Ragging on G4TV: the first five hours

Right. Cinematech is by far the best show on that network, followed by Icons.

Otherwise, it's just so completely terrible. Star Treak? Man Show? That stupid Bill Bellamy show?

What exactly is the point of that network?

what

I caught some of the G4TV coverage of Comic-Con over the weekend.

Correction: I caught some of G4TV's coverage of themselves while they were at Comic-Con over the weekend.

Seriously, when they weren't misnaming characters, they were talking about themselves or generally acting like jacka**es.

I wasn't recording it so I could only watch about 1/2 an hour before I gave up. Watching their E3 coverage was much easier with Tivo as I was able to fast forward through all their crap.

You had the Morgan Webb fantasy too? I am not alone.

I love the fact they have star trek on there. They need to do more of that and get rid of that BIG C jackass, and the Formula D shit.. Don't get me wrong I LOVE cars, and I LOVE cars drifting, but it doesn't belong on a gamer network.

Also, they could do no wrong by doing geek oriented movies instead of all of the damn paid programing. If they were smart they would realize that most of us Geeks have a DVR like device and would record many of those movies to watch during the hours we do watch TV.

And yes, i think we all would like to be made into men by Morgan Webb. or at least beaten senselessly by her. I would settle for either.

I haven't seen a full episode of Attack of the Show in a long time, but I remember it being a lot worse than The ScreenSavers. Once Kevin Rose left AotS, it wasn't tolerable anymore. I guess he's been doing busy with Digg.com though.

I do like most of X-play, but I really wish they'd drop the skits. Why is sketch comedy seen as some sort of great time waster? I remember Colin Quinn's show on Comedy Central did the same thing, and it sucked there too.

There is a problem with re-runs, but that's an inherent problem with TV. Have you ever watched one of those 24 hour news channels for a whole day. It's the same information repeated every couple hours with almost nothing new added.

And it's really a shame, since there is always stuff going on. It just takes too much time to make a TV show out of it.

I can't believe what I'm hearing here. Morgan Webb?! She looks like a horse and has a TERRIBLE personality! I remember when X-Play was Extended Play and was hosted only by Adam. Now THAT was a show. No stupid skits or acting. Just games, game play, and reviews. Anyway, I'm not alone here. My wife thinks Morgan looks like a horse as well.

As for G4 programming, I agree that their E3 coverage was better with my DVR and Icons and Cinamatech rule the roost over there.

I don't watch G4 anymore though. It's been about a month now since I changed my dish package and the air smells better and colors are more vibrant. Coincidence? Maybe. Also, maybe I'm not part of their core demographic because I don't find any of their program worth a dime.

G4: I watch it most of the time I'm watching TV... that and Comedy... Basically, i don't watch much TV.

But G4 shoul only be watched for X-play, Cinematech, and icons (Now called Gamemakers, as Icons was retooled into talking about other pop-culture people like Kevin Smith and shit)Cheat isn't bad, at least it's still Game related.

Every other thing is them.. for some god-forsaken reason, trying to turn into Spike TV ver2. They retooled AOTS it used to be alot more in commone with Screensavers.. now it's like, the Man show without sketches and some tech coverage. Filter, was decent, but now it's terrible, since it's no longer game or tech related, and Beth O. is a hussy compared to Dianne Mizota. Everything else is either re-runs, or not worth watching.

I don't know why they are taking all the tech and game related stuff out of these networks. TechTV, G4.... I mean, MAYBE they had Sub-Zero raitings, and I was the only person watching ScreenSavers.. I don't know... But It's like.. Why did they buy Tech TV, destroy it, and the turn it into the fucking New Spike TV... If I wanted to watch Spike TV, I would. We don't need a Second blue-collar, Manly Man, network.. or if we do, make it on your own time, and give us our geek channel back.

Re: Morgan Webb

"That ain't no woman! It's a man, man!" -Austin Powers

TV networks that are great in theory but terrible in exicution.

G4 is not the only network that fall to this death. MTV was once cool (and I dont mean mall-kid-cool). In the early days MTV not only played music videos, but also had live non-lip-synced performances, and followed through with some innovative programming.

