Saturday, April 23, 2022

The Irate Gamer Timeline Part 3: 2010-2011

2010:

The year launched with the sophomore outing of I Rate the 80’s. It was about discontinued Kool-Aid flavors, trying to establish some synergy with the last IG video. The idea that I Rate the 80’s was a retooled Breakfast Rant became stronger when Chris ended the video with “beverages are ruined”.

Despite his computer issues getting solved, Chris would not post anything until March.

Next video was another two-parter, covering the maligned Mario educational games. Mario is Missing and Mario’s Time Machine.
Chris chose to format this review like the movie Sliding Doors, a romantic comedy that uses the “nail”, as in the concept where a single decision can have massive consequences. Showcasing two different timelines. See also the Frasier episode Sliding Frasiers, and the Malcolm in the Middle episode Bowling.
Chris’ nail was deciding if he wanted to review Mario is Missing or Mario’s Time Machine. However, the intent of stories like this is to spot all the big differences between the timelines. Here, the only change is when Ronnie shows up, Chris either tells him off or lets him stay. The first part ends with him throwing a cartridge and breaking an exposed gas pipe in both timelines. Making it obvious what’s going to happen in the second part (Ronnie saves him in one, IG blows himself up in the other).
By the way, the video opens with him saying he only has time to review one of the games, and yet Part 2 has him looking at the SNES versions. It feels like he didn’t think this through.

Then he reviewed the 2009 Ghostbusters game. He liked it. It’s no longer on the channel.

I should mention that the Educational Mario video had a gag with Luigi urinating on the street. I bring this up because he would post a blooper video with an “alternate take” of that gag where Chris parodies the old MasterCard “priceless” commercials. Ending on Luigi urinating in the streets. It’s no longer on the channel.

The 2010 summer movie list. He put The Last Airbender at #3. Nuff said.

A Neo review of Dante’s Inferno. You know, the 2010 action game from Visceral? A company gone too soon…
He “warned parents” that the game has nudity. Seemingly unaware of the concept of the ESRB and the game being Rated M.
It ended with a Grapes of Wrath joke where grapes flood a city.

History of Video Games Part 3 dropped after that, and this one was a doozy.
He referred to the creator of Pong, Al Alcorn as “Al Acorn”, and claimed that Nolan Bushnell seeing the Magnavox Odyssey at a trade show was an “urban legend” (it wasn’t, both Bushnell and Baer confirmed this).
What made this one stand out was prior to release, Chris bragged that he got footage of old games that exists nowhere else on the internet. In the video itself, he pasted a watermark in the corner to ensure nobody takes it. However, people managed to find footage of four of the games, with the others animated by Chris himself. He never admitted to this.
Like Parts 1 & 2, it is no longer on the channel.

Following that was another video that lost him a lot of fans.
Due to his request backlog, Chris decided to review three games in one video. Brutal Legend, Tekken 6, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled.
He admitted to only playing an hour of Brutal Legend, and his only issue with Turtles in Time is that the enemies were different (comparing them to the SNES version when Re-Shelled is based on the Arcade version. Once again showing he didn’t know it was an Arcade game first).

But the part that really angered people was his look at Tekken 6. More specifically, the scenario mode. Not the fighting game that everyone loves, but the tacked-on story mode that plays like a beat-em-up. Calling the controls bad and ending the review saying, “Tekken 6 sucks”.
He reads the back of the box and complains about the quotes praising the game.
There was a rather tone-deaf complaint about the lack of English voices, including his attempt to dub the game (with fake lines). Not knowing that Tekken operates by having characters speak their native language (Japanese characters speak Japanese, American and British characters speak English, Korean characters speak Korean etc etc)

The heat towards this one was immense, to the point that GottGame mods shut down comments. When Chris eventually uploaded the video to YouTube, he altered the end of the Tekken segment to comment on the backlash and look at the Arcade mode. Blaming it on the developers “burying it in the menu”. Though he said it was fun, he still didn’t like it because “I prefer Mortal Kombat”. Likely saying that so he wouldn’t have to remove the “Tekken 6 sucks” line. This did not smooth things over.
Alas, the video is no longer on the channel, but there should be plenty of commentary/reaction videos out there (it was that bad). Many of them wondering how he didn’t know Tekken was a fighting game.

