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The self-proclaimed King of Limbo.
Well it's nice to see Mandy safe and sound
after all he's been around
and in my view he should be crowned
The King of Limbo!

MandaloreGaming is an American game reviewer who specializes in Slavic, older, more obscure games and how to optimize them on modern systems. He started his channel in late 2011 with a focus on internet humor and discussing both the creative decisions and communities of the games he reviews.

He also streams on Twitch (albeit rather infrequently) and has also made various appearances on the podcast Please Stop Talking.

    List of games covered in alphabetical order 

Tropes:

  • Added Alliterative Appeal: This bit from the Total War: Warhammer III review:
    Subsequently, synthesizing Sigvald's soldiers into Slaanesh's swarms seems sincerely sensible. Saving separation of such squads sustains scheduled schemes and strategies from CA, but... fuck, it sure seems like he belongs there.
  • Art Shift:
    • The video for UnReal World includes an animated segment of Mandalore's avatar walking through a forest while building up a shelter. He then points out that it is meant to convey the atmosphere of playing it and decidedly NOT what the actual game looks like.
    • The same animator followed it up with an intro for the Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus video where Mandalore is taken in by the titular faction.
  • Attack Drones: He discusses these as a gameplay option in Duskers, then demonstrates the concept in real life by taping a shotgun to a Roomba.
  • Bile Fascination:invoked
    • Touched on in his Limbo of the Lost video. When it comes to video games, its hard to create a So Bad, It's Goodinvoked game unlike movies or other media, because if a game plays badly or just is badly made, it doesn't become fun to play but rather annoying. The reason he was so captivated by Limbo of The Lost however was because it has signs of being an interesting game which when put together with the sheer amount of plagiarized assets from other games creates a product he genuinely finds interesting. In a sense, it was like playing someone's fever dream.
    • For similar reasons (just no plagiarized elements), he legitimately found The Mystery of the Druids to be an interesting game, because not only does it go in such random and weird directions, but it kept him and Shammy on their toes the entire time. His video on the game goes in depth on just how oddly charming he found it.
    • His video on Anonymous Agony is more of a cutscene clip show that showcases its overly edgy and ridiculous writing that sounds like something created by an angsty teen. As Mandalore calls it, it's a "nuclear trainwreck", but he does say as much of a technical and literary mess of a game it is, he does think there is at least a level of coherence to its insanity.
    • His review of Ring and its sequel make it clear how bizarre and painful he found both the story and gameplay. He's left baffled by how the game tries to adapt The Ring of the Nibelung into a sci-fi setting, and describes the disjointed meta-narrative layered on top as "brain poison" that at times made him feel genuinely insane. He's not without some praise for the game, though, such as its unique art direction and, especially, Alberich's character.
      Mandalore: Ring is so fascinating, but so painful. The more I look at it, the less I understand.
    • This is discussed in his review of Legion: The Legend of Excalibur video, as the concept of Narm that comes off from trying to be "overly cool" can be ironically appealing and instantly memorable if done right — as is case with the Marilyn Manson trailer for Dragon Age: Origins. But this is explicitly not the case for the actual game in the review as, despite it's hilariously cringey dialogue, overly edgy designs, and promising ideas of blending action RPG and strategy; the actual execution is so immensely painful and grindy that any potential fun that could have been had for Mandy is sapped from him by end and he's glad it's over, with him saying that this game is his limit for how enjoyably bad a game can be before it becomes just plain bad. Unlike other games he's played where he at least can find things to praise, mid-way through he stops trying to dodge the topic and just admits it is terrible.
    • Although he likes some things about Genesis Rising, such as its use of Living Ships, on the whole Mandalore found the game tedious and hard in all the wrong ways (it being the only game to date that was so frustrating he considered scrapping the video entirely), to say nothing about the ridiculously bizarre and convoluted story. At one point during his plot synopsis, the video briefly cuts away to some footage of Homeworld because, as he put it, he just needed a break. Mandy ultimately laments the fact the game has genuine promise, but the What Could Have Been is not enough to salvage the experience to be beyond an infuriating acid trip of a game.