Now, I see G4 taking a condensed life-cylce of the ill-fated network. Where MTV was cool in the early days and sucked later on, G4 sucked in the early days and sucks harder now.

History channel is the real OG on the block! History REPRESENT!

I don't think anybody could've put it better than Michael did when it comes to Chaet. Holy lord if that isn't the crappiest show ever. I'd almost rather watch the XBOX 360 special on MTV again....almost.

Whoa whoa whoa...

Kaiju Big Battel is quality television. Dudes all in foam rubber godzilla style suits pounding the crap out of eachother with backstories and super powers.

What other show has a tag team of giant fighting mexican plantains?

burn23: Star Trek has about as little to do with gamers as those other shows. Sure, there's an indirect link that goes gamer>geek>trekkie, but that doesn't mean Star Trek belongs on what is supposed to be a video game channel. Of course, this probably has a lot to do with the fact that I HATE STAR TREK. But that's not the point. Well, not all of it anyway.

Death to G4; long live TechTV!
G4 is pretty damn awful. Only 4 shows are watchable and 2 of those aren't even original programming: Star Trek :TOS, Star Trek: TNG, X-Play & Cinematech.
Cheat is a joke. Kristen Holt isn't even attractive!!!
The new chick (co-host) on AOTS is cute but doesn't own any opinions of her own and generally knows very little about anything other than innuendo. She's ANOTHER wanna-be "ack(pause)tressssss". But at least she can read and is understandable which is more than I can say for Layla Kayleigh! Al Gore hired this girl?! For what?!!? Oh yeah...THOSE...they are impressive...but I mute the TV everytime she opens her mouth.
The final straw for me was when I saw a "Most Terrifying Video Stunts Gone Wrong EVER! 4" or something like that show up. I immediately turned the TV off and wrote G4 off forever. And I'm not even including "Big C" (douche bag), Fastlane (McG POS) and other such nails-across-the-blackboard. I pray they make G4's death quick...for our sake!

About Cheat! Your wrong it is not the worst show. If you mute it and imagine Kristin Holt sayin "I love you run away with me" it becomes the best show ever! Haha she is gorgeous

http://www.stuffmagazine.com/cover_girls/girl.aspx?id=295 ....Drool

Well thats my opinion....If Kristin Holt hosted the national Curling Championship (dumb!) I'd be captivated.

I miss the days of G4TV.com... Tina Wood and Laura Foy... mmmm

I also have to spread the love of Kaiju Big Battel. It might not be video gaming, but it's amusing to watch. And it's spelled "Battel" because one of their interns misspelled it very early on on some merch, and it stuck because they found it funny.

As for Morgan Webb... based on the few times I've had to deal with her, I'd be afraid of the prospect of having intimate relations with her. She strikes me the type that would claim that any body part that enters her henceforth belongs to her.

You know why Cinematech is the best show on G4. Because they SHUT THE FUCK UP. The show has no host or no narration. It's just clips from video games, which is all a video game channel should be. I also like Cinematech: Nocturnal Emissions, not because it shows more violence and sex than the daytime Cinametech(OK partially), but also because they often show clips of games that haven't been released in the US.
Maybe they could have a show that actually gives video game news, instead of just updates from a chick who clearly knows nothing about games telling me I've just been "fed." If I can spend hours a day on sites like this or IGN, clearly they can enough for 22 minutes.

I was wondering what G4 stood for and wikipedia showed me this "The name "G4" originally stood for the four generations of video games (text, sprites, polygons and textures). However, the form of the name is similar to such computer-age abbreviations as i18n for internationalization and can be considered as intentionally fashionable.
On April 25, 2006, it was reported that G4 is the least viewed basic cable network in America." Haha.

Wow, am I the only one that likes G4tv. I must admit I don't like some of the stuff but X-Play, AOTS, and Icons are good shows. Oh and to whoever said that Formula D doesn't belong on a video game channel, hello, what type of games do a lot of us play, thats right, driving games like Need for Speed and GT4, and drifting is here to stay, I think what better way to get a bigger audience watching than a video game channel where most of the watchers are guys, no offense to the ladies that do watch G4. Anyways I like that channel and while some of the stuff is fluff, would you rather not have a channel with some good shows and content or no channel at all.

