Monday, December 31, 2012

Year End List: Top 11 Worst IG Moments of 2012

Wow, 2013 is upon us. A lot of people thought we wouldn’t get this far, especially those that believed we would all die on the 21st, but here we are.
As is tradition, it’s time to count down what I think are the worst Irate Gamer moments/videos of the year. This has been a strange year, with Bores flip-flopping on multiple ideas and an overall lack of activity.
His ego stroking was still there, but not as bad as last year. Some people believe he’s actually improving, I don’t see how but okay.
Then again, some people believe I’ve been doing this since 2007, even though my posts date back to 2009. Reading comprehension is hard you guys!

And now, the IG Tally!

Regular Irate Gamer Show: Two (Silver Surfer and X-Men)
His inane storyline continues to trudge along at astonishing speed. It amuses me that he claims this will be his “movie”, showing me he has no clue how movies work.

IG Neo: Eight (Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure, Ninja Gaiden 3, Sonic Generations, Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes, Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, Dead or Alive 5, Resident Evil 6, Skylanders: Giants)
As per usual, Neo reviews take the top spot in actual content. Even with eight videos, this was by far his laziest year. At least I take some satisfaction knowing one of those videos can never be posted to his YouTube account, but more on that later.

I Rate the 80s: Four (Bud Bowl, Colorforms, TMNT Comics, Documentary thing)
So much for this being his regular thing now. Hindsight is a bitch. At least he extended beyond toys and food this year with … commercials (from the 90s) and a comic book series.

History of Video Games: One (Fairchild Channel F)
What’s the point? We all know Chris will never finish this stupid thing. What the hell is wrong with him?

Movies: Three (Michael Bay Rant, Men in Black 3, Hunger Games)
What’s this? Bores actually did movie reviews this year? That’s surprising. Though, he didn’t do a Summer Movies list this year, how strange. Really though, only one of those videos can be called a review, the other two were rants. One just reiterating the same stuff about Michael Bay we’ve all heard, and the other showing Bores has next to no idea what he’s talking about when it comes to movie-making.

E3: Twenty-Two
Less than last year, but still just as pointless. I feel sorry for any of the dumb kids that use IG’s E3 coverage for actual news, instead of the multitude of other sources out there. This number includes the late Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse interview he did.

Sketches: Four (Lakitu, Boos, E-Begging Spoof, Real Real Gaming)
This year saw an increase in sketch videos. All of them terrible.
I remember last year, Bores said he was planning to do more sketches with his other characters. All we got from that was Ronnie singing and that Aflac thing. Another unfulfilled promise, he should be a politician.

Other: Nineteen
These are the videos that don’t fit in any of the categories. These include trailers, contests, updates, his 300th video, the many, many, MANY Skylanders videos that weren’t reviews, his History of Video Games revisions, and that Up Up Ubi “review” that felt more like an update.
Much less than last year, thanks to Bores cutting back on contests and superfluous videos like “trailer reviews”.

Total: 63

Because there wasn’t as much activity as last year, I’ve only selected 11 moments.

11. Haunted Investigators returns… WHY?!
I have to wonder what Bores was thinking when he decided to revive this boring garbage. Did he really think people were so invested in him and his friends walking around abandoned buildings with equipment that detects cell phone signals hoping to find fucking ghosts? “Most popular ghost hunting channel on YouTube” You’re the only one, and people are not going to the channel to watch you fumble with a defective camera while blaming “spirits” on it.
He even said in his 200th video that the ghost hunting thing failed! I imagine Bores thought of the old phrase “at first you don’t succeed, try try again”. I don’t think that applies here though.

What really gets me is that he plans to put this on DVD & Blu-Ray, AND put it on Netflix. Try reaching out for the Asylum, they could advertise it as “Paranormal Activity if the people weren’t actors and they actually took this shit seriously”

10. “I’ll just recycle a four year old video, nobody will notice!”
I Rate the 80s wasn’t as horrid as it was last year, thanks in part to less videos. Of course, they were still bad videos, now on a pointless DVD.
Of the three actual episodes, the worst by far was his look at Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics. His look at the original Mirage Studios series was poorly researched and clear that he didn’t read past issue 5 or 6. But the biggest offense was when he talked about Archie Comics’ Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures, where he recycled a video he made about the same comics back in 2008. Why not spend time doing research on further Mirage Comics, then briefly bring up the Archie ones and post a link to your previous video? Are you that ashamed of anything you made prior to your jump to HD that you pretend it never happened and hope your fans don’t remember as you recycle them?
Or hell, maybe Chris doesn’t remember that he made the 2008 video. He’s said before that he doesn’t remember his past reviews. Either way, it was a lazy review and effort, all so he could do sketches with Kid Bores and Jughead.

9. “Must rush review out, don’t care if I barely played it”
This one is a tie between his reviews of Dead or Alive 5 and Resident Evil 6. Both reviews were posted on the game’s release date, and both were astronomically lazy and rushed. The DOA5 review absolutely reeked of “unscripted”, and we’ve seen Bores can’t do unscripted to save his life. Nothing was said about the gameplay or the multiplayer, instead we get 2 minutes of Bores perving over the women in the game, not even trying to hide it. It was like reading Spoony’s Twitter (at least those women are real).

His RE6 review had some semblance of a script, but it was still bad. Well, more boring than the previous review but the lack of actual points or anything beyond Leon’s campaign shows that he wanted nothing more than to get it out by October 2nd. Hell, some of the footage even looked stolen.
In fact, someone on GotGame called him out on it. Of couse, Bores denies it. The comment is still there. Surprising since anything negative towards Bores tends to get deleted. Can’t have anyone bashing their cash cow.

8. Skylanders Skylanders Skylanders
Back in March, Bores posted a review of Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure, the toy-fueled, money-sucking “reboot” of Spyro the Dragon. Shortly after posting it on YouTube, he made a video about the sequel Skylanders: Giants, going over news that was revealed months ago. He also talked about Giants at E3.
Bores noticed that his Skylanders videos got views, lots and lots of views. More views than his normal content. So Bores only saw one thing, $$$$$$$$.
In the months leading up to Giants’ release, Bores posted a lot of Skylanders videos. All boring, all pointless. It was beyond irritating, the man was obsessed with these things. He even admitted to waiting in line at Toys R Us early in the morning just to get certain figures before they sell out. It’s one thing to wait for the latest tech, but you’re a grown-ass man waiting in line for a KID’S TOY, and you don‘t have kids! Even Jeff Gerstmann wouldn’t do that for his Skylanders.
Even the fans got sick of all the Skylanders videos, the highest rated comments would always be negative.
His Skylanders obsession came to a head when he posted his review of Giants, and not only called “in-depth”, but put more work into the written portion than he has with any other modern game he’s ever reviewed. AND IT WAS STILL TERRIBLE!
Considering how Activision works, I can guarantee there will be a third game next year. To more boring-ass Skylanders videos from Bores! *raises glass then throws it on the ground*

7. The X-Men face their greatest challenge, Mary Sue writing!
The second of two regular Irate Gamer videos released this year. Bores choice of hyping it up was bragging that he was playing 15 characters! Holy shit, that’s nothing to be proud of! To be fair though, the review part was okay. But it’s a game that’s so infamous, so derided, that he really had nothing new to say about it. It’s the type of game that anyone can pick up and realize “this is a pile of crap”.
But the reason it’s on the list is the “storyline” part of it. What a fucking load. As Bores starts playing, he goes over the six playable characters, and all six of them show up in his apartment. Wolverine, Cyclops, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Iceman and Storm. They’re all played by Bores wearing a black turtleneck with X-shaped duct tape on it, various wigs, sunglasses for Cyclops, and visual effects to color his skin. There’s almost no difference between Colossus and Iceman.
Does Bores treat these heroes with respect? No! He’s belligerent, he’s violent, he treats them like servants! Linkara brought up to me that the X-Men are meant to be a Marvel Universe stand-in for minorities, so to see Bores treating them like slaves….. *cough cough*

But they have superpowers, can’t they stop him? Bores cranked the Mary Sue meter to 20 as after he merely swatted Wolverine to his death (I assume death since he disappears for the rest of the video), the rest of the team are reduced to sniveling cowards. If I was doing something like this, I would show respect to the X-Men, apologize to them for having this terrible game to live with.
He also kills Cyclops and Iceman, the former with his still unexplained “Power of Inferno”, the latter is shattered. Worse than The Sentry.
Then there’s his portrayal of Storm, the first female he’s ever portrayed in his five years of videos. Despite only two scenes, she comes off like a total bitch. Part of me thinks that he doesn’t like Storm, considering he said she was terrible in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (far from the truth), and when she shows up there are crickets chirping (and he still fails at this joke because nobody was applauding beforehand). But part of me also thinks he doesn’t think too highly of women… at least, going by all his pervy comments.
But what about the Evil Gamer? … He’s creating a giant HAL-bot. That’s it. It will probably fight a giant Bores or giant R.O.B. We will see.

6. Ninja Gaiden 3 “It’s easy, so it ROCKS!”
Ugh, Ninja Gaiden 3, what a piece of shit that was. Boring ass game with insultingly easy A.I., severe lack of variety, stupid bosses, lame level design, overabundance of quicktime events, lack of difficulty, lack of violence, and just an overall awful game. They say the Wii U one is better but I haven’t tried it.
However, Bores wants to show that he’s outside of the majority and praises the hell out of Ninja Gaiden 3. Of course, he mentions never playing the first two games, only sullying his opinion on this one.
He even brings up that the game has received negative press, though he makes it clear he didn’t bother to read WHY people hate this game. He mentions that he loves how mindless and relaxing it is, the very thing that fans and critics derided. Meaning Bores loves games only if they’re easy.
At one point, he compares it to Gears of War, despite Gears being a third-person shooter and Ninja Gaiden being an action/hack and slash title. Why the odd comparison? Well, he also mentions God of War in the same sentence, his ignorant ass probably thinks Gears of War is exactly the same. Even though it’s not. Showing that he continues to have no idea what he’s talking about.

What’s interesting is that in the beginning, he mentions that Tecmo themselves sent him the game. I actually believe that, they knew the game was a pile of shit, so they sent it to someone dumb enough not to see its flaws. Once they got their praise, they sent him DOA5, knowing they have a patsy willing to praise anything they do.
I’ve heard that the Wii U version of NG3 retains the difficulty from the first two games, something tells me Bores would hate this updated version.

