Redux Recap: Mario & Sonic Award IG the Gold in Stupidity

Going through the older videos again, I noticed that the first few Neo videos weren’t as astonishingly bad as his regular videos. That all changed with today’s subject, an abysmal video that gets so much wrong and continues to be an example of why Chris Bores is a hack. IG “reviews” Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games.

Before he released that video, there was a short “update” involving his Top 10 Summer Movies list. It’s nothing important.

Onto the idiocy!

0:19 - 0:40: “Back in the early 1990’s, Sega released a gaming console called the Sega Genesis…” Repetitive, but not the worst part.

“… to compete with Nintendo’s gaming console called the Super Nintendo” and this is where it all goes wrong!

This is the one line that proves he has no clue what he’s talking about. For those that don’t know, the Genesis was not released to compete with the SNES, it was released to compete with the NES!

Exhibit A: Genesis Does What Nintendon’t!

This was the aggressive marketing slogan Sega used when the Genesis was released in North America, and by “Nintendo” it’s referring to the NES not “Nintendo in general” (an actual defense I’ve witnessed). Back then the NES was the only Nintendo console, so people referred to it as the Nintendo. We only adopted “NES” when more consoles came out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7nsBoqJ6s8 Commercial

Exhibit B: Release dates

The Genesis/Mega Drive was released before the Super Nintendo EVERYWHERE!

Japan: Mega Drive came out in 1988, Super Famicom came out in 1990

North America: Genesis came out in 1989, Super Nintendo came out in 1991

Europe: Mega Drive came out in 1990, Super Nintendo came out 1992

That’s not getting into regions that only got the Mega Drive but never got the Super Nintendo.

The worst part is that someone in the comments pointed out this error, even though he credited Wikipedia (but remember, Wikipedia can be correct about simple facts). Bores’ response was stunningly stupid. Thankfully, I was able to screencap it before he disabled comments.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b275/BatDan/Whatamoron.jpg

When IG announced his “History of Video Games” series, this scene was the first thing I thought of. Makes me wonder what will happens if he ever reaches 1989, which at his pace will be *takes out calculator* Oh yes, NEVER!

He continues his “history lesson” bringing up how Nintendo had Mario and Sega had Sonic. Let’s just completely ignore Alex Kidd, it’s not like he was Sega’s big mascot at one point and Sega dumped him when they learned a blue rodent with attitude was more appealing.

“To unite both of them into a single game was unthinkable” In the 90s, but when Sega dropped out of the console business and started publishing Sonic games on Gamecube then an eventual crossover didn’t seem farfetched.

0:41 - 1:00: “Mario vs. Sonic at the Olympic Games” Hang on, I don’t see a “vs.” in that title, but I do see an ampersand. The title is “Mario & Sonic” not “Mario vs. Sonic”. But who needs literacy anyway?

IG remarks that this should have been the “most epic event to ever happen” but after playing it he calls it “the biggest piece of shit I ever played” I thought that was MUSCLE? By the way the game isn’t that bad, it’s flawed but it’s good fun. The title itself says “Olympic Games”, were you expecting something like Super Smash Bros?

He also admits he only played for five minutes before turning it off. Either he admitted he barely played the game, or that was an attempt at a joke. It’s still bad form though.

1:01 - 1:18: While gushing over the intro (cutscenes aren’t important!) he says this “You probably think that you probably just purchased a great game”. Holy shit! So much redundancy! Also, judging the game based on the opening cutscene is really idiotic. That’s why I get kind of annoyed when a trailer doesn’t have gameplay footage.

“Don’t be fooled, graphics alone can’t carry this game” … No shit! You just figured this out? Gameplay and controls > Graphics

He calls the game a “travesty” and complains about Nintendo releasing it for $50 dollars. Technically Sega published the game in North America, Nintendo only published it in Japan. Also, it’s a high-end AAA Wii game, of course it’s going to cost $50 dollars!

1:19 - 1:40: IG claims his biggest problem is with the controls, complaining that you have to do a different action for each event. Oh and this is the first video he calls it the “Wii Joystick”.

Folks, this is the Atari 2600 controller. It has one button and a large joystick in the middle.

http://gaminggoodies.info/images/atari2600joystick.jpg

This is the Wii Remote. It has six buttons for gameplay, a D-pad, a Power button to turn the Wii on, a Home button to bring you back to the menu, and a motion sensor inside that you activate by pointing it at the TV like a “remote”, plus some other stuff that isn’t too important.

http://www.wiiremote.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/Wii-Remote1.jpg

Where the hell do you see a “Joystick” in that?

