The Top 11 Worst Moments of 2020

 It goes without saying but this year suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked! Let’s put it all behind us and look ahead. But first, a look back at the worst Irate Gamer moments of 2020.

Since Chris decided now would be the best time to come back to Irate Gamer with somewhat regular content, I can actually do one of these. I know some of you are quite happy about that.

Without further delay, here is the list.

11. The Abandonment of GeekTime

Starting the list with something that isn’t really that bad but is mostly indictive of Chris’ inability to stick with a project. Last year, Chris had shown great interest in podcasts, and even wanted to start one. So he did, with his friend Tim Walker. Taking the title from a segment on Howard Stern (that’s likely where it’s from), the two started GeekTime: The Next Generation. Where they would talk about all things “geeky” like movies, comics, toys, and sometimes games.
However, there were problems. Turns out neither of them had much in the way of charisma and were not remarkably interesting to listen to. They also over-relied on soundbites like a radio DJ, which got irritating fast.
Chris really believed this would be his next hit, pushing it hard on YouTube with short segments that did not win over viewers. A particularly bad one was a segment about how the Joker movie sucked, but it was based on the trailer. They also didn’t like overly long theme song that played in the very first sample provided. Can’t imagine how they’d react to his baffling Smash Bros. views (ME WANT BURGERTIME IN SMASH)

And so, after six episodes, GeekTime silently came to an end. No official word, nothing from Chris or Tim saying “it’s over”, just a quiet cancellation. GeekTime content was removed from his channel, apart from the sixth and final episode. Though he still links the Podbean page with all six episodes still there.
Maybe if Chris kept at it, he could develop some charisma and provide thoughts and ideas that didn’t make him come off like a total boomer. Too bad that won’t happen now.

10. Simpsons Clips are not a Substitute for Content

IG celebrated Halloween this year with something a little different. A Simpsons game, specifically the one based on the Treehouse of Horror episodes. It’s a mediocre game but it should have had plenty to talk about, right? Well, Chris decided to fill half his video with Simpsons clips. Many with little set-up or point. What little content he did have was… lame as hell. Like saying “fuck” and having it appear in text. Because that’s a joke somehow…
It does make me wonder how he’s making money from these. Along with the copyrighted material, he curses a lot. Only one video had a genuine sponsorship, the others seemed fake (no link in the description or anything). He still won’t open a Patreon either. It is a mystery.

9. Stale Turtle Soup

A strange theme with the Irate Gamer relaunch is recycling old material. The first example of this was talking about old TMNT games again.
In a video he bragged about getting to 20 minutes in length (which he had to really pad out), Bores either repeats many of his old points, or outright lies and contradicts his old points. Like his anger towards the “two new levels” of the NES port suddenly became total glee and excitement and “the reason” he bought the NES version. The only positive I can say is that he finally figured out that Turtles in Time was originally an Arcade game, though he never acknowledges that he made a mistake. I wonder if the Arcade 1Up machine is how he found out…

8. No Amount of People Can Help

For the longest time, I have pushed for Chris to get people to help with his videos. Someone to veto bad ideas or add new ones or do something different. This year, he finally did that. It became clear to me that a video production is like a car. You can replace various parts and keep things running, but if the engine is bad then the whole thing falls apart. Chris is the engine. No matter how many people he gets to help, if his direction is still nonsense, then the videos will be crap. As shown with his video on Punisher games. He got someone to help him, but it suffered from a lot of the same problems as his other videos. Bad jokes, barely any “reviewing”, needless movie clips, all that changed is he got someone to do the heavy lifting. I can only hope all these people are getting paid, otherwise Chris will have a scandal that will destroy him.

7. The Ghosts n’ Goblins Series is Supposed to be Hard

Before the Simpsons video above, Bores did another Halloween episode. Following up his Ghosts n’ Goblins review from 13 years ago, he decides to look at the sequel, Ghouls n’ Ghosts, on Sega Genesis. What we get is a painfully stupid slog where he cries over and over again about how hard the game is, missing the point entirely. He mostly praises the graphics and some of the changes made (the golden armor being one) while complaining “Why this no in first gamme?!” The whole video reeked of someone that only just found out the week before that the game existed and doesn’t understand how sequels work.
Also, he had a bootleg copy. No idea why, the game isn’t that expensive.
Think he’ll talk about the new game that just got announced for Switch?

