Redux Recap: The Konami Code and Spread Gun Won't Save This Review

I put this off long enough, but I’m done stalling. Let’s recap IG’s Contra review. I don’t have to tell you that Contra is a classic. Only way someone could hate this game is if they have zero hand-eye coordination or the intelligence of a worm. Let’s begin. 0:20 - 0:26: The video starts with the Contra start-up screen, only Bill & Lance have been replaced by IG and Wise Sage. Wow… weak. 0:27 - 0:39: Bores starts talking about Contra being popular on the NES, how the gameplay was groundbreaking, and that the reason it was popular was the ability to play 2-players simultaneously. It seems like Bores can’t figure why a game was popular. He claims Super Mario Bros. was popular because they packaged it with the NES, he says TMNT Arcade was popular because of the multi-player, and now he says Contra is popular because of the co-op. Didn’t he ever consider that these games were just fun? 0:40 - 0:58: Then Bores starts drooling over the various guns. Before I point out what’s wrong, I want to mention that this is a strange place to talk about this. A review needs structure so that it flows without constant whiplash. This is something you explain when talking about the overall gameplay, not something you place in the introduction. However, I have an idea why he placed it here and I’ll tell you when I get there. He starts to list off the weapons “Machine Guns, Laser Guns, spray guns” ahem, I believe that’s called the Spread Gun (often nicknamed the Spreader) not the spray gun. “Guns I don’t know the name of…” then look up the name, it’s called the Fire Gun (sometimes the Flamethrower). Now you’ll see why he talked about the guns, just so he could do a pointless joke where he’s firing the Contra Machine Gun at nothing while yelling “Take that you bitches!” What does this have to do with anything? SPECIAL EFFECTS WOOOOOOO! He concludes this bit telling us there’s a lot of enemies and is glad you’re allowed to upgrade your weapon. Well, considering how you play you’ll always be stuck with the Rifle. 0:59 - 1:03: “Even though this game is awesome, it still had it’s share of flawls” Ohhh boy, here we go folks. Translation: “I’m going to nitpick unimportant aspects of this game in hopes that stupid 10 year old kids will buy my t-shirts. Who cares about gameplay or visuals, when I can whine about the lack of story and the difficulty.” Flawls… who talks like that? 1:03 - 1:06: “First off, where’s the backstory to this game? … WHAT? 1:06 - 1:15: IG notes that we’re dropped on an island fighting off bad guys. He asks “why am I fighting here, is there a specific reason for this?” Hey wise guy, check out the instruction manual for the story. It’s an 8-Bit game, most of those stories were just “Bad guy has kidnapped princess/girlfriend/companion, go save her” or “Bad guy wants to take over the world, go stop him.” Were you expecting Isaac Asimov levels of writing? Of course, that would be too difficult for you. 1:16 - 1:26: “I guess there could be answer in the instruction manual, but to hell with that. Whoever reads those things anyway?” *record scratch* So you want to find out the story of the game, yet you refuse to read the manual the ONLY source for this info (in 1988). What the hell is your problem? And to answer you question, a lot of people read the manuals. People that want to know how to play the game or figure why you’re playing. To further his point, we cut to him holding a bunch of manuals exclaiming “I can’t waste my time reading about a game, I just gotta play it!” and on cue he throws them into the air. My snark-senses are telling me this scene come back and bite him. 1:26 - 1:31: “Now, judging by the title of this game. I think it’s pretty obvious what your mission objective will be.” No it isn’t, it’s not obvious at all. Does he think this game has us fighting Nicaraguan rebels? Not in the Reagan years. 