5. History revisions take priority
I’ve gone on numerous rants about the abysmal pacing of “History of Video Games”. Fans don’t appreciate when they wait 14 months for the next installment, and all they get is 5 minutes about a failed console.
What they also don’t like is even further delays for the next part because Bores’ ego refuses to allow the existence of the SD videos. He must upgrade it to HD and be “consistent”. People don’t want this, and the views reflect that.
Not only are these revisions pointless, they’re somehow worse than the originals. Sure, they’re shorter, but he doesn’t fix the mistakes he made last time, and writing is once again thrown to the wayside for more SPECHUL EFFECTZ SPARKLY.
And why does he revise this stuff? Besides his ego? Because he thinks he can sell this on DVD. Never mind that he can probably get sued for false advertising as this barely scratches the surface of video game history. He can add a “Part 1” all he wants, it doesn’t change the fact that at this pace, he will NEVER finish it. Doesn’t help when he stops going forward and prefers to revisit his past work. What’s next? He’s going to stop his storyline and go back to previous videos and re-edit them to fit this “continuity”? Fuck that noise.

4. “Nintendo is kiddy, Me am manly gamer”
This… came out of nowhere.
Of the 30 something episodes of the regular IG show, only 3 cover games that aren’t on Nintendo consoles (E.T. Kool-Aid Man, and He-Man), giving the impression that he’s a big fan of Nintendo.
When IG Neo started out, he did nothing but games on Nintendo consoles (not counting The Simpsons game, he looked at the PS2 version of that). This changed when he looked at Resident Evil 5, and changed even further when he revealed himself to be a Sony fanboy. The last game on a Nintendo console he reviewed was Mario Sports Mix back in August 2011, and that was in the Video Game Roundup so it was barely a review.
Then came E3 2012, coming out of the Nintendo press conference, Bores decided to change his stance on Nintendo to that of an angry forum fanboy, basically “Nintendo is Kiddy”.
Claiming that he’s happy Nintendo is going the “adult route” while citing ZombiU and Batman Arkham City, never mind that they’re third party games and Nintendo has had “adult” third party games for years now. He goes on to claim that Nintendo needs an “adult” franchise to get Call of Duty money, showing once again that he has no clue how business works. Besides, Nintendo is not going out of business anytime soon.

Then in his Top 5 Worst of E3, he continues whining about Nintendo not “appealing to adults” when he brings up Nintendo Land (which is quite fun by the way). Going on about “Gritty Zelda” and showing he has no idea why people hated Metroid Other M, thinking they made it “for kids” or something. They say “ignorance is bliss”, but it can also be infuriating.
What I don’t get it is how he goes on to put New Super Mario Bros. U in his Top 5 Best of E3, and claim he’s “all about the Mario”. So Mario is the only one that’s “allowed” to be for everyone? Even though the gameplay in Zelda and Metroid are far more complex than “run and jump”? You’re mixing the messages.
Also, this is really hypocritical of Bores to claim, given how he’s overly obsessed with Skylanders. Explain how Skylanders, a game meant for kids, is better than Nintendo franchises, games that are meant for everybody.
Looking back though, Bores seems really insecure about liking things meant for “kids”, going by his comments on WALL-E and Toy Story 3. I’ll let this C.S. Lewis quote sum things up: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/84171-critics-who-treat-adult-as-a-term-of-approval-instead

3. Sonic Generations stolen footage
It’s clear that Bores barely gives a shit when making his Neo reviews, we’d be lucky to see a game that he actually manages to beat, let alone get far in. Most of the time, he plays for only an hour or a couple levels, nothing more.
This time though, Chris didn’t even bother to play the game at all. Instead, he watched a playthrough on YouTube, and proceeded to use that playthrough to make it look like he played the game.
All the footage in his Sonic Generations review was stolen from YouTube user Cyberman65, who uses a watermark in the corner of his videos to prevent such a thing from happening. Bores probably hoped people were too stupid not to notice it, or he probably didn’t care. Either way, he got caught, and boy did it not look good for him.

GotGame went into damage control mode, adding a disclaimer under the video that included a link to Cyberman65’s first Sonic Generations video (not his channel, just that video). However, Bores was not reprimanded for this. Unless it happened behind the scenes, but nothing official was stated. Can’t make their single source of income look bad.
Cyberman65 himself responded, saying he was very upset and never gave Bores permission to use it. LadyBuggin777 had her own damage control, saying Bores and CM65 were friends. Even though that’s a blatant lie.
Either way, the fact he didn’t even use his own footage tells us that he didn’t bother to play the game. One can tell from his complaint about being unable to skip cutscenes (which is false, you can skip cutscenes).
It makes me wonder how many other Neo videos have stolen footage. I suspected his Arkham City video had it, but I couldn’t really prove it.
This wasn’t even the first time that Bores has stolen footage. In History of Video Games Part 3, he took footage from a CNBC documentary about the same subject, but that time he actually hid CNBC’s watermark. What makes Cyberman65 any different?
This would have been second place, but for once Bores was smart and he didn’t upload this to YouTube. If he did, he would have been flagged soooo hard, especially since Cyberman65 is also a YouTube partner.

2. Silver Surfer Stupidity
Here we go, the worst regular IG episode of the year. Not saying much when there was only two.
This beats out X-Men for having an awful story and an awful review.
The review part had inaccurate info about the controls, petty complaints (like the lack of a save feature despite only playing for a minute and getting game over without making progress), and really just regurgitated the same things other reviewers have said, right down to similar dialogue (“death after death after death”). He also called it a Mega Man rip-off (even though the only similarity is the ability to select your stage) just so he could do an awful joke of a Mega Man sprite waving his fist to the game. Look, the humor should come from the game, not from made-up complaints or Family Guy cutaways. It’s sad how much of Family Guy’s influence has on his show.
The storyline part… oh god. Bores hyped the fuck out this, changing the layout to his site and Facebook page to be about the PIXEL DEMON! Anyone asking about it just got the answer “PIXEL DEMON”. Real creative stuff.
So what was the Pixel Demon? A green toad looking thing that wasn’t even made of pixels and got beaten by a single Bob-omb. … Fucking weak.
The villain’s backstory is right out of terrible creepypasta, the Pixel Demon was locked away in Silver Surfer because the game was “too hard” so he couldn’t be released. Just… all of the stupid!
Then there’s everything before that awful ending sequence. The stupid news scene with… ugh, Johnny Newscaster. Plus, the return of the Genie, now played by Bores, with a horribly flimsy excuse for why he’s no longer played by Brad Harp. Fucking fuck god damn it. He really couldn’t have called him up for a weekend to do some filming?
And yet, I know Bores can do worse. Far, far worse. Like Aladdin, or Zombies Ate My Neighbors, or RoboCop.

1. The E-Begging “Spoof”
This shouldn’t come as a surprise. This video actually made me angry. *sighs*
James Rolfe got in hot water when he had a fundraiser for his movie, of course these critics were just a vocal minority, and many of their points lacked logic. Then James posted a video showing support for a Cheetahmen II Kickstarter that many saw as a scam. Instead of blaming Greg Pabich, the man behind the Kickstarter, everything went towards James. Most people clearly didn’t know the facts, like thinking James was getting the money even though he wasn’t, and none of the blame went to The Game Chasers and Pat the NES Punk, both equally guilty of appearing in the video. Why should James get all the hate?
One would think that with all this controversy, Bores would ignore and get back to being a lazy ass like he usually is. … He did not.

What he did instead was a two and a half minute video called “Ebegging: The Spoof’, which poorly mocked “e-beggers” and clearly attacked James. No hint of subtly at all, but what do you expect?
The video was nothing but hypocrisy. This is the man that frequently has contests to give away stuff, and the key to winning is to subscribe. Being a subscriber somewhat guarantees him a view, and views = money. It’s still a terrible practice, especially when most of the prizes are his worthless DVDs and t-shirts. Multiple times he’s clarified “you have to be subscribed” and got upset at people entering that weren’t  subscribed. Doesn’t that seem suspicious to anyone?
He mentions that his fans don’t think his shit doesn’t stink, a reference to someone with an over-inflated ego. He shouldn’t make that joke considering his coliseum sized ego.
As for the attack? He ended the video saying “If you don’t donate, cartoon cheetahs I MEAN pixel demons will come out of the TV and attack you”. Not even trying to hide it, also showing his whole “I don’t watch AVGN” claim is a big fat lie.
After a few hours, he added an update calling out James and Mike for disabling comments and ratings. Go fuck yourself Chris, you disabled comments and ratings all the damn time, that’s the last thing you should call someone out for you piece of shit.

I get the feeling this wasn’t his idea, it was his mom’s. She’s extremely anti-AVGN, praising videos calling him out, becoming friends with Asalieri and many other anti-AVGN critics, as well as anti-IG critics to troll shield herself, saying a lot of the shit that Bores said in his video. I know she reads this blog, and she probably tells Chris “that Nazi retard BatDan just keeps comparing you to AVGN”, even though I barely do that, but my Facebook informant has told me that when someone asks about me, Chris says that’s all I do. Then he proceeds to claim his early videos were parodies. Really? Is that why you claimed you put your blood, sweat, and tears in that Angel & Devil effect in Temple of Doom? Is that why you claimed the TMNT video was really difficult because you played five games instead of one? People that parody retcon are shitheads, like Tommy Wiseau.
Chris may have won people over that day, but that victory was short-lived as I don’t see him doing any more drama videos.

So, those were my Worst IG Moments of 2012. Will 2013 mark the end of the Irate Gamer? Will Chris realize that his only real fan is his mom? Will he realize that his mom is actually driving away people? Will he actually get good? Probably none of these.

See you all in 2013.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

A New DVD for Nobody To Buy, Now With More 80s Stupidity

The end of 2012 is quickly approaching. It’s been an interesting year for Bores, his attempts at trying to get better have fallen flat in many different ways, and he continues to show that he’s a massive hypocrite that will do anything for attention. Some people are starting  to believe he’s not taking himself seriously now, but I really doubt it, especially when he’s given us one final “gift” for the year.

The I Rate the 80s DVD! Wanted by two people, you can now enjoy his terrible “documentary” attempts on your TV! See him fail at economics as he wonders why Yummy Mummy and “gimmicky” Kool-Aid flavors were pulled off shelves. Marvel at him eating 20 year old cereal and dressing up like Skeletor. Watch as he wrestles a toy Japanese wrestler and try to pass off that he has multiple Colorforms sets when he really only has one.