6. Lazy Cameos

When Bores announced his big comeback with Ghostbusters, he teased that there would be an appearance from actor Ernie Hudson. When the video came, he made sure we knew Hudson was in it with the title and thumbnail. When he showed up… it was a lazy cell phone video that felt really out of place.
Then people did a little digging and found out the truth. Chris went to cameo.com and paid $75 for Hudson to record a stock message (as it included Hudson mentioning his other roles like Oz and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle). Chris just lazily pasted the message into different points of his video. Interesting enough, Hudson raised his rate to $135. I doubt it’s related to this though.

This would be the start of a trend as Chris would continue to include lazily done paid cameos from 80’s “icons” in his videos. Including Rob Paulsen in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Peter Weller in RoboCop. While Paulsen’s cameo had a little more effort in it with him saying some lines as Raphael, Weller’s cameo was clearly done just to get it done. He filmed it while taking a walk, and barely bothered to learn Chris’ name (calling him Chris Irate… though knowing Bores he probably wanted to be called that).
Bores acted like these cameos were huge deals that his fans would love, when most people saw through the lame use of an online service. Can’t imagine he made enough money on those videos to justify the cost. Although, there is one cameo that deserves special mention. Leading us into…
 
5. The Angry Video Game Nerd *ahem* “Crossover”

2020 is the year of “what the actual fuck”. With everyone stuck at home, we bared witness to all sorts incessant insanity. What happened here… was not one of them.
Shortly after his big comeback video, IG put out a teaser for a crossover nobody saw coming. One 13 years in the making. A crossover with the Angry Video Game Nerd. The internet, known for reacting like animals over the smallest of news, went…. “meh”
For those somehow unaware, there are two reasons Bores became notable. YouTube featuring his videos, and people pointing out what a shameless Angry Video Game Nerd rip-off he is. The latter basically made him a joke (even though it was the least of his problems) and despite numerous accusations, Chris purposely avoided talking about it. Over time he would make brief mentions of the AVGN, like in his 200th video (that was deleted), the “E-begging Spoof” (that he still hasn’t deleted) and the controversial Opening Up video (which he also hasn’t deleted). But the two would never work together. … Until now!

Promising a big “Summer of AVGN” (that never happened), Bores went all out in marketing the crossover. Banners on YouTube and Facebook, trailers, a live stream about the video, even releasing a t-shirt! I can’t imagine the kind of person that would buy that.
Wait, what game would they be talking about though? Surely something epically bad right? It was Dick Tracy. Wait, a game the Nerd has already covered? That doesn’t make sense.
The day finally came, and the truth was revealed. It wasn’t a crossover at all, it was a glorified cameo. All that hype for, at most, two minutes of screentime. Maybe Chris does have a future in marketing? Oh wait, the “meh” reaction came from the fact that most people didn’t know IG was still around and felt this crossover would have made more sense in 2009 when AVGN was still great. Though Chris claims James organized things, Screenwave giant Justin Silverman noted in an interview that he was responsible. Sounds about right…

IG would continue referencing the Nerd in future videos, yet James has at no point referenced the video’s existence. This, and the above-mentioned videos still existing, calls into question a common thing a lot of people were saying when the video came out. That James and Chris were now friends, and we should stop making fun of Irate Gamer. Ignoring that the plagiarism aspect is only a small part of why he sucks. Are they really “friends” though? Chris says that, but Chris is a pathological liar. I doubt they have much of a working relationship outside of Justin forcing James to film that cameo (also the Puppet Steve voice work but I don’t know if Screenwave was involved in that). Who knows, maybe we’ll see more when COVID slows down.

4. A Bizarre Obsession with Arcades

This year, Chris has gone coo-coo crazy over Arcade cabinets. Rather, “affordable” replicas of Arcade cabinets. Though the signs were there at the tail-end of Chris Neo, it really exploded this year. He remodeled his basement to look like an Arcade, and most videos have to reference an Arcade game of some kind. The zenith of this was a video talking about how ports of Arcade games to Atari and NES were inferior, a concept that anyone with a brain could tell you. It felt more like Chris wanting to show off all his Arcade 1Up toys. Hell, his last video of the year was shilling a Dragon’s Lair Arcade replica. A game that you can easily play on your PS4, Xbone or Switch RIGHT NOW

All these cabinets could not have been cheap. Where did he get the money? I have noticed that he doesn’t talk about Switch games, even on Puppet Steve. Did he sell his Switch? That would explain why he didn’t go crazy over Steve in Smash (a prediction I am glad I was wrong about).
Still, to remodel the whole basement? Makes me wonder if he’s going through a mid-life crisis.

