User blog:Hippie Rat/Hippie Rat Reviews - Gaming All-Star Rap Battles's Mother Brain vs GLaDOS

Hey yo hi hello.

So I kept trying to find a good GASRB and couldn't find one worthy of review, mainly because 1)most battles were full of characters I never even heard of (that's my first critique of the series btw. Too many characters are vague. Fix that or something. Idk), 2)when I did kinda know the characters my expectations were actually blown out of the water and it was a bit too good, it didn't have enough information that I needed to talk about, and 3)some of the battles with characters I knew were pretty old and not of as good quality, so that wasn't really that fair. So I decided I'd take Flats's suggestion of his favorite GASRB - the Mother's Day special of Mother Brain from Metroid vs GLaDOS from Portal, even though it's a bit far back in GASRB history (and by far back I mean like halfway though the series but whatever it's going down now).

It's alright. It definitely isn't the best I've seen from GASRB (that would have to be Alex Mercer vs Cole MacGrath). It ain't bad. Which is exactly why I'm here to say all the bad shit about it. Let's go.

The Aesthetics (Visuals, Audio, etc.)
Gaming All-Star Rap Battles, or as I like to call it, "zero-budget Video Game Rap Battles," has a specific style to its video and audio. As you probably guessed, it's not the best looking due to lower budget (or lower level of care for said aesthetics as opposed to lyrics and stuff), but that doesn't write it off as nothing good.

GASRB is practically a GradeAUnderA video. Each shot is just sorta a slideshow image with the characters hastily cropped and pasted into the background. I always gave series like ERBoCartoons crap for just taking clips of the characters talking in random scenes from their shows and trying to pass it off as a decent lip-sync, but this is just a bunch of still images. Ech. But you know what, it takes a little bit of effort, and I'm not going to write it off as bad, especially considering how good Brandon's gotten at writing. Seriously though, Cole MacGrath vs Alex Mercer is super good. It gave me chills. And that's in the same slideshow style. So obviously take this with a grain of salt.

Audibly it's about the same as any other series. The announcer having a certain gimmick (announcing the battle number and the connection and "press start to begin") is cool but can sometimes be a mouthful for such a short time. Other than that it's just another rap battle series, just a bit more notable than a lot others due to the relevance it has in the main fanmade ERB community.

The casting for this battle was questionable but ultimately was okay I think. There were times where it sounds too much like just Liam and Brandon with a voice mod, but most the time it's pretty okay, a very pleasant surprise, especially on GLaDOS's voice. The delivery of the lyrics was okay sometimes, generic and even borderline bad others.

Altogether not too bad, surprisingly well sometimes, predictably poor other times.

The Lyrics
Super generic writing. When it's not doing things that I subjectively view as wrong it's doing things that I subjectively view as boring. It's another fanmade battle. (And again, Brandon has improved greatly, so grain of salt.)

Mother Brain:

There's a disturbance on my planet, and it's this scrap ball,

(Ugh. Like you know that this is the pinnacle and it's not even good. First, it reacts to some kind of alert, as if it has no clue what it is, to give the effect of making GLaDOS think it's something else when, surprise, it's her, but the reveal that it's her is continuing to be in third person, so this bitch was just talking to herself. And the delivery. "And it's this scrap ball." You put the fucking emphasis on the wrong word. Don't do that shit.)

The worst she's doing here is she's making holes in walls!

(She's still talking to herself mhm ok. Also, we understand that you're talking about GLaDOS, we don't need reminded each second. Strangely enough, these aren't actually two separate ideas, so you don't have to reuse the word "she's." I know right, a line that isn't two separate unrelated ideas? That's impossible! Also, downplaying events in the games, events that are minor and happen all throughout certain parts of the series at that, ends up downplaying your lyrics. Like who was legitimately shocked by that lyric? Who actually thought that was a hard-hitting diss? Ain't no one falling back in they chair acting like this is some shocking revelation diss, this is just "haha you do nothing but make holes in walls." Fucking boring. You see some reaction channel listen to this lyric and this isn't the part where they fake a laugh for a like, it's the part where they look legitimately confused because this isn't fucking rap.)

Able to produce strong attacks like bombs and laser beams,

(So is GLaDOS. Like, I'm not sure how you think you can just boast this when GLaDOS can rebut it with the three words "so can I." She never does, which is probably a good thing since this is an 8-8-8-8 battle and there's a bunch more shit to say, but shit dawg, she coulda, which makes this line useless.)

I'm the most successful creation of organic technology!

(Big words trying to sound smart yet do nothing to progress the battle is filler. Most successful creation of organic technology huh? Fucking prove it. Show don't tell.)

