♫ He's gonna take you back to the past ♫
♫ to play the shitty games that suck ass ♫
♫ He'd rather have a buffalo ♫
♫ take a diarrhea dump in his ear ♫
♫ He'd rather eat the rotten asshole ♫
♫ of a roadkilled skunk and down it with beer ♫
♫ He's the angriest gamer you've ever heard ♫
♫ He's the Angry Nintendo Nerd ♫
♫ He's the Angry Atari, Sega Nerd ♫
♫ He's the Angry Video Game Nerd ♫
As a kid, one of my favorite series of children's books was the Berenstein Bears.
It's been passed on as a tradition to every generation.
It began publishing in the sixties and continues to the present day.
It was about a family of bears living like an ordinary human family with common problems to overcome,
like sibling quarrels and the pressure of an overly busy schedule.
Often it focuses on some kind of moral lesson,
like don't pollute, don't eat too much junk food and don't watch too much TV.
Other times it's just about a part of growing up, like going to school, going to the doctor,
or getting fuckin' murdered by an evil bear with a chainsaw?!
Holy shit, this is the craziest book cover they ever did!
They had their share of spooky stories, and it would be fun to read them,
but I'm here to talk about the video games.
Most people probably don't know there existed games based on the Berenstein Bears,
and I gotta admit, neither did I, so my expectations are very low.
They can't disappoint too much...
Right?
First, let's check out Extreme Sports on Game Boy Color.
It's one of the clear cartridges, indicating that it's exclusive for the Game Boy Color,
meaning it's not backwards compatible with the original Game Boy or the Super Game Boy Super Nintendo adapter.
Well, it better be good then!
The title screen looks like ass! The text is so sloppy I can hardly read it.
I think they made a typo...
So the concept is simple: Basically it's a bunch of sporting events,
like here's Brother Bear in a canoe, but it looks more like the Bullshit Man with a giant, dirty Q-tip.
Dirty because... well, you can imagine.
There's also sledding, bike riding and skateboarding.
You race against the clock and try to pull off tricks without falling on your ass.
The courses all play the same way, basically, and they go by quick.
You could experience the whole game in less than ten minutes.
It's even more basic than Skate or Die, in fact it makes Skate or Die look like one of the Tony Hawk games!
This would've been alright if it was released on the NES in 1986,
but it was released in 2000! Late 2000!
The graphics... ugh! Those bright, solid colors, they burn into your eyes!
The sledding stage is so white, I bet if you stare at it long enough and then look away, you'll still see the game.
There's no in-game music, and the sound effects are on par with Atari.
[loud buzzing]
23 years of innovation gives us this.
[sharp rumbling]
Bzzffftttffffttt!!
Yeah, you hear that? That's the distinct sound of bike tires grinding over a wooden bridge.
Let's get the whole family involved! That's right!
The whole Bear family get in a line and hump each other as they spiral out of control down the slope.
Well, after all, it is *Extreme* Sports. This has gotta be crazy, right?
Whooaa! It's a bunch of bears spinnin' around on a raft!
They're fallin' off the raft! It's pretty extreme here!
No, if this qualified as Extreme Sports, I wanna see the bears in a spaceship,
shooting an atom bomb through a basketball net!
I wanna see them riding through a lava river with robot cobras and nuclear sharks,
passin' footballs to electric tornadoes!
THAT'S Extreme Sports!
Yeah, this game's extreme alright.
Extremely shitty!
Speaking of primitive, let's go backwards in time.
You know they made a Berenstein Bears game on Atari 2600?
It's pretty interesting becau--
Whoa, wait a minute... BerenSTAIN?
They totally fucked up the spelling!
Anyway, what makes this game interesting is that it was made specifically for the Sound 1 or Kid Vid voice module,
an audio cassette player that connects to the Atari.
This is back when video game companies were aware of the sound capabilities of games,
they made all these weird add-ons to give the games the capability of audible speech.
Kinda reminds me of that other one. You know.
The Intellivision Intellivoice Voice Synthesis Module,
which included only five compatible games, only five! Including...
[with synthesized voice] B-17 Bomber!
But you wanna know how many the Kid Vid had?
Two! There were only two fucking games made for this piece of shit: The Smurfs and Berenstein Bears.
It was made by Coleco in 1983. It worked in a completely different way than the Intellivoice.
The obvious difference is that it used cassettes.
It was a crafty way of getting high-quality audio with voice and song to accompany your game,
but it was more than just an audio player:
It connected to the second controller port, acting somewhat like a controller!