    • Mandy's fascination with Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2013 stemmed from seeing the culmination of the series' slow descent into wanting to be like Call of Duty and the comically absurd lengths the game went to achieve that. What contributed to this is how he played a conservationist who also happened to be a One-Man Army (in a hunting game) going up against animals that he believed were intelligent enough to set up traps and ambushes, jam radio signals and take people hostage in a bizarre story that feels like something straight out of the mind of a serial killer.
  • Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick:
    In Necrovision some things are off, like the date is far too late, and there's a dragon.
    ...It can be destroying ammo, hunting people down, poisoning the air-supply, releasing genestealers, the usual special mission shenanigans. Actually, that last one is a bad fucking idea!'
  • Broken Aesop:invoked Mandy thinks this for the story of Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2013. Throughout the game, he's been led to believe that the message of the game was to shoot everything in sight because, from a story perspective, Luke saving Jacob instead of getting a clear shot on the bear about to attack the latter resulted in their father's death and, from a gameplay perspective, every animal in the game tries to specifically kill Jacob. So you could imagine his surprise when the game led to the message of "always help before hurting" by having Jacob save Luke and kill the black lion and treating the two continuing their safari after this point as a good thing, completely ignoring that the entire region of Africa (and parts of Alaska) went through a mass-extinction event courtesey of Jacob to get to this point.
  • Call-Back:
    • His Total War: Warhammer II video has a brief one to the animated intro of his Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus review. When he covers the Tomb Kings, he mentions their Black Pyramids, which look oddly high tech, and quips "I think we know what's in there!" Cue a brief animated bit of Mandy having been dragged on another Mechanicus expedition.
    • His Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous has several to the Pathfinder: Kingmaker review (understandable, as they are games in the same series). Including Mandalore bringing up Darven... And adding that he's not in this game.
    • There's a clip in his Northern Journey video where he falls to his death, which triggers the audio and musical string that plays whenever Siegfried dies in Ring II: Twilight of the Gods.
    • The Myrkridian who appears during the final segment of the Myth II video is named Dark Haze and given a visual novel illustration of a teenaged Myrkridian with a biohazard necklace.
    • During the "Legion: The Legend of Excalibur" video, the infamous audio bit of the Guardsmen saying "It's quiet" is mixed in with the standard repeated battle cries during his review of the audio.
  • The Cameo:
    • Cameos in Mandy's videos:
      • The review for the The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King game includes a live-action segment from Sean Astin, the actor who played Samwise in the movies.
      • Exaggerated with his Total War: Warhammer II video, where he has many other content creators cameo across the video, ranging from Sseth summing up Dark Elves, to Joseph Anderson giving his signature style opening monologue after zooming in on a Dragon. The amount of cameos is enough to where there is at least five people, and who some of them are isn't clear to fans.
      • In his Anonymous Agony video, he had popular true crime youtuber JCS: Criminal Psychology give out bits of information on the main character's strange psyche.
    • Mandy being a cameo:
      • He was Joseph Anderson's partner in crime for the latter's video cataloging of Fallout 76's many, many bugs and glitches.
      • He also helped fellow Youtuber Raycevick review the DLC chapters for Metro: Last Light during the latter's video on the first two games.
      • He's also been making a few of these in several of Sseth's more recent reviews, usually voicing bit part characters.
      • He and Shammy appeared as a secret boss duo in ULTRAKILL as the "Mysterious Druid Knight (and Owl)". He also reprised the role for Max0r's second Ultrakill video (despite Max0r claiming otherwise).
      • In Sul Matul's retrospective of Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, Mandalore voices Mandalore, aka Canderous Ordo. He lampshades it before the video goes back to using the character's actual voicelines. He also shows up near the end, panicking over the video's eight hour length.
  • Captain Obvious Reveal:invoked Discussed in his System Shock 2 video. He points out that the twist with SHODAN is really well done in game thanks to some subtle pieces of foreshadowing found in the game, only for it to be undermined by the fact that SHODAN has to be in the game because the games cover shows her on it, and also how XERXES outright drops a huge hint almost right at the start of the game. As a result, the reveal is basically a foregone conclusion since you know she has to be in the game someway, and that the twist is undermined by that. He comments that had the games cover been anything but SHODAN, the twist would likely be even better.