Monk

cool, cinematech. they showed one of my games once. that was a little strange, indie developer and all. wish I could watch G4, anything is better than the UK's current state of game shows. is Game Network still running?

Good lord. G4 has got to be the absolutely worst channel ever invented. How did they get enough money to merge with TechTV in the first place?

First off, I am amazed that there is so much love for Cinematech. I consider it great background noise.

AotS needs to just stop. Rather, they ought to expand the entire show into the Loop, without the horrible commentary by K. Par. Or trash the whole thing, re-hire Leo Laporte, Patrick Norton and Jessica Corbin.

X-Play is the only show I find worth watching. No, not for entertainment purposes, but when a person such as myself works at GameStop, it's nice to know what others are rating games.

As for the rest (Star Trek, Filter, Cheat, Icons, Midnight Spank (wtf?), etc.) it needs to be put to rest. Honestly G4, you tried to give new life to a dead horse, and it just stinks.

For now, I watch the Discovery Channel and occasionally ABC Family - but only for Whose Line. Oh yes Ryan, you and your ridiculously big shoes.

Doopliss: "re-hire Leo Laporte, Patrick Norton and Jessica Corbin"

This is a GREAT idea!
Jessica Corbin was a cutie with brains!

I Tivo X-Play.

Otherwise, I have no interest in the channel. I did enjoy some episodes of icons back in the day (particularly the one on Ralph Baer), but I have no use for episodes on Lara Croft or Splinter Cell.

But that's how TV goes for me these days. Many many channels, very few things worth watching. If TV wasn't that way, then there would be no market for PVRs.

"...and is understandable which is more than I can say for Layla Kayleigh! Al Gore hired this girl?! For what?!!? Oh yeah...THOSE...they are impressive...but I mute the TV everytime she opens her mouth."

LOL...I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one. It's either mute or skipping on my Tivo.

Personally, I consider Indian/Persian women (though I'm still not 100% sure what she is) with British-English accents in the "top 5 sexiest combinations on the planet," but hearing her talk is absolutely painful. I don't know if it's just her prompter skills or nervousness, but my brain almost imploded when I first heard her speak. It was so bad that I think the people on the show hired her with the intent of eventually just asking her to bounce up and down for a couple of minutes.

As a coincidence, I actually saw her during her G4 "debut" when she covered St. Patrick's Day at a local bar. I could never hear what she was saying over the crowd/music though...it wasn't until the episode aired that I finally heard her speak. Though I don't remember her being *that* bad during that segment, so I think it's just that she's not good at reading from a prompter. Either that, or I just subconsciously wiped all memories of her speaking in an effort to still kind of like her (although she didn't look friendly at all when she was walking around the bar).

TechTV was awesome and G4's only truly "good" shows with production values worth watching were Pulse and Icons. G4 raped TechTV for its distribution rights, took a machete to anything requiring braincells, and now all that's left is a big steaming pile of mostly unwatchable TV that very, very loosely relates to gaming or technology in any serious manner. AOTS kind of works as entertainment once you give up the idea of actually learning anything new or interesting. I don't know what was up with the latest revamp though...who the hell has ADD so bad that they can actually find time to read the ticker??? The video voicemail just reminds us that freedom of expression is good, but not always useful.

Fortunately, there's always the Discovery Channel (and in HD...*drool*). Still wating for Nat'l Geo in HD.

"...re-hire Leo Laporte, Patrick Norton and Jessica Corbin"

I thought Leo still did Call for Help on G4? Maybe that was a while ago.

Either way, they all still do the "This Week in Tech" podcast and videocast.

http://www.twit.tv

Patrick is also a host on DigitalLive TV.

http://digitallifetv.com

Great internet-based tech shows, pretty much picking up where TechTV left off.

Dear Lord where do I begin? I use to watch G4 but when they started tacking on useless crap like Star Trek and Bonzai (WTF?) I stopped watching. I recently saw the new X-Play (with their new set) and they got even worse! 15 minutes or less of actual games with stupid comedy and another 15 minutes of commercials and straight up comedy skits. I saw the new AOTS and Olivia Munn, while great eye candy, doesn't really have her own opinion.