According to him, the DVD contains the 11 episodes of “Season 1” (for someone who’s all about American TV, he really loves his British brevity), a 10 minute documentary (where I imagine he once again pretends he’s being interviewed and try to claim that what he does is harder than it really is), bloopers, an extended scene (just one scene, singular) and more. It can be yours for $13.99. What’s that? You’d rather take that $14 dollars and invest in a failing company? I won’t stop you.

His news post about the DVD has this bit, “your in luck”. You’re 34 years old Chris, and you still can’t tell the difference between “your” and “you’re”? Jeez…

That’s not all, Bores posted a new video about it. A three and a half minute excerpt of the DVD documentary.
Since it’s not the full “documentary“, I’ll just give the big details.

As you might expect, Bores is pretending he’s being interviewed.
He mentions The Breakfast Rant, and believes the idea didn’t work as he pigeonholed himself into only reviewing breakfast. That and it was a fucking stupid idea and its only contribution was the hilarious line “breakfast is ruined!” He also says “breakfast” really weird.
He does bring up the name’s comparison to VH1’s I Love the 80s, but says his is different because it has humor and it’s a documentary. I Love the 80s had humor too, the people talking about the 80s were comedians, actors, musicians, and they were all making jokes about the subjects.

He also brings up the year-long hiatus, apparently it took him that long to think of “actually rating stuff” and “interacting with the items”. The latter he’s already been doing on his other show, so how it took him that long… fuck it.
Then he brings up that like Family Guy, he’s purposely putting in references very few people will get. Doesn’t help when most of your audience consists of little kids! Then again, the average Family Guy viewer probably wouldn’t get even the most obvious of references.
That’s the end of the preview.

Considering that nobody has uploaded the three IG seasons online to other sites, I don’t see this getting uploaded anywhere. I hope someone does do this though (not BitTorrent as NOBODY will seed it).

I also see that the IG 5th anniversary sale is still going on. He said before that once an item is gone, it’s gone. Seeing as everything can still be added to the cart, nobody is biting. I still believe this sale is him trying to get rid of it, along with all the contests.

On the front page, under “latest reviews”, he claims the latest Neo review was on Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse. That’s false advertising as it’s not a review, it’s an interview about it. Those are entirely different things. Unless he plans to review it, then there’s no reason to put it there.

Oh yeah, and he did another Skylanders video. Even made a damn playlist of it on YouTube. Expect more of these boring videos then.
On the bright side, his Hunger Games video with the fake thumbnail isn’t getting a massive amount of views. In fact, it has less than the Colorforms video and Lego Batman 2 video (all posted around the same time).

Unless he uploads something else of importance, the next post will be the Worst Moments list.

Saturday, December 8, 2012

The Turd-Polishing Continues with the Light Rifle

Wow, this came out sooner than I thought it would. I covered Part 2, might as well cover this added bit.

Before I talk about the video, I should mention a different one he posted to GotGame. An interview about the game “Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse”. Originally filmed at this year’s E3 (I know since his blooper reel had a shot of him talking to the same representative in front of the same Family Guy sign), for some reason he decided to post it now. Not sure why since the game has been out for a couple weeks now, and has received abhorrent reviews, so I don’t see how this will build hype when there’s no longer any hype to be built.

Onto the Light Rifle video. Like the Odyssey revision, this is shorter than the original (5:19 compared to 6:35) and I imagine it will be just as stupid.

0:00 - 0:50: Wow, starting right off the bat. No intro or anything.
He brings up cards 7 and 8, then cards 9 and 10 and how they come with the Light Rifle. He once again brings up they’re hard to find and says “you’ll have to sell your soul for one”. Yep, he didn’t bother removing the Devil Bores bit, and the “sell your soul” line is just as forced.
“Sorry Satan, I already have one” It’s the same one you have since you’re just me in a mask.
“What? Well motherfucker” Okay, so he didn’t change that line. Further confusing me into what direction he wants to take his videos.
He then quickly goes over how the gun works.

0:51 - 1:52: He brings up the same “flawl” about how the rifle works if you point it any light source. That happens with light guns, even the NES ones. That’s what the light sensor in the gun is for.
This guy can explain it better than I could: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3tBk-LYyzo

IG skips over the Prehistoric Safari game and begins looking at Shootout. He does the same scene where the theme from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly plays followed by “ACTIONY MUSIC” as IG tries to make this look cooler than it really is. Chris, if this is for the so-called “DVD”, you can’t have Ennio Morricone music. Just like how you can’t have John Williams music in the first video.
He also added banter like “Come on!” and “What else you got?!” during the shootout. When that one last guy appears, he adds an effect when he shoots him. Really, this is all the revisions have done. Rather than fixing mistakes, he adds pointless effects.

1:52 - 2:27: He proceeds to Dogfight, and makes the same mistake of calling them “Nazi aircrafts”. Again, those are bi-planes, something that was more suited for World War I. Then we get the same scene of Bores putting on a jacket, a scarf, and sunglasses while playing the game to Flight of the Valkyries, a song more suited for Vietnam (Apocalypse Now anyone?) Also, why does he have a fan going? All it’s doing is making the posters move, this isn’t making it “epic” or anything.
And he does the same joke where the dot appears over his head and he shoots it. All this wasted time and energy going into recreating bits he already did. And he wonders why he’s losing fans?

2:28 - 2:49: IG then looks at Shooting Gallery, and calls it boring (probably because he couldn’t think of a dumb sketch to along with it).
He also adds this text “Warning: Objects May Appear More Boring Than They Already Are”. Hahahahaha wow, someone should add that to the beginning of all his videos. That is just the perfect warning.
Interesting to note, my Facebook informant told me that Bores said he added sight gags he couldn’t do on his old editing software. If this was one of them… that must be some ancient as hell software if you couldn’t add text to a video. *remembers the Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde Princible* Or maybe it’s something else.
He then pretends to blow his brains out with the rifle. What, no falling over like you’ve done before with the NES zapper?

2:50 - 4:24: And so we come to the HAL betrays him scene. Oh joy.
Same stuff happens. HAL hits IG with the gun, HAL says “bring it bitch”, then the anticlimax where IG… merely removes the card. But this time it’s padded out to last longer and make it look like he’s actually suffering. Too bad the fake electricity is making this look really silly rather than “badass”.
“Who knew he could do all that operating on C batteries?” Hey, don’t go pointing out the plot holes in your own writing. That’s my job.

The video ends with more history. He claims the second reason the Odyssey didn’t sell was the lack of rules and point system. Noooo, the Odyssey was new, nobody knew what to expect of it. Also, I did some research and people really did think that the Odyssey would only work on Magnavox televisions, something that I thought was bullshit originally. Yet, Bores removed that little trivia from this version. Hmmm.

Then he ends the video saying that Pong is next, while holding a sprite of the ball. I don’t mean like one of his “wooden” sprites, as in he digitally put it in there. Why not just hold up a Pong console?

That was… well to quote this very video “Objects May Appear More Boring Than They Already Are”. It was just boring, and I can’t really say if this is worse than the original 2B. The HAL parts were at least, especially when his HAL impression is still awful. Can’t you hire a voice actor or something? Oh wait, that would require him to pay, and actually give credit to someone.

I don’t think it’s worth e-mailing these videos to Ralph Baer, especially when he didn’t bother to fix the mistakes he made before. I just wish there was a way to contact Nolan Bushnell or Al Alcorn about the Pong videos.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

An HD Shine Can't Hide This Historically Rotten Writing



… I wasn’t going to cover this. I thought I didn’t need to after the first HD revision. I was soooooo wrong.

For those that don‘t know, Chris Bores had this desire to revise his early History of Videos Games episodes in HD. His reason? Putting it on a DVD/Blu-Ray. Look, if you put out a DVD titled “History of Video Games” and it doesn’t even cover the Atari 2600, people are going to feel ripped off. They can possibly sue you for false advertising.
Sure, you can argue only fans will buy it, but there’s the chance that someone who doesn’t know who he is will buy it. Not only will they feel cheated, they’ll get this horribly unfunny and incredibly inaccurate DVD that seems to care more for silly jokes than actual information. Chris, quit pretending this is a fucking documentary. Why do you think nobody takes you seriously?
Also, what’s the point? You could invest that time in something else. Like finishing your stupid story arc, or doing further episodes of this pointless documentary. It’s a waste.

The reason I wasn’t going to cover it isn’t that I didn’t want to, it’s that I thought I didn’t need to. Last year, he released Part 1 in HD, and there were very very very few changes. He wore a different shirt in one scene, the timing on the “How come this stuff never happens to Captain Kirk” joke was a little less awkward (still wasn’t funny) and he took out the harsher profanity (“Holy fireballs of shit” became “Holy fireballs of crap” and “64? What the fuck?” was reduced to just “64?”). Other than that, the video was virtually unchanged, it was even the same length.

So, 20 months later, when he announced that the HD version of Part 2 was coming out, I brushed it off with no plans to do it. However, I noticed it was much shorter than the original version. Where the original was around 11 minutes long, this revision is only 7 minutes. That’s good right?
Well… the shorter length comes with a massive price. The video is waaaaay worse than the original. It takes the massive problems with the original and magnifies them tenfold. This… is not going to go well.

Before I start, what was wrong with the original? Unsurprisingly, there was plenty of research failure. It was so bad that the Odyssey’s creator, Ralph Baer, called him out on it (http://irategamersucks.blogspot.com/2011/03/ralph-baer-responds-no-chris-he-didnt.html). The review part was unbelievably botched, he spent the entire time comparing the 1970s console to modern standards, something NOBODY would do because that’s just plain idiotic. He included a story bit where the second player was the HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey (Get it? Because both are called Odyssey? SO CLEVER!). Somehow it would tie into his Season 4 story arc, confusing people into wondering if History of Video Games was a separate series or not. Then there was the awful jokes, like Bores going to space to get a part from a Jawa action figure, or the dirty flash cards. It’s definitely a contender for worst History of Video Games episode (that or Part 4).

An optimist would think that this would be a good time for Bores to fix all the problems. … Let’s get started. If you want more info, check out the original post here: http://irategamersucks.blogspot.com/2009/10/odyssey-part-1-this-is-gonna-hurt.html

0:05 - 0:35:On the bright side, he didn’t include the “For over 35 years…” intro like the original.
He goes over the history bits, though this feels much more condensed before. He did add a lot of his modern stock footage, only it’s in black and white. He also put his Odyssey in a briefcase to represent Baer showing it off.