  • Caustic Critic: Downplayed. Mandalore is not afraid to be critical of games — sometimes brutally so — but not for the sake of being sensationalist. Even when talking about games he doesn't like, if there's something worthy of praise, however small, he'll mention it.
  • Chekhov's Gun: Quite literally. When Mandy and Joy were streaming The Moment of Silence, he cocks an unloaded shotgun it in front of his mic for comedic effect when Joy basically tells the chat to "lock and load".
  • Conversational Troping: Though he has never mentioned TV Tropes in his videos, Mandy has called out enough tropes by name to infer that he has some degree of familiarity with it.
  • Crack is Cheaper: Discussed in his Total War: Warhammer II video. He points out that one of the largest reasons people are deterred from getting into the game is the huge amount of DLC released, and how expensive it is getting them for both games. While he agrees with that issue, he does feel it isn't as bad as other games like Stellaris, because other games of the same genre tend to bundle up important updates into their DLC. By comparison, the Warhammer DLC is more free to pick because of the amount of free content.
  • Damned by Faint Praise: During his review of Legion: The Legend of Excalibur, Mandalore noted that while the audio wasn't great, it was still much better than dealing with the violently disorienting camera.
    Mandalore: That's where the bar is now.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Arguably downplayed compared to his fellow reviewers like Sseth or Joseph, but most of Mandy's videos consist of him speaking in one tone of voice throughout, even when something happens that surprises, upsets, or excites him.
  • Déjà Vu: Invoked in his review of Pathways into Darkness, where he uses identical language in his conclusion about its playworthiness as in his preceding Marathon video. Likely another nod to the latter being a Stealth Sequel to the former.
    Mandalore: (In both videos) It's great to see how much an FPS could be, even this early on, but a lot of the good gameplay ideas it has were expanded on, and a lot of them not too late after this game came out. You could point to any gameplay element, and someone else has done it better. Some of them being done not too long after Marathon came out, and some of them being done by Bungie themselves. (In just the Pathways video) When similar things came after, I ca- Sorry, I think I was repeating myself a little.
  • The Determinator: Many of the games he reviews can't run on modern systems so he'll sometimes go to great lengths to make them work. Often it requires hunting down patches and mods, but if he has to dig into his PC's guts and make physical alterations, he will.
  • Digital Avatar: His profile picture and digital avatar is that of an armored knight sporting a Cool Helmet. Some depictions of his avatar also has him sporting a red cape.
  • The Dog Was the Mastermind: In Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2013, Mandalore speculates the scarred bear from the intro is in charge of an anti-human coalition of wolves, hyenas, and other animals. Though he eventually concludes that the Black Lion Alpha is the true leader. He also thinks the lions built the various stone ruins in Africa, on the basis that the doors automatically open for them.
  • Drinking Game: Mandalore has done this (formerly with Shammy) when streaming games like The Mystery of the Druids, Anonymous Agony and Garten of Banban. Because of the rules he sets up, he'll usually end up being completely hammered by the end of the current stream and will usually fail to grasp certain things that happen during those games.
  • Drone of Dread: A staple of his video-editing, usually used to emphasize tedious elements he's reviewing.
  • Early-Bird Cameo:
    • Snippets of Ring were teased at numerous times in Mandalore's past videos two whole years before he officially covered it, ranging from screenshots of puzzles here and there, to Glug appearing during The Stinger of the The Mystery of the Druids review.
    • Songs from the Ghost Master soundtrack were frequently used in the background of his videos before it got a review in 2023.
    • When he mentions a "haze" in his Pathologic video (uploaded 2018) he briefly shows the character Haze from Anonymous Agony, a game he would review three years later.
  • Everyone Has Standards: During his review of Ring: The Legend of the Nibelungen, Mandy's increasingly fascinated and stupefied describing all the insanity unfolding, except during the section covering the story of Siegmund and how the epilogue piece after ends up supporting incest, at which point Mandy immediately uproars in rage and demands a cut away from it before launching into a rant.
    Mandalore: The only thing we saw for sure happen was a real estate deal and incest. You don't get to give me your essay on the "real story" after seeing that, and then try to tie it into the Pfhor at Tau Ceti and Thetans and whatever else you saw in your episode that day.
  • Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: At the end of his Myth II video, Mandalore is explaining the various connections between the later Bungie games and Myth only to fall into the Pathways.
    Mandalore: Halo is full of all kinds of mysteries like that.