I'm coming up with lines faster than the Metroids I spawn,

(Every generic rap battle requires at least one line that makes reference to the fact that they're rapping without doing anything clever. This is one of those lines. "I'm coming up with lines. You get it? Because I'm rapping. I just defined rapping. Why aren't you laughing?" And ooh you compared your rapping ability to one of your attacks in your game I've totally not ever seen that before woahhhhh fuck outta here.)

My body is all brain, but it's also what gives me the brawn!

(I swear, it's like you took the thing you wanted to reference, watered it down, fucking gargled it, and this is what you regurgitated out. And I say "thing" singular because ain't no way we're gonna be seeing any lines with more than one reference if even that and we sure as hell ain't gonna see anything in-depth about the characters or anything. Choosing a winner in this is so arbitrary just because they don't accomplish anything in this bullshit. Like fucking.."the brawn"...why not take out the "the". It'll sure as hell sound better, even though the topic isn't really focused on anything being said at all.)

I'll destroy any emotion core you'll be installed with,

("I'll do the thing that destroys you in the game." Holy shit fucking clever oh wowwwww so neat)

Your last option is the Companion Cube, and like that'll win this!

(Implications are that Companion Cube was at the final boss fight in Portal, when the Companion Cube was already famously destroyed, yet you're saying the Companion Cube is not only still available, but is compatible as a makeshift personality core. The rest is filler and dumb. All this line does is lamedrop the Companion Cube and not know a single fucking thing about the Companion Cube.)

GLaDOS:

You must be real foolish if you wanna test me on this track,

(Filler line just to lamedrop "GLaDOS's testing track," which, even then, most people know as the testing chamber. Only decent part is the double meaning of track. Then again this is just another line that does nothing but talk about how they are currently rapping, which I totally almost forgot was happening. No clue these dudes were rapping. May need to get a few more reminders here and there.)

Even one of your baby Metroids went and stabbed you in the back!

("You're foolish for stepping up to me...even your own minion betrayed you..." Yeah no that doesn't connect at all.)

I'll kill you in one-sixteenth of a picosecond, this battle will be short,

(If you have to cram nine syllables in like one quarter note, and it doesn't flow naturally or anything, and the reference itself is something so minute and unnecessary, then don't use the reference. Especially if you're going to say that bullshit then completely paraphrase it in the next half of the line like no just scrap that shit. It don't flow and don't need to be here.)

It's useless for you to blow up your planet as a last resort!

("Don't do this thing you did that one time." "Why do you do this thing you do?" Remember Mat4yo's Chisel This on Dead Bart vs Squidward's Suicide? This was one of the main points in that video. You can't just point out something a character did or does and say that it's not something to do. That's fucking lazy. It accomplishes nothing but say "I did the most basic research on this character. I did not look at the basic principles of this character or the like, but I do have specific events to reference and that's what matters." It's actually not what mainly matters though. Also, son of a fuck, this is worded so fucking awkwardly.)

Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System, that's what I am!

(I am T-800 Cyberdyne Systems Model de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano Disk Operating System. It's like, I'm honestly okay with someone doing this, if your name is an acronym or surprisingly long enough to fit an entire line, I find it kinda fun on occasion, but only if it's not worded awkwardly and it flows well enough without cramming syllables, which is what was done here.)

You're stuck in a jar, like any other brain in a science lab!

(Oh wow. Like oh fucking wow. You just compared Mother Brain's design...TO THE THING THE DESIGN IS FUCKING BASED ON! Like no fucking duh.)

Don't bother calling in your children, going on to invoke,

(Invoke what. Invoke fucking what. WHAT ARE MOTHER BRAIN AND HER CHILDREN GOING ON TO INVOKE?! You can't just look up "joke" on rhymezone and settle with whatever, it has to somehow fucking fit. And that doesn't mean just briefly skim the definition, you have to research how this word you're not familiar with is used in actual conversation and use it in that sense. If not, then you know what happens? Your rhymes get fucking profound.)

You're a defective product who created "yo mama so ugly" jokes!

(I love the "your mama so ugly" idea. The thing is, there's so much potential that is kinda lost. It has to do with whether or not you happen to realize the potential, and I understand that it just didn't happen to be noticed, but GLaDOS loves that orphan insult, and an orphan would've lost their parents..okay, you with me here? Now what if we told Mother Brain's orphaned child a your mama so ugly joke? Yeah, a lot more hard hitting and implying. But hey, that was just an idea I noticed and wasn't originally noticed. Whatever. Saying "defective product" just feels like you're just scouring a thesaurus for new ways to say the same thing. "Scrap ball." "Defective product." Blah blah blah. And would it have been Mother Brain who created your mama so ugly jokes? Or someone who met Mother Brain? Exactly.)