0:36 - 1:39: He describes what the Odyssey comes with (thankfully, he removed that “crude in design” remark) and gets to the part where he learns the video cable isn’t compatible with his TV.
“What the fuck is this?” Looks like the profanity is staying. Why he changed it for the first HD revision I don’t know. I’d say “family-friendly” but I’m doubting that at this point.
“Instead of a video cable that looks like this, or this, you end up with this!” Looks like he still doesn’t realize that something that’s 40 years old won’t work on modern televisions. He did remove the “what an ass-biter” line so I guess some profanity is gone.
More complaining about outdated cables then he looks in his “Intergalactic Phone Book” to find the part. Except here, he showed that he already has the part. So why does he need to do this upcoming bit?
I do find it funny how an “Intergalactic Phone Book” is about the size of a Sandusky, Ohio phone book.

Then it cuts to “half-way across the galaxy” and… a really pointless addition. We see IG in a vector-drawn spaceship. I think that’s meant to be the ship from “Spacewar” as it’s the same model shown in his Part 1 title card. By the way Chris, if this is intended for the DVD, you can’t have that John Williams music.
He lands on Tatoonie (and I’m convinced that planet from before was also from Star Wars, good luck dealing with Disney) and meets with the Jawa action figure. Again, you have the part, you didn’t need to do this bit. Hell, you didn’t need to do this bit the first time. It just feels like you did a Star Wars reference for the sake of doing a Star Wars reference. At least with HAL I can kind-of sort-of see why you put him in, but this… never made sense.
“Yeah, I don’t know what the hell they were thinking of either” … I’ll tell what the hell they were thinking of. They were thinking “Say, what do most televisions have, and how can we get our toy to properly function?” What’s that? They dare not take into account someone playing it 40 years in the future? Well no shit! They didn’t consider that video games would be what they are now, they didn’t plan ahead because they saw no reason to.

After that pointlessness, we get another new addition, this time IG crashes his ship into his ceiling and falls out. A fitting metaphor for this video.
He then hooks up his Odyssey… wait a second. That looks different from the cables he used last time. *checks* It is! Last time he used an RF cable, which wouldn’t work with the Odyssey. Here he uses the proper one. So… what was the footage he had last time?

1:40 - 1:56: “Here’s a fast fact” Something about that line just irritates me. I think it’s because it reminds me of those really cheesy educational shorts they would show you in school with the kids that couldn’t act and the adults with scenery in their teeth.
He then says his incorrect fact about the game being in the Odyssey rather than the cards.

1:57 - 2:54: He brings up how the Odyssey turns on when you plug a card into it. Then… dramatic music starts playing for some reason. Umm, why? Does he know HAL is on it and doesn’t want to get hurt? Because that wouldn’t make sense from a continuity standpoint.
“LET THERE BE LIFE” … It’s a toy. A really old toy. There’s no life in it. Unless you meant to say “light”. If you did… second takes are your friend. Unless… crap he’s doing the HAL thing again isn’t he?
Yes he is, because bad electric effects cover his Odyssey and go into his TV.
“Hello Dave” *sighs* You know, I’m fairly certain HAL can say other names outside of David Bowman’s. He’s supposed to be an ultra-intelligent computer, so it wouldn’t make sense for him to call everyone “Dave”. But it only goes to show what a hack Chris really is, and that he’s probably never actually seen 2001. Or if he has, he didn’t get through it.

By the way, his HAL impression somehow got worse. No idea how that happened.
Oh, and he tries to justify this bad plot device by saying he has a “SUPER-RARE” Odyssey. Yeah, if you’re trying to be a “serious” documentary, it’s best not to make up shit like this.
Blah blah blah, HAL will be his opponent. He moves to the first game “Table Tennis” (or Tabletop Tennis as he calls it but whatever).

2:55 - 3:31: I don’t know what it is, but this footage looks kind of fake. Might just be my imagination.
He goes over the controls, and notes how one of the knobs puts a little spin into the ball. Then a bad joke where he spins it “right out of the game”. Just because you can do effects, doesn’t mean you should. Most of his jokes seem to rely on “Look what I can do with After Effects!”
Blah blah blah glitches.

3:32 - 4:04: He gets into the overlays, brings up the Hockey and Football games (the latter he didn’t mention last time) and then begins reviewing Skiing game. Not much here.

4:05 - 4:33: He explains the game, but then says you’ll likely die of boredom before finishing it. Showing him falling over “dead”. Then he goes on to compare the game… Candyland. What? How? Because of the trees. *looks at the Candyland board (http://www.lscheffer.com/CandyLand.jpg)* What the fuck are you seeing? He specifically mentions Peppermint Forest and Gumdrop Mountains, but those are pink candy canes and bright-colored gumdrops. Not. Green. Trees.
In fact, that mountain has a Triforce in it. Wasted Zelda reference!
“I thought this was supposed to be a video game, not a board game”. Video games did not exist in 1972, think of the Odyssey more as a board game that’s played on a TV. Oh wait, you can’t because you’re too ignorant to put yourself in the right mindset.
Then to further establish this is revision, he does one of his “character slides in from his right (our left)” jokes. This time it’s Mr. Mint from Candyland, and wow that’s an ugly drawing. Maybe you shouldn’t have burned DatBoiDrew that badly.

4:34 - 5:08: He moves onto Simon Says, and proceeds to do the same dreadful joke he did last time.
“Simon says penis?” It still bugs me how much time and effort he took for those cards just for this awful, awful joke. Why? Why not put that time in something worthwhile? Instead you waste it creating adult-themed flashcards for a game that’s intended for kids. What the fuck man?
This time he doesn’t say “masturbation hand”, and throws the cards in the air after seeing “vagina”.

5:09 - 5:39: He starts talking about the Roulette game, and does things differently here. This time he uses the chips on the board to make bets. He loses the first one and decides to put everything on a second bet. He pushes the button and lands on 6.
“Nine?!” … What? Are you kidding me?
“There’s not even a 9 on the damn board!” Oh God… you seriously made the same mistake. What is wrong with you?
No, this is not a joke. Despite his claim, this is clearly not a joke! This just makes him look like a complete moron! I’ll admit, I’m terrible at math, but even I can tell the difference between a 6 and a 9!
And to make this worse, the first number he landed on was 18, which is right next to the 6, and he even calls out “18”. How… what… aksld;fjasl;kdjsadfkl;fl;
Please, explain to me how THIS is a joke! Because I don’t see it! Gaaaah!

5:39 - 6:40: He brushes aside a few games that got more attention in the original video, then plays the States game so he can yell at Magnavox for thinking this could be fun. Oh man, it’s almost over!
He goes over additional games that were sold separately and how they use board games combined with the screen. He calls them too complicated, then a scene of HAL talking. You know, I remember him being excited about the all new games he had for this. Figures they would only get 5 seconds of screen time.

The video ends with IG bringing the Odyssey Light Rifle. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. There was a second part to this, a Part 2B. This one going over the Light Rifle. I have a feeling he did that to make himself look better than the AVGN, who didn’t cover it in his Odyssey video. For all I care, he could take another 20 months to make the HD revision of that.

It’s… astonishing. Bores somehow made a video worse than the original. I’m just baffled by this. He claims on Facebook that in the original the “flow” didn’t feel right. There’s no flow to be had, especially when you do cutaway gags ALL THE TIME, or spend a minute pretending to be a bunch of horses. That is, if he’s claiming each part is supposed to transition to the next like a real documentary. Either way… he’s a hack and this video just annoyed the hell out of me.

Well, it’s almost December. Think he’ll do anything worthwhile, or will this be the last video of the year outside of some rushed Neo videos and contests. The latter sounds more likely knowing him.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Redux Recap: Dull Review of Harvey Birdman's Ace Attorney Game? I'll Take the Case!

… You know, it’s been a while since Bores has done anything worth covering. Last video he made was a contest, and he says his next video will be an HD revision of History of Video Games Part 2 (which I’ve already covered when the original came out in 2009). I should dust off another old video and do a redux recap.

Last time I did his E.T. video. So… movie review, movie review, ah here we go. Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law. I barely remember anything about this review. Let’s roll.

Intro: Man, I forgot about this intro. Wonder why Bores abandoned it for the shorter one that just shows his logo. Maybe he was too lazy to keep adding games to it?

0:18 - 0:35: We open on IG holding the game and giving a look that I think was supposed to be excitement, but comes off as incredibly dopey. Mouth hanging open like it‘s waiting for flies.
He mentions that Harvey Birdman is one of his favorite Adult Swim shows, and that’s because of the dry humor. He then claims that his show is mostly composed of dry humor. … I don’t think you know what dry humor is Chris, because it’s certainly not you! Your show is more nonsensical and surreal, and not in a good way. You rely on cutaways or references, that’s not dry humor.

And to show an example of this, he’s watching his Q*Bert review on TV and shows the “What do think this is, an Escher painting” joke. See, that’s more observational humor, not dry humor.
IG laughs at his own joke, then claims he doesn’t get it. I get it, but if he wants the answer, he’ll have to pay me for it.

0:35 - 0:59: IG brings up it’s based on the cartoon and that it’s set up the same way. But then retracts that and says it’s more like “Law & Order on acid”. I was thinking the Ace Attorney series but I doubt you know what that is.
He then explains the gameplay, which is very much like Ace Attorney. You go through dialogue/animated cutscenes until you’re prompted to enter a command. While the game was developed by High Voltage Software (people behind The Conduit), it was published by Capcom America. So excuse my many Ace Attorney comparisons.

1:00 - 1:28: He brings up that he wondered how they would get all these characters into the game, but realizes Hanna-Barbara owns the licenses to them. Well, it’s more Williams Street than Hanna-Barbara. Plus, considering the game has the more obscure characters like Secret Squirrel and Inch-High Private Eye, it’s likely they got the cheaper ones. Certainly wouldn’t see the Dabba Don in this game.

IG then begins listing off the characters that appear in the game.
“Harvey, Peanut, X, Vulturo, Reducto” Stop! That’s not Reducto, that’s Freezoid. This is Reducto (http://images.wikia.com/harveybirdman/images/1/13/Birdman-reducto.gif) and this is Freezoid (http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20081205163858/harveybirdman/images/0/05/Freezoid.JPG)
They don’t even look similar. For someone that claims to be a fan of the show, this is a rather massive mistake to make. Especially when Reducto has appeared in more episodes (from what I remember).
“The goofy hippo thing” That’s Peter Potamus.
“The slut” That’s Gigi. Come on, take the time to learn the character’s names if you claim to be such a fan. I know the show was finished by the time he made the review, but that’s not an excuse.