    Cortana: [as Mandy kills Keyes] The Master Chief has gone rampant!
    Mandalore: Wait, "gone Rampant"? But I thought only... uh-oh. Oh for Christ's sake, is Gnop safe? It's actually just a ball right, it doesn't mean any— [realizes the ball is part of the Bungie logo] Oh g—
  • False Cause: Anonymous Agony has Loading Screens, despite the game being a light RPG Maker project that loads nigh-instantly; in fact, you can sometimes spot the game loading the map before transitioning to the loading screen. Mandalore brings up that the game's creator specifically added fake load times into his game because "all the best games have loading screens", a reasoning that elicits nothing but utter confusion.
  • False Flag Operation: Sseth recounts playing with Mandy in Supreme Commander, and how he loves to pull tactics like this in multiplayer games alongside a healthy dose of Gaslighting, primarily because it pisses everyone the hell off. It actually is so bad that free-for-all game modes are banned when playing with Mandy because it simply gets too stressful.
  • Flat "What": In his review of War Front: Turning Point he lets out one of these when a scene of Americans and Germans being all buddy-buddy post-WWII cuts suddenly to one of the main characters being shot dead by an enemy agent. He lets out another only a few minutes later when the hero pistol whips the sexy Russian villainess unconscious in the ending cinematic before it cuts to the victory parade.
    Mandalore: OK, who made this game? Digital Reality based in Hungary... OK, this is making more sense. <BANG> What?
  • Foreshadowing:
    • During his Marathon review, he mentions that thinking too hard about certain things would lead you on "pathways into darkness", and while talking about the changes to the minimap in Aelph One he mentions that there's "plenty of other pathways into darkness to follow". Cue his next video being a review of Pathways into Darkness, with this also foreshadowing his discussion of the fact that Marathon may be a Stealth Sequel to Pathways.
    • During his Myth review, he makes the same mention that analyzing some of the unexplained lore would lead to "pathways into darkness". His next video on Myth II uses the sequel's added context to explore the potential connections between the Myth, Pathways, and Marathon series.
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus: In his The Mystery of the Druids video, there is a brief one before The Stinger that shows a screenshot of Anonymous Agony with Lowry placed into the image. This could also be an Early-Bird Cameo as Mandy would make an Anonymous Agony video a year later.
    • Similarly, when he's discussing the visuals of Pathologic, he brings up that the drab coloration and foggy draw distance make it feel like "you're living in a haze." When he says 'haze', an opaque image of Haze Stratos, the Player Character of Anonymous Agony, briefly appears in the corner of the screen. He brings this up at the end of the Anonymous Agony video.
  • Gameplay and Story Integration: He generally likes it when games go out of their way to try and tie the story and gameplay together, though it really depends on the context. For example, he gives praise to the big twist of Arx Fatalis, because it incorporates the main characters Dull Surprise and leveling mechanics into the story by revealing he was essentially a god-like being designed to help save the world, and was given amnesia and the ability to grow fast to make sure he did his job, which is why him sounding bored and detached fits. On the flip side, he complains about the Drakken race from Endless Legend, because they're supposed to be focused on keeping the peace between the other factions, but the game's attempt to stay true to this makes them frustrating to play with since it punishes you for more or less playing the game due to the fact that other factions will essentially bully you for trying to do anything.
  • Go Mad from the Revelation: To say that the game Ring broke him during his stream of it is a bit of an understatement. In his defense, it probably wouldn't have had the effect on him that it did if he was allowed to save the game in a game where you have to start over from the very beginning every time you die. In an adventure game where it's very easy to do so and has incredibly obtuse puzzles, after a certain point, he just starts losing it.
  • Guide Dang It!: He criticizes the opening of System Shock 2 for doing a poor job helping guide the player through the character build system, which tries to build it into the setting by having the player make choices on the characters military background, but doesn't communicate how that will impact the player's skills and build. He comments that the game doesn't have any "best" builds, but it is easy to start with a terrible one, to the point the player can't even use a simple pistol at the start.
  • Halloween Episode: Starting in 2020, around Halloween, Mandy will upload a review of a game that is bound to make people feel like they were sent through a bizarre fever dream, because according to him, "a cosmic horror hiding under something innocuous is perfect for Halloween." So far, this applies to his videos on The Mystery of the Druids, Anonymous Agony, both Ring games and Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2013.
