfast is not ruined” line. Chris trying to be meta. He is far far too late to be going this route. It could have worked a decade ago, but now that nobody cares and there’s not many people left that would get these “jokes”; it’s cringy as hell. Not to mention trying to be self-aware of how bad you are tends to backfire more often than not. Like how Birdemic 2 was way worse than the first movie because it tried to be self-aware, or how everything Tommy Wiseau did after The Room was hard to watch because he was trying to be meta about his status as a cult filmmaker.
Acknowledging your mistakes is one thing, but Chris’ way of doing it is painful to watch. Like an old out of shape rockstar still trying to perform his crazy stage moves 20 years after his peak.
It could be worse though. He could be Linkara raging like a madman anytime somebody brings up Lightbringer or OneyPlays or that running scene from the Nostalgia Critic Bloodrayne review. Not a pretty sight…

Anyway, he goes over the characters in the game. He lists them off, the traits they have, and randomly references Armake21. Chris, do you seriously think anyone watching now is going to know who that is? Learn about new talent! Stop living in the past!
Then he compares the characters to The Breakfast Club, editing their portraits onto the movie poster, with Armake in place of Emilio Estevez. Laaaaaame.
You can also hear Don’t You (Forget About Me) playing. How the hell did the copyright bots not catch that?

He notes how the game’s racetracks are designed after real life areas, like one is a kitchen table or a “breakfast table” and losing means “breakfast is ruined”. Uggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggh
He shows the school stage and how the obstacles are supplies and refers to pencil sharpeners by their Spanish word “Sacapuntas”. So he could make stupid jokes about how it sounds like “punting you in the ballsack” along with a death montage. Hur… hur… hurl…

Interesting to note, before the video went down, he said “Sacapuntas” meant eraser and not pencil sharpener. He got called out in the comments and he noted he did get it right the first time but “rushed it”. Hold on, you rushed it? But… you’ve been working on this for weeks, maybe months. What the hell is your process? Well, that comment is likely gone as it was in the first upload. Though my informant did manage to catch it.



Still, it is surprising to see him fix a mistake like that. So… a point for that.

He moves onto the garage and points out how the oil slicks slow you down. Uh no, the oil slicks make you skid. Then he questions the gray obstacle in the floor and wonders what that is. Looking it up, a guide on GameFAQs states it’s glue, and that’s the obstacle that slows you down. I am not sure how they figured that out, but it makes sense.

He briefly goes over the bath level, then moves onto a sandbox level where he says the difficulty really goes up.
“You may have played those first couple of levels and thought ‘Hey, this game is a piece of cake’” Didn’t you already have a death montage? You’re not exactly making a good argument here.
“Now it’s time to take that cake, and ram it up your piehole of an asshole!” … What?
And another death montage. This did not need to be 16 minutes.
He complains that you can’t just go “pedal to the medal” and you have to “balance” between accelerating and de-accelerating. Sooo, a racing game. This isn’t a new concept.
Then a Speed Racer reference, another death montage, an alliterative insult with “bunghole” in it, he slaps himself with the controller, and says he’d rather sandblast his anus into silly putty. I’m sorry, am I supposed to be laughing? How am I supposed to react to all this?

He wonders how he can’t beat the level anymore because as a kid, he could beat the whole game without breaking a sweat. Is that right? Perhaps you had Game Genie helping you?
He then tells a story about how he and his cousins beat the game over and over again and knew every twist and turn. Hmmmm… I don’t buy that.
He then takes out Game Genie. Of course he does…

He gets past the level and makes it to the billiard table level. He comments on how you can drop into a pocket and end up on another part of the track, and that was “rare” at the time. *looks at Super Mario Bros.* Huh?
After the billiard table, it’s back to the kitchen. “All these levels have been bumped up in difficulty level” Proofreading? What’s that?
He remarks that you drive over a box of “Toppies” cereal. He questions it, saying he never saw it as a kid. He believes it was between Breakfast with Barbie and Booty-O’s. That would be impressive considering Booty-O’s didn’t come out until 2016, and it’s a tie-in with The New Day wrestling tag team that didn’t debut until 2014. You just wanted to flex your stupid cereal knowledge, didn’t you?
He also clarifies they’re real. At least he understands that some people don’t realize that he’s making something up with his stupid photoshop gags and is willing to clarify when something is real.

Then another death montage. Jeez, this video doesn’t need to be any longer.
He ends it by pouring his Micro Machines into a bowl and “eating” them with Cookie Monster sounds. Painfully unfunny.