Despite all that, Chris marched on with a review of Iron Man 2. No longer on the channel.

Then an 80’s video about Garbage Pail Kids. It was boring.

Then a video on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time the movie. Oh right, that exists, but the video no longer does.

Before going into E3, Chris released a new video promoting a site called DealDash. It was a giant scam. That video is no longer on the channel.

Onto E3.2010. Four videos from the event still live on his channel. One for Yoostar 2 featuring Leonard Nimoy, one for Bonk: Brink of Extinction (a cancelled game and likely one of the only videos to have footage of it), one on Sonic 4, and one on the Nintendo 3DS. I get why the first two stayed up but not the last two. Views perhaps?
Reminding myself of the missing videos, there wasn’t that much. In a segment on Lego Harry Potter, he mispronounced Hermione’s name. It would be justifiable if he only read the books, but he didn’t, he only saw the movies.
He also planted the seeds for his hate of Kirby’s Epic Yarn. We’ll get to that later.

It was around here that a strange IG defender showed up. A user called LsdyBuggin777. They claimed to be Chris’ own mother. Now that’s lame, isn’t it? Needing your own mother to defend you from online criticism. Except there’s a lot of evidence to indicate that it isn’t his mother, it’s Chris pretending to be her. Incidents like forgetting what account he was on and replying with the wrong one, or how they use the exact same insults (one they love is “daddy issues”).

Around this time, GottGame officially changed to GotGame. Bores “celebrated” with a review of God of War III. It was less than two minutes long, barely said anything, and just felt like an excuse to have a joke about the game’s sex scenes. It’s no longer on his channel.

Prior to the next video, Chris was heavily hyping it up. Saying it will be a new direction, the show would be in HD, and it would reach new heights.
It’s a storyline. Because it was popular at the time, Chris added an on-going story where he’s the hero with many supporting characters.
It opens by revealing the Evil Gamer works for someone called the Shadow Overlord and they want to take over the world, and to do that they need Irate Gamer’s “special” Magnavox Odyssey. Because it has the HAL 9000 in it. The rest of the video is Evil Gamer trying to get it while IG plays three different 7-Up Spot games as various side-characters bother him. Also, Goro from Mortal Kombat lives next door to him now.
There’s a line where Evil Gamer refers to the “haters and trolls” he sent after Irate Gamer as “so stupid, they couldn’t make a peanut butt & jelly sandwich”. Chris’ critics saw that as a weak insult.
Remember the Wilson gag from Home Improvement? He returns in a scene where Chris goes outside (obvious green screen) and talks to him. Only now he’s “Wilkins”. When asked why he changed it, Chris claimed it was to “make him an original character”. The exact same mindset as Sonic OC creators.
The video ends with HAL going into a “robot” body (Chris wearing nothing but black all over).

Despite being a storyline, it would be several months before the next installment. Instead, a video where Chris compares the original Xbox 360 and the 360 S. He didn’t go into any major changes, and at one point says, “What a bunch of BS”. Between this and 7-Up Spot, it felt like he was trying to tone down his cursing (years before the Ad-Pocalypse). It’s no longer on his channel.

Then his review of Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, where he complains that there’s no Simon Belmont. They eventually did add him as DLC, but he never followed up on that. It’s no longer on his channel.

One review that is still on his channel is Donkey Kong Country Returns. It was mostly an excuse to have a dumb joke where bananas fall on him, and bash Kirby’s Epic Yarn again.
He also admitted in the comments that he only played for half an hour, but he deleted it. He said too much.

2010 ended with Chris pushing out trailer reactions just to have content.  They are no longer on his channel.

2011:

The year started off with History Part 4, going over “Atari vs Magnavox”. I only remember an overly long gag where Bores imitates a horse race. It just kept going….
This one is still up, and we’ll get to the reason the first three parts were deleted soon.