  • Hidden Depths: Aside from his video game reviews, Mandalore is also a rather skilled jam-maker. Also, that Ear Wormy end credits song to his The Mystery of the Druids review? He wrote it.
  • Hurricane of Puns: Mandalore makes two brief ones about a character who looks like Elton John in his Dead Space 3 review.
    There was a Runaway Train, and I guess you could call Isaac a Rocketman... The necromorphs do fall under the Circle of Life, just... not very well.
    (later in the review) So, Issac tells Ellie that Buzz Lightyear will never fly again, because he's sold them out to the Pinball Wizard, and she's still upset.
  • Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: The player character in Fire Warrior seems to suffer from this despite Mandalore pointing out that in the actual tabletop game, Tau weapons are designed to be particularly accurate compared to most other factions. As he put it, the only way to explain the game's poor aim is, "the gun is drunk."
  • It's Hard, So It Sucks!:invoked Discussed during his Pathologic 2 video. Mandalore points out that despite how good he felt the game is, game journalists gave it negative reviews because it was "too hard", despite the game being both designed that wayinvoked and having plenty of options to adjust it if you get stuck. He comments how odd he finds it that the critics take away only the difficulty and not the story, characters, or setting, and recommends players give it a try to see what they think.
  • Japandering: Discussed in the Shogo: Mobile Armor Division review. While Mandalore does enjoy mecha shows like Patlabor, he can't wrap his head around how anyone could enjoy moe Slice of Life series like K-On!. He also notes how the in-game models are a crude imitation of the anime art-style which clash heavily with the more realistic level design.
  • Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Laughing Mad:
    • In his Marathon review when mentioning the assumption that the game is a "masterpiece of pacing and consistency" he starts slowly chuckling before cackling and explains the problems with several of the game's levels.
    • He also does this upon finishing Ring II: Twilight of Gods as that game's credits roll in his video covering both Ring games. Considering that Mandalore went through what can be best described as Moon Logic-flavored brain poison, it's more than understandable.
  • Mind Screw: Fittingly, the ending of his review of Marathon Infinity is this, cutting him off mid-sentence as he is about to start talking about the various references and influences the trilogy had on Halo to present a compilation of strange, Body Horror filled animations of the Security Officer, clips from other Youtubers videos on the trilogy, random lines from Durandal's point-of-view discussing the game, and other things, ending with a clip of Ross Scott saying "There is no escape", to which Mandalore responds "Yeah, that's fair".
  • Mood Whiplash: Seen is most of his videos, but it's observed the best in his Pathologic 2 review.
  • Moon Logic Puzzle: One of the most recurring things he mentions in reviews of adventure games. In reviews such as Ring, Mystery of the Druids, and Limbo of the Lost he often has to stop and point out the sheer illogical choices he had to make just to beat the game.
  • More Dakka: According to the E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy review, every gun would benefit from having two firing modes: full auto and fuller auto.
  • Nightmare Retardantinvoked: Discussed in Myth II with regards to the Myrkridian. The original game framed them as a race so horrific that a mere reminder of their existence drives the villain into a blind rage. The gangly bat people introduced in the second game are so goofy looking that Mandalaore simply cannot take them seriously as a threat. Mandalaore also notes that he gets what the developers were trying to go for and that having them show up was kind of inevitable, but making the Myrkridian appear at all while still making them live up to how they're built up in the first game would've been a challenge even for the best of developers.
  • "No. Just… No" Reaction: Has this response to "Legion: The Legend of Excalibur" and its gameplay as, while usually a supporter of So Bad, It's Good games, he points out that the aforementioned game is his well past his limit and doesn't even humor the possibility of there being anything redeeming about the gameplay with how buggy, torturous, and grindy it is.
  • Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: He was at one point the world record holder for a Limbo of the Lost speedrun, simply because no one else had attempted it. The second someone else did, they had a PC setup designed specifically to avoid the game's many crashes and beat his record by 45 minutes.
  • Nothing Is Scarier:
    • A commonly discussed idea in his horror game videos is the strength of using silence and darkness to make things scarier. While he likes Dead Space, he cites its opening as being disappointing because instead of building up the appearance of the Necromorphs, they appear in an over the top and loud way that hurts the tension.