1:32 - 2:13: “But I do wonder what transpired before this game even began?” I would say read the manual, but realize he said that just to set-up this pointless sketch. We cut to the Pentagon (rather, a picture of it) as a robe-less Eric Allen is looking bored while pretending to type. Suddenly an obviously fake radar let’s off a few blips and Eric looks off to the side informing his superior that there’s trouble. We see his CO is Bores in a very fake mustache… I’ve got nothing. Somehow those random blips were able to tell Eric that an island in the Pacific has been taken over by terrorists, must be a magic radar. Then, one of Bores’ finest acting moments “Good GOD! Wake the president!” Wow, you’re making the delivery in Werewolf look natural. So yeah, this “cliché terrorist plot” Bores made-up is what he thinks is the story to Contra. It sounds like the plot of a feature-length Contra movie directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak. We cut back to IG telling us “the 8-bit translation would look something like this.” This time we see a hand-drawn Pentagon (yeah, I’m sure an 8-Bit rendition of the Pentagon would look like something out of MS Paint) as 8-Bit versions of his characters go over the same situation. Midway through, Bores stops because “it’s too painful to watch”. *sighs* Where do I even begin? You refuse to read the instruction manual for no reason other than “I just gotta play it!” and then you pad out the video with this absolutely pointless sketch that accomplishes nothing. This sketch didn’t need to exist. And somehow you think your little fanfic is the real story to Contra. Will you just deflate your damn ego? Then you decide to show the 8-bit rendition but stop midway because “it’s too painful” making this even more unnecessary. Why? Why did you make this sketch? And what was that “Hmm I wonder” look at the beginning? Was this an attempt at a Scrubs-style cutaway? Here’s the thing Chris; when Scrubs did it, it was funny. When you do it, it’s shockingly painful. Seriously, you refuse to learn the story of Contra and then you make up this bullshit for some reason that not even a deity can comprehend. *sighs* Moving on. Fun Fact: In the Japanese version of Contra, the game has an in-game backstory with cutscenes between levels (along with a map). This is thanks to a custom Famicom chip Konami was using. Maybe Bores would have preferred the Japanese version. Thanks to vnisanian2001 for reminding me of this. 2:14 - 2:31: “Now it’s pretty obvious the military…” Yeah yeah yeah. “But whose bright idea was it to send in only two soldiers against a shitload of rogue terrorists.” See what I mean, he believes his contrived story. Those two soldiers are meant to be Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, the two biggest action movie stars at the time. To top off this stupidity he asks “Who’s commanding this operation, Gomer Pyle? Well golllllly.” That impression was heinous. 2:32 - 3:17: “There’s a lot of enemies in this game…” No shit. Bores remarks on the amount of enemies, and points out that you can get help. Wait, what help? Oh, he means the gun upgrades. Why are you talking about this again? You already mentioned the weapons earlier in the review so why are you bringing this up? This is what I meant by poor structure, he revisited an aspect of the game that he brought up two minutes ago. Either it’s a case of “viewers are goldfish” or Bores is a terrible director. “These upgrades turn out to be very useful…” No shit. He claims one gun is useless and doesn’t work, the Laser Gun. He says that if you keep firing it only goes a few feet ahead of you. Here’s a thought, have you tried letting go of the B button? See what happens there. IG tells us “avoid it like the fucking plague” (Hey Chris, a Mr. Armake21 called. He wants his catchphrase back) because touching it means we’re as good as dead. Jacob9k1 showed off a few stages of Super C using only the laser, and he defeated the stage 2 boss in a few seconds. There exist “laser-only” runs on YouTube. It may not have the efficiency of the Spreader, but it’s far from worthless. By the way, who’s the second player? Right now, IG isn’t playing with anyone so is there a ghost in there? To further insult us, IG does another pointless bit where the Laser upgrade appears in his room, he touches it and “dies”. You know what would make this scene funny? The upgrade drops down and says “Nice try, I’m not falling for that” or better yet NOT DO IT AT ALL! 3:18 - 3:43: IG notes that the game can be fun, but be prepared to give our thumb a real work-out since every gun in the game (except the Machine Gun) requires pressing the B button repeatedly to shoot. To this I say “So?” It’s not a big deal since most enemies go down in one hit and if you have the Spreader it makes things a lot easier. But who cares about facts when we can have pointless special effects? His comment ensues a scene where he mashes his NES controller (it doesn’t look like he’s actually playing) until it “blows up”. IG then declares he needs a turbo controller. You wimp. I should mention that he’s never seen playing a turbo controller in the entire video. So this scene was entirely, that’s right, pointless. 