I don't get the deal with Cinematech, I don't find it interesting. However, I loved Icons, but now it sucks.

G4 should just quietly die and disappear into Oblivion. Where it belongs.

"I do like most of X-play, but I really wish they'd drop the skits."

Are you serious? The skits are the only good parts of the show, as the reviews are typically complete bullshit. If they review an RPG that doesn't begin with "Final Fantasy" they pretty much spend the whole time ragging on it. Anyone remember the Shining Tears review? It looked like a game I would have liked to play, but they didn't really tell me a thing about it as they spent the entire time bitching about how they'd rather be playing Resident Evil 4. And don't forget that 90% of the time regardless of how bad a game is they seem to be incapable of giving it less then a three. And hey, have they mentioned Gamefly lately?

The G4 network is awful. There is nothing on it worth watching other than XPlay. I remember back in the day I could turn on TechTV and there was always something good to watch. Then TechTV and G4 merged and it wasnt bad. A good mix of tech and games. Then slowly it turned bad. Its like Spike TV for prepubuscent boys. I dont want to watch Fastlane or Star Trek. I want interesting shows. Hell, I hated Leo Laporte (he didnt know crap about computing and his answer to everthing is, "install linux on it!"), but at least he was more entertaining than the crap they have now. Attack of the Show looked so promising when they advertised it. Remember the ads? Illegal MP3 sites, hacking, whatever... Naturally the lawyers wont allow it... I could go on and on about how bad G4 is now...

I have to say overall G4 is bad. I admit to watching Pulse and it was informative to a degree and then all of a sudden it turned into thess mindless skits that had nothing to do with video game information.
I don't care what any of you say...Street Fury is worth watching. Now it maybe misplaced by being on G4 but the girls on that show coupled with the tuner cars ..come on. Yeah you could jump on over to MTV and watch Pimp My Ride if you want but at least these guys do it themselves or spend their own money on the upgrades.
Now that other crap...is for the birds. CinemaTech and Icons is ok... but the rest....is worthless

G4's bastardizing their shows. Unless it's X-Play or Cinematech, less than 10% of their broadcasts is actually gaming related.

Electric Playground- Everything covered in this show has much more current coverage than EP does. Sometimes it's hard to swallow that when they feature some games they use footage from old conventions.

ICONS- It's not Icons anymore. It's Game Makers. LAME. Now G4's 'Icons' include Michelle Rodriguez and Kevin Smith. God bless Kevin Smith and non-related Star Trek, but WHERE'S THE VIDEOGAMES?!?

Game Makers is still good but it makes them sound like they're not as important anymore. ON A CHANNEL THAT CALLS ITSELF VIDEOGAME TV.

AOTS is the only show on there that seems to have any real effort put into it. X-Play I love for the little mini-universe they set up, but they need more skits and more characters. AND MORE AIR-TIME, for the love of god, my designated entertainment time cannot last for more than a half-hour without Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb.

G4 is now STAR TREK: The Channel with stuff it was infected with during it's licensing with Spike TV. And Beast Wars.

If they have the gall to put BATTLE B-DAMAN in the mornings they should put the Super Mario Bros. Super Show and Zelda on. At least for a little while, to mock gaming's awesome, awesome past.

They also need to stop schilling those lame "college" programs that want to screw over misguided gamers.

I feel misunderstood as a gamer by the cable channel corporation and demand gaming-related recompense. RECOMPENSE!!! *shakes fist*

I actually posted something after the last G:Phoria (that was my last straw with G4, btw, I used to watch it quite a bit but now I just pop in on occasion and watched the E3 coverage.) on G4tv.com about how shitty the network has gotten over the past couple years, and of course, it was promptly deleted. I don't watch very much tv, but right after the tech tv/G4 merger it was a pretty solid lineup with a good mix of tech and games and slowly but surely, they've turned it into one giant pile of rubbish. It's actually WORSE than Spike. I watched (I forget the name of the show) some show on Spike that covered E3, and I learned more in that half hour broadcast than I think I did in G4's like 15-20 hours of coverage. The host looked kindof like that dude who used to be on "G4TV.COM" towards the end. That show wasn't very good, but really, when I turn on the channel now I wish it was on.