    • Discussed in his Myth II video with regards to the Myrkridia. They don't appear in the original game, but the lore builds them up to be nightmarish abominations so evil and cruel that even the Darkness refuses them. Mandalore found their appearance in the sequel to be underwhelming as the gangly bat-people couldn't live up to the hype.
  • Not So Stoic: Sometimes his general affect, usually rather detached, breaks. In his Legion review it's just for a moment, to exclaim that the game is terrible. Cabela's Dangerous Hunts has him audibly incredulous for about half the video.
  • Ominous Visual Glitch: Happens a couple times in his Marathon 1 and 2 reviews when he hints at plot points that would be shown in Infinity.
  • Pet-Peeve Trope: He hates games with slide puzzles, among other things.
  • Recycled Soundtrack: Reviews released in October (and sometimes a day or so before) will use the opening theme from Goosebumps (1995) during the intro.
  • Review Ironic Echo: The Cold Open for his review of The Callisto Protocol focuses on an in-game sign that reads "Midtown," which if anything is slightly nicer than his final opinion of the game.
  • Running Gag:
    • Whenever someone is electrocuted in a game he's reviewing, expect the scream of Marv being shocked in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York to play.
    • For Warhammer 40,000 related games, the Inquisition tends to interrupt Mandalore while accompanied by the theme of the Soul of Cinder. Heck, in his Total War: Warhammer II video, he brings it back again when discussing the Skaven and how the Empire refuses to acknowledge them.
    • When an older game he covers is listed on GoG, there's a chance he's had some input in either having it listed or getting a patch put out for it, and each time he mentions it he includes lavish artwork of his avatar bartering with them, with GoG represented as a cabal of purple-robed mages using dark magic to resurrect long-dead games.
    • Related is a running joke about how bad Chaos is gameplay wise in any Warhammer 40,000 or Warhammer Fantasy game, ranging from poorly designed, to being not fun to fight. Expect something along the lines of him saying he wasted his time with Chaos as a recurring joke.
    • Mandy has a cheeky running gag of inserting subtle sound clips from Gachi meme videos into his videos. Popular ones include: "Fuckin' slaaaves! Get your ass back here!", "Huh? You like that?", "Oh my shoulder!", "I ripped my fucking pants!" and Eric Michaels/Gay Makaay's scream.
    • If a squad-based RPG allows the player to rename their party members, expect Mandalore's crew to consist of characters in his favorite reviews, such as Durandal, Haruspex, Briggs, or Lowry/Serstan, etc...
    • For videos released after his Dead Space 3 review, John Carver's incredulous "What? What does that mean?" would occasionally show up whenever Mandalore encounters weird plots and/or akwardly-written narratives.
    • Mentions of games running on the Dark engine's fanmade successor, NewDark, will almost always be followed by a brief snippet of a raven cawing.
  • Same Plot Sequel: Criticizes F.E.A.R 2 heavily for this, stating that the game's plot as a whole is almost beat-for-beat the same as the first game only with a shock value Rape as Drama added to the end.
    You could just play F.E.A.R 1 again and read a doujin right after it, and have a much better experience.
  • Screams Like a Little Girl: A brief cutaway gag in the Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain review when his door creaks open with a skeleton reaching into the room. He'd repeat this gag in his Anonymous Agony review.
  • Shout-Out:
  • Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: Invoked several times during his Space Rangers HD review. Pretty much every time he tries to explain some particular element of the gameplay it will lead to him also trying to explain the elements relevant to said element and eventually end up somewhere in the game that has nothing to do with what he was originally trying to talk about.
  • Take That!:
    • In his review of DUSK, he says that the game "pays respectful homage to other games, not dumps on them while being a much worse one." The box-art of Duke Nukem Forever quickly passes by as he says this.
    • When describing the Bretonnia faction in Total War: Warhammer II, he describes them as beating the commoners into submission and never questioning things, then comparing them North Korea and ResetEra.
    • During his review of the Gothic remake demo, he compares the protagonist's constant narrating of everything going on to something from a cartoon for small children. Up pops Dora, Blue, and Ruby Rose.
    • For his Anonymous Agony video, he jokes about how unsurprising it would be that the other cops aren't sympathetic to Craig's interest in a case that nearly got his wife killed if said cops were from the city. Later, when Haze feeds one of his victims' corpse to a group of dogs, Mandalore suggests using pigs would be faster while putting the same cops on the screen again.