He also points out that the snowman from Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer shows up, then realizes it’s not him. Okay, then who is it? I don’t know, he just leaves this joke hanging and never follows up on it for the rest of the review.
Also, note that he says “Rudolf the Red-Noised Reindeer show”, like it’s an actual series and not a handful of TV specials. That would be like calling The Day After or Duel “TV shows”.

1:29 - 1:49: He explains a little bit more of the game, going on about how you have to solve the case.
It cuts back to him and he deduces it was… Professor Plum with the wrench in the game room. That’s the wrong game dumbass! This isn’t Clue, it’s nothing like Clue.
Oh wait, seems there‘s a reason he made that comment. Bores appears dressed as Professor Plum, lets out a cliché “curses, foiled again” and runs off. Christopher Lloyd you are not.
Also, there isn’t even a game room in Clue.  The closest is the billiard room.

1:49 - 2:24: More explanation. Going on about how there’s strategy involved (REALLY?) and you only have 5 chances. Then he makes another ultra-obvious comment about the game getting harder in later cases, and to pay attention to details.
He then shows a scene of Harvey unzipping his fly and Inch-High Private Eye popping out. Leading Bores to widen his eyes in… something. Shock? Surprise? Exhaustion?

2:25 - End: IG says the downside is that it gets boring, as outside the courtroom you go around collecting evidence and talking to people. He claims it gets boring after 20 minutes. Yeah he wouldn’t last 5 minutes in Ace Attorney.
He says it’s for fans of the show and the video ends.

I’m starting remember why I forgot about this review, it’s just 3 minutes of nothing. The review part is really dull, even though it has quite a few errors. The only stand-out part was that lame Professor Plum bit, and that didn’t make a lick of sense. Also, it showed us that Bores has no idea what dry humor is.

I apologize for the weak redux, but it was a weak video. Next one should be a lot better *checks* Oh yeah, it will be a lot better.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

"In-Depth" Skylanders Giants, Except He Confused "In-Depth" with "Padding"

Man oh man, Bores has been hyping the fuck out of this game. Five videos previewing it with Bores gushing over how great it is. Halo 4? Assassin’s Creed III? Dishonored? Wii U? FUCK THAT! Real gamers overhype Skylanders Giants!
Yeah, his Skylanders obsession has gotten annoying. I didn’t even bother to cover the many videos he made as I found them pointless. But you know why he made them? They got him views. At the time of this post, his first preview video has over 392k views. His Silver Surfer review only has 122k. None of his E3 2012 videos managed to break 100k, except for the Skylanders Giants one, managing to get 243k. His video about the full roster is his most viewed video of the year with over 400k views.

And so his review of the full game is here. Clocking in at 6:18, it’s his second longest Neo review to date, and his longest Neo review of a single game. The 3-in-1 was 6:21. To let us know it’s “serious”, he even titles the review with “in-depth”. Yeah, I don’t know how much “in-depth” you can get out of “Gauntlet for kids”.
Also, the video was posted on YouTube instead of GotGame. Since Skylanders = Views, and Views = Money and… yeah you get it.

0:01 - 0:15: Instead of starting off with the Neo intro, we get IG with a desk full of Skylanders saying he knows people have been waiting for this review, and then the Neo intro.

0:16 - 1:59: IG goes over various improvements from the first game and… he’s actually doing a competent job. Why can’t he do this for every other game? What makes Skylanders so special?
Even though most of it is gushing over the graphics, yes it’s still an Irate Gamer video.
He brings up how the Skylanders speak English now, but is annoyed that a couple of characters no longer speak in gibberish. *looks around* Nope, I see not one fuck given about that.
He brings up the graphics again, then says it looks “too good” and misses the “grittiness” of the original. That wasn’t a style choice, that was probably a limitation. Since the first game was a hit, they were given a lot more to work with, and a lot more polish.

2:00 - 3:48: He moves to the figures because they’re a “major part of this franchise”. Well no shit, considering that the game only works if you have the figures!
Most of this is complaining about the Giants, how they’re too slow and hopes they don’t use this “gimmick” again. Stop calling everything a gimmick! I don’t think you know what that word means, along with “well-deserved”.
He mentions he rarely plays with them. So why complain?
Oh, because he gets into how he stores his figures. WHO THE FUCK CARES? Oh, apparently the fans do because he brings up that they asked how he stores them. Nobody was asking that, quit lying. Then he shows how he stores by element. In-depth my ass, this has turned to padding at this point! His problem with the Giants is they don’t fit in his box. *sighs* Does this go anywhere?
He says the new smaller Skylanders are good and my apathy continues to grow.

3:49 - 4:22: He gets into the various characters, noting the NPCs from the first game returned and that George Takei has a role, prompting an “Oh My”. Uggh, don’t do that again Bores. You don’t have the voice for Takei.
He mentions a couple other celebrity voice actors, both very C-List.

4:23 - 5:18: He moves to the accessories. They work.
The unlockable stages also work, but only received graphical upgrades
The old figures work and… this is getting tedious.
The Skylanders sidekicks work, but he complains about this icon in the bottom of the screen they have. That looks like such a non-issue that… Bores is just reaching at this point.
He complains there’s no cut scenes with the Skylanders interacting with each other. Well that makes sense since the game is reliant on you buying the figures. Just wait for the possible animated series that will probably happen. I don’t know, I really don’t care.

He moves to the final verdict. Finally!
Blah blah if you like Skylanders you’ll love this…
He brings up he has fun playing this with younger kids. Where the fuck are you playing this with younger kids? That’s just… creepy. Especially since you don’t have children!
He complains about scalpers, disagrees with fans about there being “too many characters”. Well, those fans were probably referring to the Series 2 figures, the repurposed characters from the first game.
He tells Activision to keep the character count “low” for the third game (HAHAHA No, there’s gold in them children’s pockets so why do that?)
He says his stupid catchphrase, then recycles that sketch from the first Skylanders video where he appears in the game. Lazy.

So that was… ehhhhh. There’s a lot of other things he could have mentioned like the ability to go through both upgrade paths, or how there’s a super move, or how the level cap has been raised or how his complaint about difficulty in the first game has been remedied with selectable difficulty levels (reading all this from articles I found). That way it would have really been in-depth. A lot of this felt like padding, especially the part about storing his figures. However, the biggest problem isn’t so easily seen. Why doesn’t have this attention to other games? People would give him less shit if this is how he reviewed games, not “play for an hour and consider that good enough”. Not “steal footage from other YouTube users and try to pass it off as my own”. Not “rush out a 2 minute review to make the release date of a new game”. What makes Skylanders so special? Is it the fact that it’s easy? I don’t understand!

*sighs* Whatever, I’m done.

Friday, November 9, 2012

He Did It Again! Bores Strokes His Ego Over Making "300" Videos

It's been a while since we've seen Bores congratulate himself over doing so very little. So we were due for some ego stroking, and what better than for Bores to celebrate 300 overall videos. No, this isn't 300 episodes of a specific series, this is celebrating putting 300 videos up on YouTube.
*sighs* Chris, you shouldn't celebrate the quantity of videos. You should celebrate the quantity of actual episodes you made. In fact, let me count the actual episodes. Two-parters released the same day count as one, two-parters released separately count as two.
*counts* Wow, 32 Irate Gamer episodes. That's not counting his "mini-sodes" like Top 5 NES games or Retro Mini, or the History of Video Games series. After five plus years you still haven't made it 50 episodes.
You know what these are other videos are? Lazy Neo reviews, contests, unboxing Skylanders, and a shit-ton of E3. A good number of the last 100 videos involve you turning on the camera and talking to it for a minute. That's not getting into videos you deleted or never uploaded to YouTube (like the Sonic Generations review that will serve as an eternal testament to your laziness).

So what's in the 300th video?
He starts by thanking his fans (what's left of them) and going over how he started. He claims he started out a parody of other video game reviewers. Bullshit! If it was a parody, you wouldn't claim you put your blood, sweat and tears into an angel/devil effect in one episode. It's the same excuse Game Dude used when people called him out for making bad videos or stealing material. Look up "parody retcon".

He moves on to mentioning the sale he's having on his merch to celebrate his 5th anniversary. Kind of strange that took him months after the actual anniversary to do this. Also, his site mentions that "once the item is gone, it's gone". I don't think this is so much a celebration sale as it is a "everything must go" sale.

The rest of the video sounds like a giant update. Oh this ought to be good. Take us there pointless transition effect!
He mentions that his fans know about his "rotation". What rotation? You've never given a clear "rotation" of how you work!
He says the next video will be an HD revision of the second episode on the Magnavox Odyssey. Since I'm sure people were clamoring for that stupidity to get re-released. For those that don't remember, he re-released Part 1 in HD a while ago. The only differences were less awkward timing on a couple scenes, a change of wardrobe, and the removal of cursing. Apparently it needs to be "family fucking friendly"
Oh but he claims there will be new material. Don't care, not going to cover it when he releases it, already suffered through it back in 2009.
After that, he mentions Part 6 and he's getting closer to his favorites like Galaga and Dig Dug. Oh yeah, I'm sure they're your actual favorites and you're not just saying that to make yourself come off as a hardcore gamer. *rolls eyes*

Next is I Poorly Explain the 80s. He says he has 4-5 episodes planned, including a two-parter *readies beer* and... a DVD. *headdesk* Bad idea, very very bad idea. Especially if he doesn't alter the footage on the He-Man or Kinnikuman videos. Mattel and Toei would end his ass. Really, I imagine the only people that would buy that are the dumb kids that try to make me look bad. Say, what happened to Charlie? Did his parents finally take away his internet privileges?

Onto the regular Irate Gamer show. He says that storyline he's doing only has 1 or 2 episodes left. THANK FUCKING GOD! Holy shit that storyline has been absolute pain on every level. After he finishes he'll move back to regular episodes. So we'll have more stupidity like the Aladdin review? We shall see.

He moves onto the Paranormal stuff and that's where I skip ahead. He shows a random clip from his X-Men review and the video ends.

Once again, it's not about the quantity of overall videos. It's about the quantity and quality of the actual episodes you put forward. You can't count all these stupid contest videos and be proud of them. You especially can't be proud of the lazy Neo reviews where you only play for an hour and claim that's good enough.
Pffft, early videos were parodies. At least one thing is constant, he still continues to lie to his audience.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

TMNT Comics, Now With 60% Recycled Material

Wow, November already? I’ll be right back.
……………………
Phew, I‘m okay now. Hm, IG has a new video up. An actual video, not another damn Skylanders unboxing where he gushes over how awesome they are. It’s a new I Rate the 80s, this time covering TMNT Comics. Wait, didn’t he already do this?
Back in 2008, he did a short video about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures, a series published by Archie Comics. It was immensely boring, and according to YouTube user “morbidchid” was full of inaccurate information (see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KekCA0DwLCU)

Of course, it could be one of the other TMNT comics from that time period. I shall see.