Also, complaining that a Wii game is making you use the motion controls? I’d accept that if he said the controls were unresponsive or something, but he doesn’t do that! He just complains that you have to move the Wii Remote around and nothing else.

“Whatever happened to just picking up a controller and playing a game?” … WHAT?!!

Chris, the entire point of the Wii is to attract customers that normally wouldn’t play a video game. The motion controls were created for people that thought “pressing buttons” was too complicated. If anything, games like Wii Sports and Mario & Sonic are easier to pick-up and play for non-gamers. I’m starting to wonder how much of this is the game’s fault.

This is definitely up there with one of the dumbest things you’ve ever said.

1:41 - 1:54: He remarks how each event becomes more confusing and “fustrating” (ugh) and lists off how “everything sucks”. You know, it would be nice to explain why these events suck. You can’t just say “it sucks” and move on, tell us why the swimming sucks or the fencing sucks. Is it the controls? Is it too hard? Tell us!

Too bad, we aren’t getting that! Instead we get a dumb joke of IG apologizing to Yoshi getting last place, saying it’s not his fault. You’re right, it’s not Yoshi’s fault. It’s yours! You were the one controlling him.

1:54 - 2:09: IG sums up the game like this “The entire game consists of picking your event, picking your character, being announced to the audience, performing your event three times, then see how you rank” then doesn’t see how it’s fun and calls it boring.

Red Dead Redemption sucks! All you do is get on your horse, go to a mission, get back on your horse, go do the mission, and get your reward. It sure is boring!

Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past sucks! All you do is roam around the world, fight enemies, collect items, and solve puzzles. How is this fun?

Chris, every game can be “boring” if you describe it the way you did.

2:10 - 2:25: He then says nothing “cool or exciting” happens. What did you want to happen? Tell us!

He starts complaining that if you lose as Bowser, you don’t get to go into the audience and kill spectators. … Wow, that just happened.

It’s a kid’s game, there won’t be any brutal massacres caused by a character losing. They don’t want to give it an M-Rating. I can imagine IG playing Mario Golf or Tennis and complaining that Bowser doesn’t get to kill spectators.

He then brings up how he was sitting there “waiting” for something happen. The footage shows him playing Ping-Pong, that looks like “something happening”. What are you going on about?

2:26 - 2:49: He then brings up that he did enjoy the Trampoline event where press buttons while in the air. So the only event he liked was the one that required pressing buttons. I’m convinced, he just hates the game because he sucks at it. Looking at the footage, he kept getting last place, and instead of admitting he sucks he blames the controls.

“Too bad they couldn’t implement any good ideas into the rest of the game” I imagine if the rest of the game was button mashing, it wouldn’t be like the Trampoline event, it would be like other Olympic games where you slammed the button until you broke the controller. Kind of like Track & Field.

2:50 - 3:05: “Now I’m going to cut this review kind of short…” It’s about the same length as all your other Neo videos, what makes this one any different?

He continues complaining that it’s awful, that’s it’s a waste of time, and not “crazy” like a “real Mario vs. Sonic game should be”. That’s because this isn’t “Mario vs. Sonic”, nowhere in the title does it say “vs.”! Get that through your head! What do you want from a “Mario vs. Sonic” game?

The video ends with IG saying if you really want to pit Mario & Sonic against each other, wait for Brawl. *checks video date* April 26th, and Brawl came out in North America March 9th. Oops!

Okay he probably uploaded this video to GottGame before that, but I have no idea when that was because the new site reuploaded his videos at the same time. So maybe it was before Brawl came out, I don’t know. At least include an annotation saying when the video was originally uploaded.

By the way, you seriously couldn’t find the actual Brawl boxart so you had to use a fake? That’s just lazy.

He once again calls the game “boring and fustrating” FRUSTRATING! There’s an “R” in there! Say it right damn it!

The camera cuts to him and he throws the game, ending the video. No sound effect? Come on at least give us a Wilhelm!

That was awful! The first truly BAD IG Neo video and it definitely won’t be the last. Research failure, annoying nitpicking, and blaming the game for his own ineptitude. It’s all there.

Next Redux is R.O.B. Part 1... Oh dear.

Maybe Bores will actually release something new? It's only been seven months since the last actual retro review.

As for the "Chris Bores Day" post I made, it's been deleted. It was really dumb.