    • A more playful example, but in his "Legion: The Legend of Excalibur" video, the game's tutorial likens Arthur's swords skills prior to getting the titular sword to that of a girl, which Mandalore offhandedly comments "A girl King Arthur? That will never catch on".note 
  • Tempting Fate: At the start of the Pathways Into Darkness video, Mandalore stumbles while trying to read the name of the modder who made the game playable, "W'rknacnter". He then says he hopes he doesn't have to say the name any more. The later Marathon videos would include further discussion of the W'rknacnter.
  • This Is Gonna Suck: After completing his Ring review, Mandalore explains there is a sequel but despite years of effort he has never been able to get it running, except this time he finally succeeded. His response is subdued horror on realizing that he has to play it for the review, as the chances of ever getting it to run again are probably near zero.
  • Uncertain Audience:invoked One of his main points about Ring is that the game doesn't have any real target audience, which is why he is surprised it even exists. It's a very loose adaptation of The Ring of the Nibelung, a very in depth story that gets turned into a Point-and-Click Game set in space, with complicated puzzles, and a plot that is overly confusing to follow because of the source material and direction of the game, yet it's also almost childishly comedic in how it tells the story, with humor and imagery that isn't really aimed at a mature audience, while having little depth as a game to make it seem like it is meant to be hardcore. He outright asks who its meant for, since kids would be too confused and weirded out by the game, yet adults would be dealing with childish elements, on top of being such a mechanically bland game.
    Okay I have to ask - who or what was Ring made for? The dialogue and theme seem way, way to heavy for kids, but there are so many certified Looney Tunes moments too, all while telling a German opera of fantasy story in a science fiction skin with large parts of the story either removed or completely changed to make the go forward. The budget on display is so high for what this is, but even now knowing the story of Ring, and getting the gist of what is supposed to be happening in scenes, it's still a lot of nonsense if you don't know the story. It becomes impossible to follow, and don't forget these are stories inside a story, which is even more of a fever dream that's never elaborated on.
  • Unusual Euphemism: For some reason, he refers to GOG as "the Polish Information Network"note 
  • Useless Useful Non-Combat Abilities: He finds System Shock 2's Repair skill utterly worthless, saying it makes Deus Ex Swimming look like Fallout Speech. Then he takes it back, calling the comparison "too psychotic".
  • Weaksauce Weakness: Admits blatantly that slide puzzles during his Ring review are his Kryptonite as he can't quite comprehend the idea of them easily and end up just frustrating him for wasting his time.
  • We Want Our Jerk Back!: He doesn't outright say it, but his disappointment over the change of voice actor and attitude of Alberich's character — one of the highlights of the original game for his Card-Carrying Villain status and how memeable he is — in Ring II is so palpable it ends up adding to the crimes the game had done to his sanity.
  • We Would Have Told You, But...: Invoked and trollingly so, as his reviews of the Myth games doesn't mention Bungie's involvement in both games at any point until the very end of the second game's video, at which point he milks the connection for all its worth with a massive Gainax Ending.
  • Wham Line: When explaining how complex the plot of Marathon Infinity gets, Mandy starts with explaining the story has jumped to an alternate timeline. Then he explains the bad news.
    Well, unfortunately... we're currently on the fifth timeline.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: In Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2013, the war against the Ancient One lions is triggered when their leader drags away a father and the main character's brother runs off to save him. As the final cutscene plays out, Mandy notes they never found the man or even mentioned him.
  • You Look Familiar:invoked Mandy makes an understated comment when first meeting the adult Luke during his Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2013 video, calling to mind he looks a lot like Canderous Ordo.

 
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Anonymous agony

haze is a character hard to take seriously especially when he is swearing in scene that are meant to be taken seriously. in fortunately swearing is his main habit which lead to..this. does this even need explanations? wheteaver. enjoy.

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Sir Swears-a-Lot

Alternative Title(s): Lord Mandalore

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Anonymous agony

haze is a character hard to take seriously especially when he is swearing in scene that are meant to be taken seriously. in fortunately swearing is his main habit which lead to..this. does this even need explanations? wheteaver. enjoy.

How well does it match the trope?

2.33 (3 votes)

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Main / SirSwearsalot

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