Mother Brain:

'''You dare call me defective? The mad overseer of Zebes?'''

(It's pronounced "Zee-bees" or "Zee-bəs," not "Zeebs." And also, you can't say that you integrated callbacks to the other person's verse and rebuttals to such if it's not fucking integrated in the slightest. This does absolutely nothing but point out that GLaDOS called Mother Brain defective, which props to you for paying attention, but if you just point it out without giving any real rebuttal then it just doesn't work. "The mad overseer of Zebes" isn't a rebuttal because it does nothing to prove that she ain't defective; any world leader can be defective af.)

I'll make sure that you will power down as one of my deeds!

(This also doesn't count as a rebuttal, as this doesn't turn the insult of "defective" back at GLaDOS. It just says that Mother Brain will power down GLaDOS is what it says. Woah, sorry for the weird grammar there. I accidentally used a bit of tautology. Don't know what that is? Look it up. It may help you not sound like a dumbass when you write.)

You're basically a female HAL 9000, now that's just shoddy,

(Obligatory HAL 9000 reference. Because we haven't heard that joke before. Granted, we didn't hear a joke here either, just a statement and a rhyme filler, but still.) You want to destroy humanity, but rely on Atlas and P-Body!

(Fucking burn. That was such a cleverly integrated insult that made GLaDOS feel horrible. Actually no it isn't, it was just stating stuff and did not effect your opponent at all because it's a bunch of lazy bullshit. "'Member the Portal 2 multiplayer campaign?" "Oh yah I 'member.")

Just like I did the Chozo, I'll make sure you go extinct,

(That's right. I remember. That was one of your deeds. Now carry it the fuck out. You don't need to reference specific times you did this before, you just fucking do it, or, you know, omit it entirely.)

I rule my own world because the planet and I are linked!

(Why what where the fuck did that statement come from? "I'll kill you. But first, hey, did you know I rule my planet because I'm linked to it?" Like what in all hell. These are some of the worst examples of disjointed ideas in lyrics ever.)

You can eradicate me all you want, but just remember this,

(What. Wait so...you were like..gonna kill GLaDOS. You said it like three times this verse. Then you were like, "nah it's cool because if you kill me then blah." Like..no. No no no no no. GLaDOS wins if she kills you. You don't get the satisfaction of knowing she's also dead because you are dead.)

If you decide to kill me then you take the whole planet with it!

(Yeah no still fuck no you should not be conceding like this. Just kill GLaDOS. And who is "it"? Are you "it"? You can't refer to yourself in the first person and third person in the same fucking sentence.)

GLaDOS:

And it would be worth it for me, at least you'll be out of the way,

(EXACTLY! Because you know what happens when you shut down GLaDOS? She sings a song in the credits talking about how she didn't fucking die. So that whole segment with Mother Brain connected to the planet was bullshit. Anyway, this line is boring. Anyone could've said it. It has no reason except to explain why everything else was bullshit. And if you say "would be", then the phrase is "at least you'd be".)

Flood Zebes with neurotoxin like it's bring your daughter to work day!

(Okay, good line. Decent delivery. Ain't bad.)

This brain must have a tumor in her if she thinks she can beat me,

(You know, this is actually the first time I let this line kinda sink in and I realized what it was saying, and my first thought is literally just "ohhh my god..." Like this is so stupid. It's like, we know she's a brain, so you could've just said she had a tumor in her. We didn't need to be reminded. This is just a simple "you must be really stupid if you think you can beat me" line, very generic and filler and lazy. And ultimately...I can't be the only one bothered that a "brain tumor" reference made the cut over any actual reference to these characters. Like oh my god.)

At least I wasn't killed by some pathetic human blondie!

(No, you were killed by a pathetic human brunette. Insulting someone does not absolve you for doing the same thing.)

We're alike, you and I, made for good but refused by intelligence,

(Welp, he fucking tried. He attempted, and you know what? It's so fucking awkward. I respect the choice to attempt a "here's our connection, but here's how you're so bad at this connection" scenario, but it's just... "Made for good but refused by intelligence"? As in intelligence refused you? Or because of your intelligence you refused good? Because I know you mean the last one, but you have to word it to say so.)

Killed off both of our creations with acts of diligence!

("With acts of diligence"? Why include this? "We both killed our creations using careful and persistent acts"? Were you just trying to continue the bit about the connection but couldn't rhyme it well so you just did whatever you could find on rhymezone? And what creations, by the way, did they kill off? Seriously. I could be mistaken but I'm pretty sure neither of them killed their creations. They killed their creators, I know that. Is that what you meant? Because if so, FUCKING PROOFREAD YOUR SHIT BEFORE YOU SEND IT OUT OR YOU END UP WITH A "RAP COMPLEXION" BETWEEN THESE TWO.)