0:06 - 0:52: We get our intro with the cluttered desk, then IG holds out a trade paperback of the Mirage Comics TMNT. Okay, so he’ll be looking at the original. I sense much suckage emanating from this.
We cut to the not-80s stock footage, then we see… ooooh not again. Bores dressed as TMNT creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. You’re not America’s Most Wanted, you don’t have to reenact “history”.
He explains how they were doing humorous drawings and eventually lead into the TMNT, knowing they were onto something great. Not exactly, they published the first TMNT comic as a PARODY of different comic books of the time. Specifically, Frank Miller’s Ronin and run on Daredevil, Dave Sims’ Cerebus and the New Mutants. They didn’t exactly have any “big plans”.

He goes over how the initial printing had only 3,000 copies, then it cuts to him in a green-screen warehouse going over how the printing numbers got bigger and bigger. As he mentions each number, he picks up a bigger box. On the 50,000 box, the Hamburgler appears out of nowhere and steals it.
*sighs* Chris, do you know why you’re not getting job offers, why you’re not getting people coming to you to distribute your stupid ghost hunting movie? Because you claim this is a “documentary” and then they see stupid shit like the Hamburgler out of nowhere. They won’t take you seriously.
Also, why the Hamburgler? The Turtles didn’t eat McDonalds, they ate pizza. Your reference fails!

0:53 - 1:07: IG says the TMNT were a hit, then we get a sketch of Kid Bores walking up to a news stand (also run by Bores in a hat and fake mustache) asking where the Turtles comics are. The mustached Bores tells him they’re sold out but they have Jughead, only for Kid Bores to leave. Why does Kid Bores suddenly have a New York accent? By the way, kids were not the target audience for the original TMNT comics. They were ultra-violent and not really suitable for youngsters. It only became kid-friendly when Playmates approached Eastman & Laird about a toy deal.

1:08 - 1:26: He mentions they’re in black and white, the Turtles fighting evil, and then brings up Issue #5 and that it “gets weird” with the Turtles going into space. Then… a bizarre sketch with a ship (I presume taken from the comic) flying past… what the fuck are those things? Could an 80s expert tell me what those are? I can’t exactly go by looks to find them on search engines. Seriously, what is this joke/reference?

1:27 - 2:10: “Despite these setbacks…” What setbacks? They did something you found weird? This is a series about anthropomorphic Turtles that study ninjitsu under an anthropomorphic rat, it’s already weird as hell.
IG moves to the comic becoming a franchise (while making a lame turtle soup segue) and we get more Kid Bores (oh joy)… wetting himself over the toyline, cartoon, and video game. Charming.

He mentions how the Turtles bandana changed from all red to different colored ones for kids to tell each other apart, bringing up the NES cover using an image from the comic with their all red bandanas. Then we cut to Kid Bores complaining about it (psst, I don’t think most kids cared) then… complaining about the water level. I’m sorry, I think we’re in the wrong show now.
Oh and the footage shows Bores not even trying to avoid the electrical seaweed, just like last time. You’re supposed to stay in the center! After he dies, Kid Bores throws the controller and makes a face, and then Referee Mario from Punch-Out appears and says TKO. WHY IS THIS SUDDENLY ONE OF HIS VIDEO GAME REVIEWS? It feels just as nonsensical and baffling.

2:11 - 2:53: IG moves onto the Archie Comics TMNT Adventures. Which he already talked about back in 2008. Also, aren’t you forgetting Mirage Studios Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? An anthology book that served as a companion piece, telling smaller stories with other characters?
He starts talking about Adventures and… okay now this feels like he’s just recycling his original video. I swear he’s saying the exact same things. Considering Bores has clamed he’s forgotten games he’s reviewed in the past, I wouldn’t be surprised if he forgot about his first video.
“Who could forget the iconic issue 11?” Oh, was that the one where Shredder stabs April through the stomach and she crawled over to the Turtles lair where she dies in Leo’s arms? … I’m probably thinking of the wrong comic.
No it’s the cover they used for promotional ads. That’s… a really weird detail to know and care about. Also, I wouldn’t come close to considering that iconic. Amazing Fantasy #15 it is not.

2:54 - 3:38 He repeats more stuff he mentioned in his first video, and says it was great to be a Turtles fan in 1989, then shows footage from the second movie and says being a Turtles fan in the 90s was not as great. Strange you say that since the first TMNT movie came out in 1990, and the best Turtles game ever made (Turtles in Time) came out in 1991.
No, this segue was an excuse to show some of Vanilla Ice’s Ninja Rap so he can facepalm to it. Come on, it’s awesomely cheesy. Norselaw’s Viking Rap though, good lord that’s terrible (look it up).

IG says that by issue #25, the series went downhill as Shedder was missing (oh big whoop, how dare they use other villains), the stories were shorter, and Raphael had a love interest in an anthropomorphic fox (Ninjara is her name according to the TMNT Wiki) then IG wonders about the two of them doing it and says “eww”. I’ve been around the internet enough to guess that pictures of that exist.

3:39 - 4:16: IG claims that afterwards, the TMNT comics would never be the same, pushing a small pile of them off his table. Do I detect rose-tinted goggles? Also, the Mirage Comics continuity was still going. During the late 90s it was published by Image Comics, and went back to Mirage until the rights were sold to Viacom. Unless this was a 90s-style dork age, then I’m still calling “nostalgia fitler” on that comment.
He brings up the all new IDW Publishing series and starts gushing about it. I’m bored, can we end this?

IG moves onto the rating. I bet I know where this is head…
He brings up he wasn’t a fan of the Mirage Studios comics because it got too weird so he gives it Nostalgia Medicore. … Okay I didn’t expect that. Still, he has no god damn clue what he’s talking about. I get the feeling he didn’t get past the Triceraton and Fugitoid story arc because all mentions of the original Mirage series stop after that. Too bad since there’s some really good stories that follow. Basically, you’re a lazy idiot Bores.
However, he gives Adventures a Nostalgia Overload. Yeah, I gathered from the video you already made about it. You’re not a TV show, you can’t apply the fleeting demographic rule to your videos!

The videos ends with… oh for fuck’s sakes. Jughead appears and asks about his comic, IG calls it garbage, Jughead gets mad and calls Moose to beat him up. Wait, are we finally going to see IG get his ass kicked? Of course not, we just get IG saying “How do I get myself into these situations?” Because you write your show like a rejected Family Guy episode. I actually expected the “wa-wa-wa” horns to go off after he said that line.

Yeah, this was terrible. Barely talking about the original comics, recycling material from his first TMNT comics video, more annoying Kid Bores, and references that make little sense. Along with some of the usual research failure (seriously, TMNT being a parody of other comics is a fairly basic fact among fans, something that any self-respecting Turtle fan would bring up).
The question is, is this just as poorly-researched as Phelous’ Turtles Forever review? You make the call.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Fan Art The Third: This Time It's Rearranged

I have just been informed that Chris has updated the Irate Gamer Fan Art page. I don’t know when it happened as he hasn’t updated the site news since the release of the X-Men review.

I’d like to remind you I am not making fun of the fan art creators (unless it‘s Karbia and his fucked-up fan-fiction), I am making fun of Bores for CHOOSING to put these “masterpieces” on his site.

Part 1: http://irategamersucks.blogspot.com/2011/01/fan-art-or-how-i-stopped-caring-and.html
Part 2: http://irategamersucks.blogspot.com/2011/09/all-new-fan-art-and-more.html

Some things have been arranged so I’ll bring that up.

Page 1:

Picture #6: I think it’s supposed to be sprite art, but I’m not entirely sure. In the foreground is IG and Evil Gamer facing against each other, I can’t tell if EG is smiling or growling. In the background is Devil Bores and Lead HAL-Bot looking over the earth. Strange that Devil Bores is portrayed as the main villain when he’s been relegated to comic relief

Picture #8 is now that “Irate Gamer and Friends” MS Paint thing mentioned in Part 2 (Picture #44)

Page 3:

Picture #44 is now DatBoiDrew’s picture that was originally on the first fan art page (just more proof that Bores has burned that bridge with Drew). I’m sorry Drew, your hard work has been swapped with a shitty MS Paint picture that abused the circle tool.

Page 4:

Picture #48: A Yu-Gi-Oh card, I think it might be an old one that was removed in the last update. Labeled on top as “Chris Bores and R.O.B.”, and “Irate Gamer and Piece of Shit” in the body text. The card has infinite attack and defense points (*rolls eyes* stupid) and the move description is his “diarrhea dickwaffles” rant from the R.O.B. video. Not sure how that’s supposed to work.

Picture #49: Coming to us from Los3Puntos.com (that’s what it says on the picture), we have… deformity. A blonde Bores holding some boxy controller with a t-shirt that says “Irate” on it. His expressions looks like discomfort. Freaky.

Picture #50: I’m now going to ruin Mega Man for you, if Capcom hasn’t already done that. It’s the Robot Master selection screen with everyone replaced by IG characters. In the center is IG himself (of course) surrounded by (from the top left) Evil Gamer, Generic Overload, lead HAL-Bot, Tony (in his Maplestory form), Ronnie, Wise Sage, Devil Bores, and R.O.B. Suddenly Mega Man X7 seems like a good time.

Picture #51: We get a sketch with a familiar art style. It reminds me a bit of Peter Bagge’s work, but I could be wrong. Honestly, not too bad.

Picture #52: This on the other hand, total photoshop failure. It’s another image of the Irate Gamer as a zombie. Oh but he’s now the “Irate Zombeh”. Wow that’s lame.

Picture #53: Now I’m going to ruin Inspector Gadget for you, just like Inspector Hambone ruined it for Ghost. It’s IG as the bumbling robot detective, with the hand that comes out of his hat holding a copy of the SNES game (which is real, unlike Dr. Claw’s Dump n’ Pump… seriously what was up with that joke?) In the top left is the “Irate Gamer” logo with an upside down IG just like the show’s logo. Bottom left is the Gadget-mobile. Top right is Dr. Claw’s arm through a port hole (and no I’m not making fun of Bores’ pronunciation, that really does look like a port hole) and in the bottom left is… I think that’s Penny if she grew up and gained a lot of weight, and Brain if he was a real dog. They’re all in front of fire (because that’s not cliché at this point). Very bizarre picture.

