Is "better" a short form of "I'd better"?
Native speaker’s answer
Rebecca
Yes, here the full sentence should be "I'd better made this look good" but he drops "I'd" here since it is already implied by him just saying "better make this look good" as he is talking to himself. Usually when writing, it would not be grammatically correct to drop this phrase, however in spoken English, this is common when people are speaking very quickly.