After some more filler videos, he gave in to viewer demand and reviewed Kirby’s Epic Yarn. People really wanted to know why he hated it.
Turns out he thought it was too easy. Ironic, don’t you think?
When he posted it on YouTube, he added a scene of an angry Kirby sucking him up. Without taking his legs (seriously, it’s just his torso). Maybe he hated how Epic Yarn removed his ability to eat enemies? It’s no longer on the channel.

More pointless videos before a video on Marvel vs Capcom 3. This one was bland, had a few moments where Chris didn’t know what he was talking about, it wasn’t interesting. When he posted it on YouTube, he added Satan when bringing up Arthur from GnG.
He also posted a gameplay video and trailer reactions. I think he referred to Crimson Viper as Jean Grey at one point. All MvC3 content on his channel is gone.

We have arrived at the point where Chris chose to delete the first three History episodes. For some reason he decided to remaster the first three episodes. Only delaying the already slow series. The only change in the first episode I recall is that he toned down the cursing.

A Neo episode on Sonic Colors. Not much there. YouTube version added Sonic sprites that run across his table. It’s no longer on his channel.

Turns out the reason Chris remastered the early History episodes was so he could put out a DVD. It wouldn’t come out for a while though. To tempt viewers into buying it, he posted a “Making-of” video.

Around April Fool’s Day, he posted an entry to the YouTube NextUp contest. Partners could win $35k and a trip to “YouTube Creator’s Camp”. Considering he never followed up on it and the entry is no longer on his channel, I can assume he didn’t win.

Afterwards was his Top 10 Summer Movies. Listing them in order of release date after he kept getting mocked for putting crap at the top. It’s on longer on his channel.

Then came a milestone. 200 Irate Gamer videos. This one is notable as it’s the first time he voluntarily mentioned the AVGN.
Interestingly, he also mentioned that his ghost hunting was going nowhere. Hmm… surely that won’t come back to bite him.
No surprise, this one is gone too. Funny enough, the mass deletion reduced the channel to far less than 200 videos.

In March 2011, the late Gilbert Gottfried made several tasteless jokes about the Tohoku Japan earthquake and tsunami that left hundreds dead. These jokee resulted in the insurance company Aflac to fire him as the voice of their duck mascot.
Why am I bringing this up? Because Chris decided to do something really bizarre.

Chris put out a video where he and his various characters audition to be the new Aflac duck. Ronnie, Satan, Shadow Overlord, Cousin Joey (now sporting overalls), Evil Gamer, “Wilkins”, Wise Sage, and Tony (now sporting a new non-Maplestory look) give it a shot, but they all fail. Irate Gamer tries, gets praised, then knocks over the mic when he learns it’s just an audition and didn’t get the job.
After this, he didn’t upload anything for a month. Only following up with a “deleted scene” from this skit where the Kool-Aid Man auditions. It’s no longer on the channel.

Then a review of LittleBigPlanet 2.I forgot he did that. It’s no longer on the channel.

After it seemed like Chris abandoned the storyline, it came back. With a review of RoboCop on NES. Even though he already talked about it with SWAGshow. Some of the jokes were even repeated from the first review.
R.O.B. returns but now he’s good because Tony reprogrammed him. Evil Gamer sends robots into “the city” and Irate Gamer sends R.O.B. to take care of them. Ending on a cliffhanger.

It’s E3 time again! Only three videos left from that year. A Skylanders one (keep this in mind) some bloopers, and Chris’ audio edit of the Legend of Zelda Wii U tech demo. For those that don’t remember, Nintendo released a Zelda demo meant to show the power of the Wii U, but it didn’t have sound. Chris decided to add his own. The video went slightly viral. No wonder it’s still up.

Deleted videos inclu- oh jeez, this is the year with Ubisoft. Due to a scheduling mishap, Chris couldn’t get into the Ubisoft press conference. Considering this was the year with Mr. Caffeine, he should consider himself lucky.
In retaliation, the Irate Gamer blows up Ubisoft’s HQ. No, it’s not funny to do that. I’m amazed he never got in trouble.
Looking through my posts, he claimed to have a lot of “exclusives” that weren’t exclusive. Did he believe that E3 was private and that nobody else would talk about the games?
He also released some Top 5 lists. Praising Kinect Star Wars in one of them.