Picture #54: A variation of the “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster, with the crown replaced by a very low-res picture of IG and the phrase saying “Keep Calm and Game On”. Congrats Bores, a fan was dumb enough to accept that as your catchphrase.

Picture #55: Wow, and I thought Karbia’s work made no sense. It’s a “photoshop” of the poster for the Dwayne Johnson film The Tooth Fairy. Only it’s now “The Irate” and Dwayne’s head has been replaced with a very bug-eyed derp-faced Bores. You couldn’t find a better picture? Also, how do you connect the Irate Gamer to… Dwayne Johnson’s The Tooth Fairy? If you wanted to make Bores like The Rock, why not photoshop one of his wrestling promo photos, or images from The Scorpion King, or The Rundown, Walking Tall, Faster, hell anything besides the paycheck earning kid crap!

Picture #56: Our last new one, surprisingly it’s NOT fan art of the Irate Gamer. Instead it’s the Pixel Demon. Someone out there actually liked the Pixel Demon enough to make fan art, let that sink in for a minute. However, this could be from a hater that found IG’s Pixel Demon incredibly dumb and made his own to show what a REAL demon looks like. Or this could be how IG sees the Pixel Demon in his head when the rest of the world sees that stupid frog thing that’s not even made out of pixels. Jeez, that was so bad. I can’t believe he expect people to take that as a threat.

Honestly, this batch of fan art wasn’t too horrid. It wasn’t like last time with 2600theCharlie’s dreadful Irate Gamer comic book or Johnny Awesome’s eye-pain, or that MS Paint picture that Bores thinks is better than what DatBoiDrew made.

You think Bores is going to make something new anytime soon? That’s of actual substance and isn’t another god damn Skylanders unboxing video? It will probably be Skylanders Giants (the game)… I hope I’m wrong.

Friday, October 12, 2012

The Irate Gamer Drinking Game

Through the five years the Irate Gamer has done videos, he tends to repeat a lot of things or have certain patterns. So much so that one can create a drinking game based on his videos. That’s what I’m going to do today.

You can choose to sip or take a shot. Due to the frequency of some parts, sips are recommended.
Don’t take a drink when he steals from somebody, that will just open up a can of worms.
EDIT: To avoid possible death, choose only 5-6 of these rules at a time. Don't attempt all of them.
EDIT 2: Non-alcoholic drinks are allowed as well. Extend it to 7-8 of these rules for non-alcoholic beverages.

Take a drink when…

- Game Genie or other cheat device is used (take another if he admits it)
- The Rule of Three is implemented
- His dialogue becomes redundant
- He points out the blatantly obvious
- He uses a green circle (sometimes in conjunction with the above)
- Something explodes
- He stares at the camera after a joke (thanks to DLAbaoqu for thinking this one up)
- He mispronounces or misspells something
- He brings up going to E3
- He’s incapable of understanding a console’s limitations
- He makes a comment about food (reviews related to food items don’t count)
- He fails at research
- He reins in his cursing (“BS”, “Gosh damn it”)
- He doesn’t beat a modern game (take another if he admits to it)
- He says “If you’re a fan of X, then you’ll like this one” or something similar to that.
- He plays bad or dies on purpose
- He complains about the difficulty
- One of his “original” recurring characters appears (Ronnie, Devil Bores, Wise Sage, Tony, Evil Gamer, and Cousin Joey)
- A non-original character enters his room (Megatron, Goro, Madballs, Skeletor, X-Men)
- Sprites from the game appear next to him or just appear in general
- He portrays more than three characters on screen
- Does an out of place joke that doesn’t make sense (Examples: Steve Urkel in Mission Impossible, The Wicker Man in Hell, Picasso showing up)
- Does a perverted sex joke
- Toilet humor occurs (and despite his mom’s objections, he uses toilet humor a lot)

Man that’s a lot. I once again recommend sipping for common occurrences, and please drink responsibly. You must be of legal drinking age in order to play. Be careful.

Before I go, I should mention he posted a new video. Another damn video on Skylanders, this time an unboxing of some of the new Series 2 Giants. It was boring and pointless, and his obsession with Skylanders is really getting annoying.

See you next time.

Friday, October 5, 2012

The Mutant Power of Creating Inhumanely Awful Sketches

Well what do you know, a second regular Irate Gamer episode for 2012. It’s only been about 4-5 months since the last one, I guess that’s somehow an improvement. At the rate he’s going, George R.R. Martin will have released the final two A Song of Ice and Fire books by the time he’s done.

So he’ll be reviewing X-Men. If it’s just the NES game, then at least he’s talking about an actual bad game. He also seems to be doing a theme of games based on Marvel Superheroes going by his last review of Silver Surfer. This would work if he did weekly or bi-weekly videos. But he doesn’t. He shouldn’t try themes at his output rate.
One thing Chris did before the review’s release was boast about how he was playing FIFTEEN characters. For the sake of this recap, I’m going to count each one.

The video is also over 10 minutes long. Brace yourselves, it’s going to be a long one.

0:00 - 0:30: Our video begins at Stock Footage University, I mean the Castle of Evil with the Evil Gamer reporting to Ultra-Generic Shadow Villain. It should be noted this his first appearance in nearly two years. What a great villain! Their “master plan” is ready and… cue theme. Wow, that was quick. No complaints here.

Characters: 2

0:35 - 0:54: We cut to IG’s house where we see sprites of a Koopa Troopa and the Albatross from Mario 2 . The point? Just another attempt to convince people he’s a gamer, that and DISTRACTING EFFECTS WOOO.
As a continuation from last time, he takes his copy of Silver Surfer, and throws it so hard that it defies physics and makes it outside to hit Not-Wilson. Hmm, hitting Not-Wilson with a game, is this his attempt at an on-going running gag? Because it’s not really that funny.

Characters: 4 (yes I’m including IG as a character)

He notes that since he’s on a comics kick, he decides to check out X-Men on the NES. Like I said above, that idea only works when you make videos on a much more consistent basis. Not when you take months at a time to make just one.

0:55 - 2:11: “Along with being one of my favorite comic books, X-Men finally comes to life on the NES” Finally? This game is 23 years old! How is it “finally” on a… never mind.
He notes that there are five stages (technically four as one is obviously a tutorial level, it’s even called “Practice”) and decides to do one of the main ones. He points that you can play as one of six X-Men. Leading to… oh God.
We then cut to a roll-call with Bores playing each member as they were portrayed in the movies (black leather costumes). Using green screen effects to color his skin for Nightcrawler, Colossus (looking nothing like him) and Iceman. Shockingly, he also dresses as Storm. I say that since I had a realization that he’s never played a female character, like in that panicked city scene in RoboCop or the Colorforms video where he only dressed as Harry Kislevitz but not Patricia. Granted, all he does with Storm is put on a white wig. There’s also some crickets chirping for some reason and “she” says “to hell with you all”. I don’t get it, is that supposed to show people’s stunned silence or disappointment? Or does Bores just think Storm is a lame character? Well, I remember he called Storm a bad character in his review of MvC3, only showing how much of a non-fan he was of that game. Maybe there’s something else involved.
By the way, that’s a really lame Colossus impression. THIS is how you do a Colossus yell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPLpovcDujw

Characters: 10

He notes how each X-Men has a special skill, then he gets to Wolverine and notes how his is a weak punch that kills him easily. He calls him a pushover, causing Bores-verine to appear and say “I resemble that remark”. IG then, no joke, swats him away past the other four male X-Men. As in flying across the room. It’s also a really poor effect since both characters are played by Bores. Swatting Wolverine across the room, that just screams “Mary Sue” at the top of a mountain.
As for the other four X-Men, good lord this looks stupid. Seeing Bores in identical leather costumes with very little difference between them. All that’s different is the skin tone and the glasses on Cyclops!

IG then asks the others if they have any problems, and they all do that awkward collar pull that’s often done on The Simpsons. Reducing the X-Men to cowards, another check for the Mary Sue list.

2:12 - 3:17: Continuing his complaint on Wolverine, he calls it blasphemous that they reduce the most popular X-Man to this. Then he brings up that Colossus is the exact same thing, and also looks less like Colossus and more like Captain Planet. This causes Pitor Bores-putin to walk away in sadness. This is really lame.
He brings up that Nightcrawler is also a puncher but he can’t teleport, but then sees him walking through walls. IG screams, then notes that’s not Nightcrawler’s power, that’s Kitty Pryde’s power. Causing Bores-crawler to face palm.
“That’s like taking a shit in your brownie mix” TOILET HUMOR! He still does it!
“Did they even read the source material here?” Considering it’s LJN, one of the absolute worst followers of source material, that’s a very likely no.
He then asks “What’s next? Making Storm a white chick?” and we see the very white and male Ororo Bores-roe reading from smutty Twilight fanficition, I mean Fifty Shades of Grey (because referencing that book isn’t old) and “she” yells “Just leave me alone!” Is it me, or does Chris’ portrayal of Storm only have one emotion? Bitchy anger. It’s coming off as kind of sexist.
EDIT: Fixed Storm's name, thanks starofjustice.

3:18 - 3:58: “Where the hell is the quality control in this shit” Look, I know referencing LJN is the thing that other guy does, but other reviewers have done it too. Most retro gamers know LJN is synonymous with crap, and the leading cause of “licensed games = bad”
But forget that, it’s skit  time!
IG is getting worked up and wants something to drink. He orders Bores-crawler to get him one, and using the powers of jump-cuts and After Effects, teleports out to get him water. IG yells at him for forgetting the ice and somehow throws his NES controller at him. Despite still being connected to his console, and it somehow loses the cord, as well as gain a weird white boarder around it. It’s like physics are non-existent in his little world.
He orders Ice-Bores to give him ice, so Ice-Bores… drops trou and literally shits out an ice cube into his cup. That was disgusting! How can his fans sit there and claim he doesn’t resort to toilet humor? This is the type of gross-out joke the AVGN would do!
Oh, and IG takes a drink from his cup and finds it “refreshing”. Again, how does he not resort to toilet humor? Please, tell me. The evidence is pretty strong in my case.
*sighs* Moving on.