3:44 - 4:01: Bores complains about the difficulty. How we only get three lives and three continues, and how we have to start at the beginning if we choose to continue. Oh boo-hoo, how dare they actually give us a chance. Contra isn’t that hard. It’s not a walk in the park, but it’s not “crazy-hard” like Battletoads, Bionic Commando, or the Ghouls N Ghosts series. It doesn’t deserve to be on GameTrailer’s Top 10 Most Difficult Games, there’s much harder out there. 4:02 - 4:25: I hope you like Winter Games action and constipated expressions because we have another montage! IG tries to play through Level 2 but he sucks so much that he doesn’t complete it. Yeah, he’s that bad. He throws his controller and whines that this game is too hard. I think it’s time for a lesson in “Fake Difficulty vs. Real Difficulty”. Real difficulty is the game’s initial difficulty level, and can be completed with enough skill and practice. Contra is a great example of this, with smooth controls and easy gameplay. With real difficulty, if you die then it’s all your fault. Fake difficulty is when bad design choices make the game unplayable. If you die, you can actually blame it on the game’s shoddy programming. Games like Dragon’s Lair (NES), and The Wizard of Oz (SNES) are prime examples of hard for all the wrong reasons. 4:26 - 4:49: IG declares that he gives up. Good, review over. See you guys la- “Use the code Luke” Oh come on! Yes, if this video hasn‘t insulted your intelligence enough, a guy dressed as Obi-Wan Kenobi appears and tells Bores to use the code. Introducing the sixth character in Irate Gamers’ repertoire of cliché bullshit, the Wise Sage. Great name huh? However, people like the Wise Sage. He’s played by a different person, and he’s a much better actor than Bores. Plus, I think Mr. Eric Allen knows how bad these videos are. I once contacted him with reasons I hate IG (he asked for them), and he responded with something about criticism (I don’t have the messages anymore) but he never gave a clear answer on his actual opinion of the Irate Gamer. Oh right the video. Wise Sage tells him to use the code while calling him Luke, Bores thanks him and tells him he’s not Luke. Then for no reason Sage leaves, prompting one of Bores’ “laugh-now stares”. Maybe Sage is looking for lukestarkiller441? 4:50 - 5:26: “So what is this code you ask?” Playing us for fools now, this is crap. Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start. IG says that “the developers of the game” (you mean Konami?) included a code to give us 30 lives. He also says “this code is infamous by most old-school gamers out there” *sighs* I believe the word you’re looking for is “famous”. Infamous means something that’s remembered for being bad, like Deadly Towers or Rise of the Robots. Giving a person 30 lives isn’t a bad thing. So he does an “epic” code entry. How do I know it’s epic? He has music playing over it. Again Bores; just because you put dramatic music over something, doesn’t mean it’s epic. He enters the code and does a pose & face that looks less like “triumph” and more like “I went to the potty all by myself”. Bores notices nothing is happening and realizes he needs to be on the title screen for it to work. Moron. 5:28 - 5:43: IG tells us it’s a good idea to get a second player to help out. He decides to ask one of his friends if they want to play. We cut to stock images of empty hallways and offices with crickets chirping. Bores realizes he should get some friends first. I don’t get this scene, was this an attempt at self-deprecation humor? That’s not how it works. Watch Rodney Dangerfield stand-up to see how it’s done. 5:44 - 5:58: Oh but that doesn’t matter since the Wise Sage shows up. This makes me wonder if that last scene had any point, the Sage could have just showed up without Bores subjecting us to that unfunny bit of self-loathing. Sage agrees and does a lame “badass hood removal” showing that he’s wearing sunglasses. 