The cassette tape contained signals which interacted with the game.
"The notes keep falling on the ground!"
"The glue that holds them can't be found!"
"So c'mon kids, and stick around!"
Each cartridge contained three different games. Each game had its own cassette.
You'd choose whichever cassette you want to play, and that triggers the corresponding game.
From that point on, the audio instructs you on what to do.
♫ "When the colors don't match, don't never fear!" ♫
♫ "Push the red button, it'll disappear! Yeah!" ♫
After you complete the task, like making the Smurf piss in the cup,
the game sends a signal back to the cassette player to advance the tape.
♫ "Way to go, congratulations!" ♫
♫ "May this be one of many standing ovations!" ♫
To be honest, it actually works!
Meaning it does what it's supposed to do.
I wonder if anything would happen if you put a fuckin' Slayer tape in there.
[haunting scream]
Now, getting back to Berenstein Bears: The gameplay is as simple as you can get.
No matter which of the three cassettes you use, it's basically the same thing.
You're trying to catch the correct numbers or letters out of a tree.
There's the Big Number Hunt, the Great Letter Roundup and the Spooky Spelling Bee,
And after all, it is Halloween.
"The bear went out on a spooky night..."
"He prayed for the moon to give him light..."
It sure looks like a spooky night, doesn't it? The grass is green, the trees are lively...
It's the same graphics as the other two games!
How is this supposed to be spooky?
Not even the words are spooky, like 'MOM', 'DAD', 'BALL', 'DOG', half of 'em are numbers!
"NINE! Spell 'NINE'..."
The closest it comes to spooky is maybe 'CAT'.
[purr] "The first word is 'CAT'."
"Meow!" "Spell 'CAT'!"
But you gotta love the quasi-Boris Karloff impressions.
[imitating Boris Karloff] "... is its sound, as it pussyfoots around..."
Bela Lugosi...
[imitating Dracula] "The next vord to spell is number FOUR!"
... and Peter Lorre:
[imitating Lorre] "You can hit it!" [crack!]
"Bounce it!" [bonk!]
"Bunt it, punt it, kick it around!"
"BALL! Spell 'BALL'!"
Speaking of balls, this game sucks.
Well, here's another one on Sega Genesis, the Berenst--
Hang on, hang the fuck on!
That can't be the correct spelling, I know for a fact it was BerenSTEIN with an E, not an A!
Actually, the most likely pronunciation would be BerenSTINE,
since it was spelled the same way like Frankenstein.
But everybody I ever met says BerenSTEIN.
I can prove the spelling, because I have one of the books!
Yeah! So as you can clearly see, it's spelled Beren... STAIN Bears...
Must be a new edition.
Why'd they change the spelling?
I know it used to be Berenstein, because the author's real names were Stan and Jan Beren... stain.
I guess I was wrong.
My whole childhood was wrong.
Anyway.
The BerenSTAIN Bears' Camping Adventure, here we go.
The plot of the game is simple: The bears go on a camping trip
and the kids feel like wandering around on their own.
Papa Bear's fine with it, pretty much. I mean what's he gonna say, "Watch for bears"?
Then you get a choice of stage. They're all your typical sidescrolling action,
all of them involve hopping across platforms, stomping on animals to make them disappear,
bouncing on organic trampolines and navigating past little tricky dead ends.
You can get some weapons, like rocks, but man do the rocks blow!
How're you supposed to hit anything when it goes in an arc?!
It's just like the rocks in Friday the 13th.
Wow, I pointed that out ten years ago, and now still I'm making the same exact complaints.
But I'll try to find some new, interesting observations for ya!
Um...
Nope.
You know what the problem is? This game is actually pretty good.
But fuck it.
Can't make these jumps!
Hungh! Mrrgh!!
When Brother Bear squats he looks like he's forcin' out a
PRRFFFFBBTTT!!!
Yeah, I've done that one too, haven't I?
It's just a shitty habit.
There's a haunted forest stage, which is a million times more thematic than the Spooky Spelling Bee,
but the creepiest thing in the game isn't even on this stage! It's from the cave!
What are these ghost things?! They freak me out!
Looks like Godzilla's son.
What's happening? I'm trying to pause the game and instead it's making Sister Bear strike these weird poses!
The pause button worked before, but now it's...
... what?!
Whoa!
Holy shit!!
I think it's a glitch, do you think it's a glitch? I think it's a glitch.
This is the mother of all glitches!
Is that you, Nerd?
I-- me, I'm you, what's going on?!
It's just a glitch.
