Cobra's Newest Weapon: A Smear Campaign Against a Good G.I. Joe Game

Bores declaring that this is the “Year of the Irate Gamer” is nothing new. At the end of every year, Bores promises the next one will be his biggest ever, but then he slacks off and ends up putting out less content than before. 2013 has been his worst year yet. We’re four months in and he’s only put out 10 videos, including the subject of this recap.

Going by the title, he’ll be looking at G.I. Joe on the NES. Which one? There’s the first game released in 1991 simply called “G.I. Joe”, and there’s a second game released the following year called “G.I. Joe: The Atlantis Factor”. Considering the video is only 7:30 long, I seriously doubt he’ll cover both games.

Why do G.I. Joe now? Because the newest movie came out in theaters. I can tell this by the addition of “retaliation” in parenthesis at the end. I love how that part is clearly an afterthought, doing that in the hopes that people will search “G.I. Joe Retaliation” and come across his video. Even though he’s reviewing a game from the 90’s. Bores am smrt!
I wonder, in the alternate timeline where Retaliation wasn’t delayed 9 months, what would Bores be doing now?

0:00 - 0:17: *insert intro here*

0:18 - 1:09: Like last time, IG is doing the NES G.I. Joe because the new movie is out in theaters. Say Bores, why not give us reviews of A Good Day to Die Hard or G.I. Joe Retaliation? Then people wouldn’t give you so much grief for taking over three fucking weeks to release a new video. Given that there was no “Top 10 Summer Movies” list again, it sounds like he’s done with the movie reviews. He might surprise me in May when Iron Man 3 comes out though.

He starts the game and goes over the story, then moves on to the characters. He starts complaining about the roster as they don’t use well-known characters like Roadblock or Shipwreck, and notices they put Blizzard over Snow Job. Here’s something you need to remember (and everyone else too), G.I. Joe is an action figure franchise. Any tie-in media is related to the action figures. Since this game was released in 1991, it’s not related to the show you’re familiar with, specifically the mid-80’s series from Sunbow Productions. There was however a second series from DiC Entertainment running at the time, but again, it’s very likely this game is based on the action figures released at the time. Hell, the Wikipedia article for this game mentions that General Hawk was based in the 1991 action figure.

He begins to think that Snow Job isn’t in the game because his name sounds like blowjob. But before he could finish that thought, a hand comes out of nowhere and puts tape over his mouth. The camera then reveals a poorly animated Flint is in his room giving a PSA about foul language. Is this why the review took so long? This shitty looking Flint?
Bores isn’t even trying with the voice. It’s just his normal voice but more authoritative.

IG walks up to him and tells him to get out the hell out. Since IG is a massive Stu, Flint backs away scared.

1:09 - 1:59: IG starts the game and immediately starts complaining about everything being too hard. This is going to be one of those videos isn’t it?
He brings up how the first boss is a fighter jet, and it looks like he’s jumping into it. You do realize that you’re supposed to avoid the boss right?
He claims the worst part is when you get a game over, you see Cobra Commander laughing at you in front of fire. IG won’t take that and says he can do that too, and for no reason his background explodes into flames. The sad thing is I could tell he was going to do a green screen gag because his flailing hand movements had green on them.

He then claims the jet is Cobra Commander over-compensating for his small penis. How cute, Bores is trying to be edgy again. Still duller than a rock.
Actually, there’s something I noticed. In one of his Skylanders videos, he mentions his girlfriend’s kids. Are they the reason he’s made everything so clean? Are they the reason why his recent output feels less like videos made for the internet and more like cheesy 70’s or 80’s videos your teachers would show you when they don‘t feel like working?

2:00 - 2:30: IG notes that after a while, he notices a pattern. He gets killed, his new character kills the jet, and then another jet flies in. IG takes a glass off his shelf and douses himself with water. Why do you have a glass of water on top of your game shelf? If you want something to drink, get yourself a side table. It seems like a bad idea to put liquids on top of a shelf full of old cartridges.

IG then follows that with another interaction with the narrator bit. Why does he keep doing these? They’re not funny. Unless the fans somehow think that because they’re dumb 11 year old kids that have never seen this type of joke before. It’s called Winnie the Pooh.

2:30 - 3:06: As the … *sighs* narrator pointed out before, it’s on to stage 2.
You need to go around collecting detonators and once you do you can fight the stage boss. IG doesn’t recognize him, and starts gushing over how G.I. Joe has some of the greatest villains in cartoon history yet the game chose “Raptor Man”. Actually it’s just Raptor but whatever…

He then wonders who designed the game. That would be Kindle Imagine Develop, or KID for short. A Japanese company with very few games actually released outside of their native land. They were also behind The Atlantis Factor.

But no, that question was just leading to a CAD-esque “the punchline is violence” bit where a man (Bores in a blonde wig) comes in and says he’s responsible, prompting IG to shoot him with his NES zapper. Then he says “because I don’t like you, here’s one for your ass” as he sticks the Zapper up his ass and shoots him. Complete with squish sound and blood spray. Our hero ladies and gentlemen! A complete psycho. Remind me how he’s the “chosen one” meant to stop the Shadow Overlord and save the world?

3:06 - 4:05: He beats stage 3 (which is actually stage 1-3), and we see the base explode, causing a lot of flashing lights. Instead of a seizure joke, IG just puts on a pair of sunglasses.
He moves on to the next mission, set in Antarctica. He comments on everyone except Blizzard freezing their balls off, then out of nowhere, Sub Zero appears and says Toasty. Oh come on! That one didn’t even make sense! Why was that needed?!