3:59 - 4:59: He continues with the game and notes the objective is finding keys (complete with green circle). He shows a part where gets killed by a door.
“You can get killed by a door?” Yeah, it can crush you. Familiar with that concept?
Then a wooden door flies in and hits him. Okay, I’ll admit I didn’t expect that. Wasn’t funny but in the right direction.
He goes into how the game forces a second computer-controlled player in, and notes how the A.I. is really bad. Honestly, the review portion isn’t horrid. Granted, it’s nothing new but there’s not much to say about this game that hasn’t already been said so… yeah.
IG dies again and again due to the random respawns and poor computer A.I., causing him to facepalm. Okay, enough with the facepalms, it’s getting really redundant.

5:00 - 6:51: After his multiple deaths, Bores-clops walks in and offers the Game Genie. Do you HAVE to cheat in every single game? Just once, beat a game legitimately! I know X-Men on NES sucks hard, but the point is to persevere through the bad controls and garbage graphics just to see that shitty ending.
Anyway, IG summons the Game Genie, once again played by him (just keep rubbing that salt in, I still prefer Brad Harp, he’ll always be the best Genie. Despite his shoddy acting).

Characters: 11

IG commands him to “do his thing” and so he… gives IG a beard. Wha? What sense does that make?
“Whoops, wrong code” What the hell kind of code is that? Oh right, I forgot that in his stupid world, the Game Genie alters reality as well as games. Then why call him a Game Genie? That’s just a regular one. Plus, if he had that power he could do more than the actual Game Genie cheats.
Also, didn’t the Genie have some evil revenge plan? No, I’m not letting that go.

IG cheats his way to finding the keys and faces a stage boss, this one resembling a combination of Quick Man from Mega Man 2 and Captain Boomerang from the DC Universe (this is my comparison, not his. He’s not that clever). He complains that this isn’t an X-Men villain, and wonders if there’s a real one like Mr. Sinister, but then remembers he’s in the Silver Surfer game. Oh hey, referencing a previously reviewed game. Progress!
EDIT: Turns out the Boomerang boss is exactly that, a villain called Boomeraing. He's an obscure Spider-Man villain, and according to the manual it is him. I'd question why this game would include him, but LJN. Thanks to starofjustice for pointing this out.

He beats the boss, and explains how he has to leave the stage before time runs out. He does the same scream he did earlier because… he can’t comprehend the concept of a Load-Bearing Boss. Have you ever played a fucking Metroid game? That’s how Metroid Prime begins, that’s how most (if not all) Metroid games end!
Look, I do think it’s counter-productive to make players walk back the entire stage after beating the boss, but you sound like you’re not familiar with this common video game trope.

IG goes over how the rest of the stages are the exact same thing (I can see actual X-Men villains like Juggernaut and Sabretooth), except for level 2 since it doesn’t have keys. Then he does a weird face and thumbs up, and the Trollface appears over him. I’d say he killed Trollface, but rage comics did that a looooong time ago.
Wait, was that weird face his attempt at Trollface?

6:52 - 8:29: He reaches the final boss, Emma Frost (before her Face-turn) but notices she has shape-shifting powers. IG freaks out because that’s Mystique’s power. Look, by this point you shouldn’t expect consistency. No reason to frea-
Of course, IG does another scream (because Rule of Three), and continues to rant on the inconsistencies, then notes one of the enemies looks like Gleep from the Herculoids. … No they don’t, they nothing like Gleep. He even provides a picture for comparison but I don’t see it.
“That’s right, I went old school for that joke” Good for you, have a cookie. I totally didn’t bake it with thumbtacks.

He reaches the ending, which as you might guess is all text. However, the game is not over as Bores-clops tells him there’s a secret 5th level that can be accessed by a button input code. IG does so, sees the level, growls at Bores-clops, and *sighs* activates the Power of Inferno. Might as well call it the Power of Marty Stu. The, ugh, Inferno turns his shirt red and starts creating power things in his hands. Then Goro shows up out of nowhere, and leaves when he sees what’s going on. That seemed like a reminder that character still exists. Do I add him the tally? Nah, he’s just a sprite.
IG fires the things on his hands at Summers, and reverts back to normal. Defeating Cyclops with ease… actually Cyclops can be a jobber so I’m not counting that as a Mary Sue moment.
Before he continues the game, IG notices his cup is empty and asks Ice-Bores for a refill. He unzips his pants and pisses into the cup. … Do I even have to say it?

8:30 - 9:33: IG wonders why a game would only allow their last level through a secret code (Oh hey, an actual legit point) and wonders where one would find it (read below) and lists off possibilities like the manual, his ass (shot for the ladies I presume) and between the couch cushions. Between the cushions he finds his Orko action figure and yells at, ugh, Little Cousin Joey. He briefly appears coloring in an old Nintendo Power magazine.

Characters: 12

By the way, the code to the final level is on the front of the cartridge. Granted, that’s a pretty terrible place to put it, but the developers at least put it somewhere. I found this info on MobyGames, a good place to do research.

After complaining some more, Ice-Bores shows up says it could be a cool Easter Egg (it’s not). I’m not sure if that was a pun or not. Either way, IG doesn’t approve and punches him so hard that he shatters. Wow, if the Irate Gamer was in the Marvel Universe, he’d be a cheaper character than Red Hulk. He’d also be the most hated character of all time.

He explains the level, reaches Magneto, brings up that he doesn’t care anymore, beats the game, and notes that it’s just another text based ending (what else were you expecting?)

The video ends with IG violently taking the game out his NES (seriously, look at how rough he is) and throwing it at Not-Wilson’s head again, who is just recovering from the last physics-defying cartridge.
Cutting back to the Castle of Evil we see the HAL-Bots working on something, as it zooms up we see Evil Gamer and the lead HAL-Bot and we notice in the background is a giant HAL-Bot. Wait, this seriously can’t be the “master plan” can it? The giant HAL-Bot turns on and like the others says “Hello Dave”. Evil Gamer poorly hams it up and the video ends.

I’m counting the different HAL-Bots as three characters so… Characters: 15. Huh, what do you know.

That’s the master plan? Another robot? Oh, but it’s one giant robot instead of an army of human sized robots. I sense one of two things. IG will grow giant and beat it, or ROB will grow giant and beat it. Either way, it will be anti-climactic and THIS IS LAME!

This video was stupid.
To be fair, the review portion wasn’t horrid. Granted, there wasn’t much to say about this game that hasn’t already been said, but it says a lot when the only thing that really annoyed me was the use of Game Genie.
The sketches and story bits on the other hand hurt. All that X-Men stuff was an absolute mindfuck to sit through, I still hate that Bores plays the Genie now, and where the hell is the Wise Sage? It’s been over a year since he last appeared. Despite only two appearances, his portrayal of Storm kind of came off as sexist.
Once again, the story goes nowhere. All the sketches did was establish the Irate Gamer as a bigger Sue than the Sentry and Red Hulk combined. And where’s the Pixel Demon? Unless… unless he’s trying to establish a rogues gallery of sorts. If that’s the case, RUN! EVERYBODY GET OUT OF HERE! *flees*

*comes back* But that’s just a guess. I really don’t know where he’s going. He’d probably establish this easier if he was more consistent with his output and didn’t leave his “haters” guessing what sort of stupid shit he’d do next MONTHS at a time.
That’s all for now. I do wonder what brand of idiocy we’ll see from Bores for Halloween this year.

EDIT: Here's something interesting one of my informants located.
Now, Bores has never been one to talk to or be friendly with other reviewers. Guru Larry was a rare case where he'd willingly talk to him. However, when Larry decided to confront Bores about Johnny Awesome winning a second contest, this is what happened.



Classy. Bringing up a job Larry was fired from.
For the record, Larry never worked for GotGame. No idea where Bores got that idea.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

The Irate Gamer's Contests Are Still Rigged

*sighs* You know, this post was going to be reserved for the Irate Gamer drinking game. But I'm going to have to postpone that because Bores pulled another insanely stupid stunt with his contests.

The way to enter in one of his many contests is to subscribe to his channel and write "PICK ME" in the comments section. Considering how adamant he is about people being subscribed, it's quite obvious what his true intent is. Still, it seems like every fan gets a fair chance right? WROOOONG!

Last year, IG gave away some Star Trek posters. One of the winners was a kid calling himself Johnny Awesome (because Rotten was taken), he even made a video showing off his "amazing" posters. Does he care they're Star Trek? I don't know, but I do know he only cares that they came from Chris Bores.

Johnny came to my attention when he started posting here about meeting Bores himself. I brushed him off since I didn't care. Earlier this year, Bores went down to Florida to shoot footage for the Haunted Investigators relaunch and, likely forced by his mother, went to visit Johnny. Johnny filmed the meeting while advertising it as the most epic thing ever, even though it was just the two of them standing around awkwardly talking. To be fair, he's a dumb kid and probably thought that was epic. I wonder if his parents know what kind of show the Irate Gamer is, and that it's not exactly suitable for his age.

Last week, Bores did another contest. Giving away one of his t-shirts and mouse pads (flying off the shelves!). Yesterday he announced the winners, one of them happened to be Johnny Awesome... again.

That's right IG fans, you don't get a fair chance after all, and you know why? His mom. LadyBuggin777. She's openly admitted that she picks the winners, and since I've seen some of his other notable fanboys (I won't say names, but you can figure out who they are) win as well, this told me the contests were rigged. The fact that Johnny won again only convinces me further. Considering LadyBuggin was the one that arranged the above mentioned meeting, and going by posts on her channel, she seems to stay in contact with Johnny.

Sounds like there's hidden criteria to the contests after all. Not only do you have be subscribed and write "PICK ME", but you must be 100% loyal to the Irate Gamer (all other reviewers are scum in your eyes) and you must be nice to his mommy. Considering how many actual fans LadyBuggin has pushed away and/or blocked, that's not an easy feat.

Now I know there's going to be some people saying "LadyBuggin isn't real, it's just Chris pretending to be her, pulling a Norman Bates". I used to believe that too. But Eric "Wise Sage" Allen has told me that LadyBuggin is real, and actually has control of IG's account. What reason does he have to lie? Hell, Eric has been openly critical of Chris' work, so he's not 100% "loyal".
Plus, there's a difference in how the two of them type. Chris is reserved and quiet, while LadyBuggin is loud and angry.

This post is calling out both Chris and his mother for pulling this sham on so many fans. This is absolutely deplorable and not how contests should be done. Winners win once, that's a rule you should stick with. Johnny won his posters, he shouldn't be allowed other prizes.
I doubt this will accomplish anything, but it will get the message out that the Irate Gamer's contests are not all they seem. Spread this around.