He notes how the game gets harder the further you get along, points out the chopper stages. Randomly puts in the Predator clip. Again, how did that not get caught by the bots?
He claims they’re the jankiest vehicles to control. Oh hey, he learned a new word.
Then he moves onto a board game level where he finds the checkerboard annoying to get around.
“Damn it Galoob, FOCK you and your FUCKING checkers!” It’s not Galoob that made the game, it was Codemasters.

Eventually he fills up his toy case, racers drop out (random reference to Punch-Out as well), and he gets to the end. A level which he claims he never beat. Wait… but you said earlier you beat the game over and over with your cousins. Was that a lie?! How did you miss a contradiction THIS big?! What the hell?!

So, he goes through the time trial challenge and gets upset that the Monster Truck doesn’t get added to his toy case. I looked it up, and he had to beat it in the allotted time to get it for his case. I figured he would know that since he “beat the game over and over again” derpa derpa derp
“What a bunch of big asses” … Huh?
Anyway, he beats the game, complains about the ending, and complains that he doesn’t get a car. Whatever…
“You turkey dicks” Stop. Just stop.

“While I was doing research for this game” HAHAHAHA that’s funny. You doing research.
He claims that “four years later”, Galoob released Micro Machines on SNES. So so wrong! It was three years later not four, and it wasn’t Galoob, it was Ocean Software. You didn’t research a damn thing.
He looks over the SNES version, notes how it looks better, controls better, thinks it’s easier but dies so it’s not… blah
Then he says something really odd. That this was around the time he jumped ship from Nintendo to Sega. What? When did you do that? Throughout the years you’ve been doing this show, you have NEVER brought that up. Are you making stories up again? Especially since the majority of what you’ve covered were Nintendo titles. You didn’t talk about a Genesis game until 2014. What are you trying to get at?

He moves on to Micro Machines 2, which he claims was released on SNES and Genesis (there’s others).
He notes the graphics are better and there’s been changes to the characters, then he gets horny over one of the returning ones. Ew…
What Chris neglected to mention is that the console versions of Micro Machines 2 were only released in Europe. The only version America got was on MS-DOS. That seems like a pretty important detail to overlook.

He briefly talks about Micro Machines V3 on Playstation 1, and I do mean brief because he doesn’t say much. Just a comment about the graphics and a joke about eating your vegetables. Dull…

He brings up Micro Machines 64 Turbo, which is just a port of V3. He seems to understand that as he notes that it’s basically the same game. Then he gets mad at how they changed the character he got horny over. “What am I supposed to do with this?!” … Touch grass.

He jumps to Micro Machines V4 on PS2. It has been brought to my attention by Jack Cravens that the gameplay footage has been taken from the YouTube channel xTimelessGaming. As made clear by the XTG name above the car. Of course, no credit in the description. In fact, he didn’t even credit Eli Bruner for the opening animation either. Still stealing and refusing to give credit. No number of meta jokes will fix that Chris.
Anyway, he doesn’t really say anything about the game, just that he believes the toys weren’t available in stores, so this was just quietly released. No, they were there. The initial Micro Machines line kept going until 2008, and this game came out in 2006. It had a brief Star Wars revival in 2015, died again, but now it’s back under Wicked Cool Toys & Jazwares. Just a quick search.

Even though he’s clearly not playing, he says it’s good. Then he says, “3D Realms took 12 years to release this”. … I’m sorry what? Where did that come from? Did you somehow confuse this with Duke Nukem Forever? 3D Realms didn’t even work on this game, it was developed by Supersonic Software. Are you high?!
He’s also mad because the girl isn’t in the game. I don’t even care anymore…

Then he moves on to Micro Machines World Series for Playstation 4 (as well as Xbone and PC). He says he hadn’t even heard of it until today (which means he likely stole this footage from someone else) and compares it to Skylanders. It’s nothing like Skylanders, it’s not toy-to-life. Get a bigger pool of references.

Despite the “polish” of the newer games, he prefers the NES one because of nostalgia. Then a really dumb Breakfast Club reference to end the video. How does your mind get here? You reference it once, and somehow you think that gives the right to re-enact the ending? Is this just more “I LOVE MUH 80’S!” pandering?

What a mess of a video. How did this take so long? Barely any effects, but a whole lot of errors. Didn’t you have help with all this? Maybe the people he got to help wanted to get paid, he didn’t pay them, and now he’s stuck by himself again. There wasn’t even a fake sponsorship this time around.
I swear, Chris does not respect the few fans he has left. It just feels like he’s throwing shit at the wall with no regard to what they want.

And that is everything. We may not be able to stop the ignorance, but we can curb COVID. Go get vaccinated if you haven’t.