He moves through the level until he gets to the boss, and complains it’s another plane. After a while he runs out of ammo and starts punching it defeating it. Then he claims bullets can’t kill it but punching does. Nooo, just damaging it works. Bullets or fists, you did enough damage after a while to win. It’s like taking out most of a boss with a sub- machinegun, the finishing it with your knife. How this concept is foreign to you after nearly six years of doing this I don’t understand!

Oh and he follows it up with yet another water splash to the face, but this time he follows it with biting his NES controller cord and shocking himself somehow. Wha…?
By the way, build-up to a rule of three gag. Because that seems to be all Bores knows.

4:06 - 4:55: He gets to another stage where has to find detonators (or as he calls it “hide and go shit”), and complains about the plat forming. It doesn’t look that hard really. In fact, I’ve heard this is actually a pretty decent game.
He falls down a part he can’t get out of, wondering how he gets out. At one point saying “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon my way out?” I don’t get it, does he mean kung-fu jump? Your references don’t make sense Bores!
He figures out the grenades go through the floor be he can drop his own f-bomb, then he’s about to “rage” by saying “motherfucker” but cuts himself off. Just say “fuck” you dumb fuck, I don’t know why you’re stopping now. Oh right, your girlfriend’s kids Just tell them not to watch! Is that why your videos now have ratings?

4:56 - 5:37: He moves onto the next stage (which he calls a clusterfuck, oh hey he said it) and blah blah it’s hard and I can’t do it blah blah blah.
He follows it with a montage of him dying and reacting with teeth-baring constipation, I mean anger. He’s also fake playing his controller. Oh man I’ve missed this awfulness, just everything that can go wrong does!
Then he ends this bit by grabbing his NES shelf and tipping it over. Oh yeah, I’m sure that’s doing a lot of good for the games. Just tossing them to the ground like that, go ahead and make all the legit retro game collectors watching cringe. In fact, you don’t care. These games are nothing more than a prop to you. You only use this room for your YouTube job. You don’t actually care about gaming.

5:38 - 6:24: Game Genie time? Nope, instead he just uses a password to skip ahead. Fine, but he better beat the game, he can’t wuss out like he did with Mission: Impossible.
He notes that the elevator sewer level looks similar to the elevator level in The Simpsons Arcade game, but writes it off as a coincidence. As you should, since The Simpsons Arcade game came out a couple months after this one. Also, elevator levels are pretty common.
Then he moves on to the next stage and notes it looks like a stage from Contra. Games having similar levels? Impossible! In fact, why just accuse that stage of ripping off Contra? Go whole hog! Say the entire game is a rip-off since you run around and shoot stuff! Hell, say it rips off Contra Force because of the different characters? Oh what’s that? Contra Force came out a year after G.I. Joe? That’s never stopped Bores!

Then he compares the next level to the desert level from Super Mario Bros. 2. … You need glasses. Those two look nothing alike. Oh he was “joking”. … Knowing your limited knowledge of games, that wouldn’t surprise me.
Oh but wait, he claims that the helicopter follows you around like… Lakitu. … No no no no no no no no NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!
Those two are nothing alike! How do you see that? Also, enemies that follow you around is such a common trope in gaming that…. How do people think you’re legit? I thought you ran out of stupid surprises but… wooooow. Just wow.

Oh wait, this was all set-up for yet another “joke”. He calls up… Mario, and asks if he can “see this shit”. He responds “Mamma Mia” (apparently he couldn’t even get a voice clip) and IG calls it a … “turd burgler”. My head hurts, at least this is almost over.
Wait how can Mario see it? This type of scene only works when two guys are watching something on TV, something that’s happening live. IG is playing a game, a single-player game that can only be seen on his TV since the NES is hooked up to only his TV, and it’s impossible for the NES to go online for other people to see. You know, this joke only works when it involves live TV. How do you mess up such simple ideas?

The video ends with IG quickly moving through the rest of the game, bringing up other bosses and complaining some more about a boss that isn’t from the show he watched as a child (psst, action figures) and that only Destro and Cobra Commander deserve to be there.
“After 18 levels of lackluster levels” Horrid repetition, this really does feel like another old review.
He beats the game and is told to move on to the second quest, but he refuses. He then tells everyone if they see this game, they should destroy it (and he does just that by throwing it in the air and shooting it with his zapper), and signs off with “Knowing is half the battle” and the “G.I. Jooooe” jingle. Yeah, good luck keeping that last part on your DVD.

That review was awful.
All he really said about the game was that it was hard. The difficulty looks fair, it doesn’t look insanely cheap like other “bad hard” games. He could support his argument if he said anything about the controls, but he didn’t. So this might be another case of “The game doesn’t suck, IG just sucks at it”.
The sketches were lame, especially that terribly animated Flint, and the jokes were not funny or didn’t make a lick of sense. It really did feel like an old review, with massive lapses in research and the weird way he says “buddy”.
I will applaud him for not using that “splashing water” joke a third time.

Honestly, this game actually looks decent. It certainly looks better than the 2009 movie tie-in “The Rise of Cobra”, with its Dreamcast graphics, boring gameplay and inconsistent sound (Cobra members yelling “Go Joe!”). So Bores “destroyed” a good game because he has to do it every time or else. Fuck all of this.

By the way, nothing related to his storyline happened. That’s two videos in a row where the story was completely ignored. Did he give up on it? I hope so, it was a confusing mess.
So much for “Season 4 being (his) movie” now. Otherwise, fifteen and a half minutes would just be padding.