But the only difference is my mind contains more data and info,

(This is the difference. It has to be told in the most syllables as possible, I guess because GLaDOS is too intelligent to chop the "but the" off of the beginning of the line, but hey, if she ain't gonna be fucking intelligent for the rest of the verse why ruin the flow by trying to speak intelligently now? And how do you know that GLaDOS holds more data than Mother Brain? How do you know? Is it said anywhere before? Do you have the evidence for it? Because if not then this whole "this is the connection and here's how you suck at the connection" sequence is fucking bullshit.)

I'm gonna leak out your brain juice, and you'll reset to zero!

(This wasn't even a fucking rap. It was just statements, empty threats, and baseless claims. Nothing fun. Just bullshit. If you're going to rap intelligent, then rap fucking intelligent. I don't even want to tell what's wrong with this line, I want you to go back, fully soak in everything that was wrong with all the other lines, and you figure out for yourself what makes this line suck balls. I'm done with this one. Fucking 8-8-8-8 too. Last battle I did had 8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8, and this was more bullshit than that. You had less chances to be bullshit yet you still outdid it. Goddamn.)

Rewrite
Alright then. So it's gotta be more focused for one. I could never tell when you were trying to fight over who would defeat the other in a fight or who is more intelligent, and there was a sad lack of reasonable references for most of it. I'm going to try to fix it a bit and give certain parts of the battle a focus on a certain aspect, but keeping the battles 8-8-8-8 just stints it. You'll notice that ERB only ever had a trend of 8-8-8-8 battles during the end of season 2 or so, then started shifting to battles where they could sorta stretch and shrink the verses at will to not keep at a set formula, and the last 8-8-8-8 battle they have and probably ever will do is Oprah vs Ellen, yet a bunch of series like ERBP and GASRB would continue to make like 90% of their battles follow the 8-8-8-8 formula. Then again, season 5 of ERB came and went within the time many fanmade series have even uploaded (Stofferex! You said ERBP would be back reasonably soon three months ago!), so I have some hope that the writing would have followed in that season's footsteps and made some decent alterations to keep the format from being anymore stale, but still that was like a couple years of battles scared to be longer than 36 lines. Anyway yeah on to the rewrite.

Mother Brain:

I'm made entirely of brain mass, your processor can't gain that,

How will you feel when I best the data available within you? GLaD?

It's a Carolinear process of an electronic bitch trying to top this,

Versus an exponential growth of brawn that'll put a potato where the bedrock is.

Let's clear some space on your hard drive for the wisdom I'm about to spit,

God complex? Neurotoxin controls? Delete that, that, and this,

And, there, see, you're a manipulable, buggy, robo-moron,

While a real mind can hold an infinite amount of patterns between neurons.

GLaDOS:

Hold on, Mom, GLaDOS is about to drop a bomb,

On top of a mortal, unwitting, jiggly, fat, cerebral glob.

Taking you and the whole planet down when you try to diss the,

Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System.

My microprocessor is compressing and still able to hold more than

A Brain, which is feeble, forgetful, imperfect..and orphaned.

This batch of tissue's nervous of what I can put in her jar and in the air and she,

Won't feel too smart once iReachSingularity.

Mother Brain:

I make lives, you destroy 'em. Players' minds: you annoy 'em,

Sending lab rats to play with a little toy gun.

You got two stock disses in your arsenal,

And if wanted gone, you shouldn't have kept the testing on your two stock imbeciles.

I Mastered in dissing, bitch, I'm Metroid Primed,

To show you what one can do with a puzzle-solving mind.

I'll decimate your hardware, corrupt your software,

Leave the incinerator cleaner asking how that got there.

GLaDOS:

You passed the test. Shoot a portal gun to get the colors flying.

You did it. You're the best. By the way, I'm lying.

Did you really think you could wipe my hard drive?

This simple beast's simply beat; I'm Still Alive.

Mother Brain? Motherfucker, my motherboard is getting mother-bored of you,

So I'll eradicate you and your Space Pirate crew,

And then I'll tell that fat orphaned baby jellyfish bozo,

"Yo mama so ugly that her face killed all the Chozo."

Conclusion
See I said I would have some better release times. Some other things are also fairly close to release so like yeah.

Guess that's kinda all I need to say. Uh, I may do yet another rap battle with Max Caulfield soonish. I finally watched a certain movie and it got me hooked on a certain character in a rap and Max is just the best idea for an opponent I could get. Shakespeare vs Python is gonna happen. Might scrap a couple things. Idk. I'm super tired. You guys have a good one.