5:59 - 6:13: IG remarks that one of the coolest features is playing the game with 2 pla… YOU ALREADY SAID THIS! Something tells me he shoots like 4 versions of each scene, and the scenes at the beginning were leftovers that he forgot to remove. He also remarks that having a second player can help clear out the “board of enemies” (seriously what?) and make things go much faster. Well that is true, you can also make it a race to see who is the better player. That’s the case with a lot of co-op games. Then he says you can kill the bosses a lot faster, yeah we’re getting into boring now. 6:14 - 6:33: IG notes there’s only one drawback to having a second player, and yes he actually pronounces drawback correctly. This drawback is that you die if you fall to the bottom… great I’m getting Goonies II flashbacks. This “flaw” is also in a 1-player game, it’s how the level was programmed. Of course, you sucked so bad you couldn’t reach the third level to learn this. We then cut to Bores and Sage playing the game. This is one of the scenes that confirms Eric is a much better actor than Bores. Look at his hands, it looks like he’s actually playing the game. Bores is just doing the same Winter Games bullcrap he’s always been doing. IG dies from a pit and yells at Sage, who promptly tells him to shut up. See, that’s how an actual gamer would act. Something went very wrong here… There’s also a plot hole here that I just noticed. In the wide-shot, Sage has his sunglasses on, but in the close-up his sunglasses are gone. Strange. 6:34 - 7:15: Bores praises the stage bosses calling them unique and “in-neresting” (note that one of the bosses he shows is the one from Level 6). Before I cover the immense stupidity of this scene, I want to point out that Sage dies but when he comes back his life count doesn’t go down. They can’t even get past level 3 without relying on Game Genie, good fuckity god. And now, onto the stupidity. IG wonders what boss they’ll get at the end of Level 3. When the boss reveals itself, “dramatic” music starts playing and the two guys give off an expression of dull surprise. Then… “Now wait just a fucking minute here! There are aliens in this game?” Facepalm at the ready. “What the shit? I thought I was fighting a terrorist war, now I’m fighting an alien war?” Initiate facepalm *POW* Are you serious? Somehow the existence of aliens in this game shocks you. This wasn’t a big twist, the manual flat-out tells you aliens have invaded. Oh that’s right, you didn’t read the manual because “I just gotta play it!” “Boy, I’ve been seriously misled” Nothing misled you! You can’t even file this under “Rule of Funny” because there’s nothing funny about this. It makes you sound like an illiterate moron. He notices that if he looked at the cover art he should have seen the big alien head. *sighs* You know, this shows that he never played Contra before. If he did, he never got past the third level until now, and that is fucking pathetic. 7:16 - 7:26: IG telling us this game doesn’t get boring or repetitive. I wish I could say the same for your videos. 7:27 - 7:42: The two of them reach the final level (we’re almost done). Bores points out how the mini-boss looks similar to the creature from Alien, and thinks it’s probably a coincidence. No, that was the intention. Konami got a lot of ideas from Hollywood movies for Contra, and that’s why Americans love the game. That and it’s MANLY! TESTOSTERONE TO THE EXTREME! HEAVY METAL! 7:43 - 7:58: He says the worst thing about Level 8 are “the cotton ball things” because they chase you around. Hey dingus, hit the mouths. That will stop them from respawning. “It doesn’t matter if you kill one, because five more will be right behind you.” That looks more like two than five. 7:59 - 8:13: The two of them reach the final boss (Red Falcon), and Bores whines about the lack of creativity. *thud* There’s the loud thud of irony again. He says he’s easy to kill and you’ll win in no time. Yeah… So the video ends with Bores getting ecstatic over the ending (there’s a surprise) because we saved the universe. He then sets up for the next episode (uggggh) and follows that with a lame 24 parody involving the Mustache Bores and Wise Sage. GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH FUCK THIS REVIEW! I mean wow, he bashed Contra for all the wrong reasons. He has no fucking idea what he’s talking about. Plus, this just showcases how bad he is at games. And no, using Game Genie isn’t “playing bad on purpose” that means you’re terrible at the game. This was also the video that initiated TheArchfiend’s many tirades against the Irate Hack, since Arch noticed that he was allowing comments on this video and that most of them were negative. The sad thing is, I still have two more Contra videos. Yeah, next redux recap is Super C and that review is just as bad; maybe even worse. Before I go, I want to mention that Bores promised a new “I Rate the 80s” or as I like to call it “Breakfast Rant 2.0” in his last video (the trailer for that wretched Neo review). Exactly how long does it take to talk about food? I don’t know, and really I don’t care.