3. How to Make Cereal Annoying

You thought Irate Gamer was the only thing returning this year? Surprise! I Rate the 80’s is back! For some reason.
However, he has only talked about cereal. Because he still doesn’t understand that “comedy” videos about cereal very rarely work.
He talked about the short-lived Nintendo cereal, spending 15 minutes gushing about it yet never saying if it was good or not. Ending off on a hyper-cringe reenactment of the commercial, adding verses to the jingle that really didn’t need to be added. It was absolutely awful. This is someone that wants to be on TV.
He followed up with a video on the Family Matters tie-in cereal Urkel-O’s because he referenced it in the above video, and was surprised people thought he was joking (and the fact he doesn’t understand why people thought that shows why he fails as a comedian). It was 9 minutes of “Family Matters was great, this cereal exists”. Along with poorly dubbing over an error he made about Urkel’s catchphrase.
Stop talking about cereal! There is no audience!

2. Recycled RoboCop Rubbish

With 8 IG videos, 2 80’s videos, and one shilling video, what was the worst out of all of these? Easily, RoboCop.
Making this the THIRD time he’s talked about RoboCop on NES, Chris expands on it by also talking about the Arcade game (yep), the Game Boy games, and RoboCop vs Terminator. You’d think that would make it better right? Thing is, he did a lot of recycling. As in, taking footage from his old 2011 RoboCop video and repurposing it with no changes. Ignoring the fact that 9 years ago he was in an entirely different house and room. Does he think his viewers are so stupid that they wouldn’t notice? He seemed more concerned with having Peter Weller than making a decent video. The only thing he seemed to try was writing around the Wise Sage, who had a comment about Macaulay Culkin and Mila Kunis in the original that was instead delivered by Bores. Making me wonder if Eric Allen (Wise Sage’s actor) had a falling out with Chris.
Either way, the sheer laziness and ineptitude on display here made this the worst video of the year. But not the worst moment. Oh no, that dubious honor goes to…

1.  The Absolute Insanity of the Ghost Doctor

We have long established that Bores is obsessed with ghosts. Whether it’s hunting them or claiming to be a “behaviorist”, he can’t get enough. He’s also so dedicated to his own methods that he ended up getting kicked out of a paranormal Facebook group for being hostile to other members trying different ideas.
Hence, his endless pursuit of getting a TV show and constantly retooling his ghost material in the hopes of getting a deal. This time, Chris is now the “Ghost Doctor”.
Chris claims he had a TV deal in the works with the Travel Channel, but he was passed over for Jason Hawes’ “Ghost Nation”. He’s super bitter about it, making several angry Facebook posts about the show. I have serious doubts that he was even considered. They would rather invest in someone with history than some talentless nobody with zero charisma. TV is slowly dying anyway; streaming is the future.

Deterred by this “setback”, Chris decided to open another YouTube channel dedicated to the Ghost Doctor, where he would post the pilot and several other ghost videos that the paranormal community tried to hold back (pfffft yeah right). But before he did that, he decided to showcase who he really is.
After an introduction video, he posted a video claiming that a “Paranormal Pandemic” is coming (in the middle of an actual pandemic), and that we’re not doing enough to stop it. Showcasing out of context celebrity clips where they “praise Satan”, claiming that negativity in general will send you to Hell, how you don’t even have to worship Satan to be a Satanist, how aliens are really just ghosts, how we no longer have picnics at graveyards, and all sorts of batshit lunacy that I’m surprised hasn’t been mocked more.
Then after that, he posted a video where he claimed to hear the ghost of George Floyd, likely to “cash in” on the Black Lives Matter protests and somehow make himself sound legit. I know I didn’t make a post about it, but it really needed to be mentioned.
He hasn’t done a video like that since. Mostly just uploads of his “hunts”, including one where he claims to talk to the Wright brothers.

I’m surprised Bores is still trying with this shit. Ghost Doctor isn’t popular at all, only one video has over 10k views (not counting the Coast to Coast AM interview that he didn’t make). Though ghost stuff is super niche, Bores clearly can’t break into the market. Perhaps it’s time to try a new hobby? Or at least, keep it to yourself. Nobody wants to watch videos about it. Then again, this could also be part of his midlife crisis.

Whew, and that is the list! A lot sure has happened this year, and that’s with everybody stuck inside.
What will happen next year? Will Chris stop gushing about Arcade games? Will he try modern games again? Is the James Rolfe friendship real or just a lie? Is Chris’ claim that he has multiple editors working on multiple videos true? Either way, I’ll be here to cover it.

As we head into the new year, please be safe. Wash your hands, wear a mask, stay away from people, and be careful.