As E3 videos dripped out, someone going by “Cry Wolf Productions” was flagging YouTube videos critical of the Irate Gamer. Though Chris (through his mom account) claimed it was his other company, there isn’t anything to support that.

After a year, I Rate the 80’s returned. To talk about TMNT Cereal. It ends with Chris eating it and spitting it out in disgust. No duh, it was 20 years old at that point.
The video features another one of Chirs’ friends, Tim Warner. I bring him up because he’ll be playing a role muuuuch later.

He also got around to looking at Mortal Kombat (2011). Not a lot to say there… It’s no longer on the channel.

Followed by another 80’s video on Micro Machines. I remember people saying this one wasn’t too bad. I don’t really remember anything about it.

Then out of nowhere, Volumes 2 and 3 of the Irate Gamer DVDs. Felt like he forgot about them.
Reading my post about it, the Scrabble DS “Scandal” video is on Volume 3. You know what to do lost media hunters.
The announcement video is no longer on the channel.

Around this point, Chris stopped giving a crap and put out a video with FOUR game reviews in one.
Known as either Video Game Roundup or Rundown, he quickly rushes out reviews of Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters (he barely played it but liked it), Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars (said it had new stuff… that’s it), Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions (adored it) and Mario Sports Mix (hated it).
This one is no longer on the channel.

After three months, the conclusion to the RoboCop video arrived. IG looks at RoboCop 2 and 3 on NES, while R.O.B. goes around killing the robots with zero resistance.

Sometime later, he would change Y2B Productions into Irate Entertainment. With the new site promoting Irate Gamer, I Rate the 80’s, and Haunted Investigators. Waaait I thought he was done with that?

Then a new 80’s video on the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe toy-line. It had cringy jokes, and a bit where Chris dressed up as Skeletor. People praising the Micro Machines video took back a lot of it.

He would do a reverse of what he did with Kool-Aid and the follow-up video would be about He-Man video games. The ones on the Atari 2600 and Intellivision. Nothing much about the reviews…
As for the storyline, the genre changes from being about robots to being about magic and swords. With Irate Gamer being the “chosen one” as he’s granted a sword that gives him the “Power of Inferno”.

Then another Neo episode focusing on Mortal Kombat. Specifically, the Arcade Kollection. Barely remember anything about this one. It’s no longer on the channel.

For Halloween, he did an 80’s video about Madballs, a gross-out toy. I only remember the ending where he ends up in the video for A-ha’s Take On Me for no reason.

For Thanksgiving, he reviewed Batman Arkham City. Wow, I forgot he did a video on this. It goes to show how forgettable a lot of his videos are. It’s no longer on the channel.

Following that was an 80’s video on M.U.S.C.L.E., or rather, Kinnikuman. This was an annoying one. A gag involving a Kinnikuman toy falling on him multiple times, using footage of China when talking about Japan, complaining that the original show wasn’t dubbed in English. Is reading really that hard? The anime was too violent for American broadcast, and they didn’t have airbrushing technology.
He also kept mispronouncing Kinnikuman, saying it more like “Kenny-Kooman”.
He did hint that he was going to cover the sequel series, Ultimate Muscle, in a future video. That never happened.

Ending the year with… Ronnie the Skeleton sings Deck the Halls? It’s even weirder knowing Ronnie uses a Woody Allen voice, and Allen is very Jewish.

Next time: 2012-2013

2 comments:

  1. These timelines could give Fredrik like over an hour or two for a Down The Rabbit Hole. It's only gonna get worse once we get to the spamming Skylanders videos, the Opening Up video, and the Box Wars and Malaware Apps. Oh and of course Puppet Steve.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't expect anyone to cover everything. That's stupid.
      This is just an abridged summary to give people an idea of what went down. Without having to read through literal years of posts.

      Delete