Oh, okay, it's just a glitch. That explains it.
Oh, you must not be as familiar with this as I am.
See, I'm from a different timeline, and where I'm from, I've seen this happen before.
When a game glitches this bad, it causes a glitch in the Matrix.
The Matrix?
When reality is disrupted like this, two separate timelines converge.
I'm from a different reality, and by the looks of it, a different point in time also.
It's October 2006.
Ten years ago? So you're from the past?
Yeah, but not the same past. An alternate past.
Right now I'm playing Friday the 13th.
Yeah... my first Halloween episode!
But it's different! In this timeline, Jason killed me.
Don't kill me!
Kill me.
But... you're alive!
No, I'm dead. Trust me, I'm in Hell.
Doesn't look like Hell, it looks normal! Like you're just playing the game!
Exactly! I'm playing the game, it's Hell! Same thing.
N-now wait. You're in the past, you're in another dimension, and you're in Hell too?!
Yeah, but it's the Hell of THIS dimension.
Whoa, whoa, whoa...
Once you get into sub-dimensions and shit, it gets complicated.
But look, there's no time to explain all that right now,
because if we end up talking too long, the two dimensions might end up swapping,
and we don't want that to happen, so it's best you hit Reset.
- Okay. - Yeah, so just go back to... that game, whatever it is.
- Berenstain Bears. - Oh, you mean BerenSTEIN Bears.
No, apparently it's BerenSTAIN.
Well, BerenSTAIN is how I always remembered it, but in my dimension it's actually spelled BerenSTEIN.
Anyway, bye now.
No... that's impossible.
That didn't happen!
Berenstain Bears conspiracy theory...
It's on the Internet! That means it must be real!
The Mandela Effect! False memories are proof of a parallel universe!
Some people think it had to do with time travel or setting off the butterfly effect,
but no matter what the theory, everybody remembers BerenSTEIN! I'm not alone!
Faulty memory is one thing, but how could so many people be wrong?!
I know it was Berenstein! I saw what I saw!
And the only way to prove it is with my own childhood books.
I haven't been back to my old childhood home in decades...
... but I'm sure those books are still in the attic.
No... it can't be!
No!
These are the same books! I remember the torn page!
The mustard mark! The shit stain!
These are my old books! But it was spelled 'STEIN'!
IT WAS SPELLED 'BERENSTEIN'!!
It was spelled 'BerenSTEIN'...
It was spelled 'BerenSTEIN'!
You shouldn't have come here! Get away, now!
- I was just trying to prove the Berestein Bears were spelled... - With an E. I know.
- So it's true? - It's true in your native universe.
- What? - Go! There's no time to explain!
Gimme the quick version! I need answers! Then I'll go.
There exist many universes with infinite little, minor differences.
The universe you come from, it was spelled 'STEIN'.
At some point between your childhood and now,
you and a lot of other people unknowingly crossed over into this universe, where it is spelled 'STAIN'.
That's only one example of many other things that people blame on bad memory.
- So these aren't my childhood books. - They are, but they're your childhood books from this universe.
The ones you remember are still in the other universe.
- So I can't get to them? - No.
These undetected interdimensional crossovers happen all the time.
Nobody can truly go back to their childhoods. It's all different now.
Like Ninja Turtles on NES. Admit it, you liked that game as a kid.
It wasn't 'til you grew up, you changed your mind and though it was shit.
Did you ever think, maybe it WAS good?
You didn't change. The game changed, to shit.
My God!
Like where I come from, Double Dragon 1 and 2 sucked.
- 3 was the good one. - No way!
Yeah, only thing it had that weird typo.
"Billy and Jimmy?? How'd they make a mistake like this?!"
"Billy isn't even a real name! We all know it's Bimmy and Jimmy!"
No fuckin' way!
How about those bears? Are you from the STEIN or STAIN universe?
Neither. Now I've told you everything. You need to go.
One last thing. Why are you here?
I'm one of the rare individuals to find a way to hop between dimensions, to find the universe I came from.
I wanted to go back, but it's all in vain!
When two of the same person are in the same universe creates a paradox.
The only way to restore balance... one of them has to die.
I killed you.
Holy shit!
And I killed you again.
And again, and again!
But I'm done running! I'm here to be sacrificed!
- Sacrificed? By who? - The ones who will restore balance if I don't myself!
They're coming for me! Get outta here! Save yourself!!
In my universe, it's not BerenSTEIN or BerenSTAIN.
It's Bloodstain!
[screaming]
Aaah!! These are the real Bad News Bears!!
[screaming]