Also, no one else has brought this up, but they got rid of "Videogame TV" in the logo and replaced it with "G4tv.com". It's obvious that they are not aiming for the gamer anymore, but instead the Spike meathead demographic.

X-Play is about the only thing watchable anymore. That new girl who does the feed had me literally yelling at the tv, and I am normally a very calm guy but that girl CANNOT READ. AT ALL. Stop hiring hot girls based only on looks! Come on!

I'm no longer tuning in, and nor are most of the people who used to watch the network. You may bump up ratings a bit by showing Star Trek and The Man Show constantly, but that's a band-aid. Fix the wound. Give us some compelling programming and maybe people will watch the channel again.

It's too the point where I only TiVo the Thursday episode of AotS and skip through it all just to watch Blair Butler's recommendations for comic books. She's a beaut, indeed, but actually knows her shit about comics. And I've actually picked up some of her recommendations and enjoyed the hell out of them.

The rest of the G4TV network is just hell to sit through now (except for maybe Ed the Sock). And, while I've always felt that Kevin Pierra was all right, most of AotS is unbearable.

Really, they should just get it over with and cancel AotS (you can sense that the G4TV programming execs want to). In its place, they should produce an one-hour weekly show with Blair headlining that focuses only on geek culture -- comics, movies, genre TV shows, tech gadgets, etc.. But no more of this "Spike TV/Maxim/FHM/AXE Deodorant/drifting/WTF" BS.

The sex talk/advice on AotS is also damn painful to sit through. In fact, G4TV needs to drop any sex-related talk. They can't pull off Dr. Drew type of material well at all. I saw one AotS episode in which a male intern shaved off his pubic hairs -- WHY THE HELL DID THEY THINK GUYS (the main demographic they are targeting) WOULD WANT TO SEE ANOTHER DUDE SHAVE HIS BALLS?? Now maybe if they had gotten a hot FEMALE intern to shave herself that would have been something, though admittedly crude it would have been.

I am really glad to see that no one here is really bashing Adam, Morgan, and their show. They are funny and talented, and do it consistantly(unlike my spelling). AOTS is alright, but they can't keep talent around it seems.
Remmeber folks, videogame-related anything on tv is still in it's infancy, and will really change once our generation takes over the corporate jobs.

Extended Play>Anime Midnight>Screensavers>Unscrewed(Cinematiq

Everything else, ever, sucked.

T-Bag.

Seconded.

Hell, I remember when I was ten years old and it was still ZDTV. I STAYED into games because during the phase where I stopped watching cartoons on Saturday mornings, I started watching Extended Play in the mornings.

When I met Adam at E3 05, I had him sign a ZDTV shirt. He seemed pleasantly surprised(in an awkward, meeting a D list celeb type way.) to see someone actually bring one of these up.

Oh, and Kirsten Holt...total bitchrag. She basically won't let anyone approach her at E3...ever. It's funny to watch at a distance as she has two big dudes escort her everywhere. Adam and Morgan just walk around the show floor.

I like Aots for Layla and X play for the skits. The worst show on g4 to me was Arena

I don't watch alot of televison. Oh don't get me wrong, my tv is on thirteen hours a day but I'm not watching it. It's mainly there as a time waster. Once in awhile I'll avert my gaze from my computer screen to the tube for some Nick at Nite but other than that it's merely background noise. I used to watch G4 alot but after they redesigned everyone of their shows I virtually stopped. X-Play is now a sad mismash of stupid skits and potty humor. Cheat is now gamefaqs lite. AotS is now for the most part a sad shell of it's former self. Etc...etc...
They should stop showing Formula D, Street Fury and Fastlane altogether or maybe just show half nude asian women dancing for two hours. X-Play and the whole lot should be un-re-tooled AotS should become less sex and more tech. Midnight Spank is well shit. I don't understand it. Their target audience is the 18-25 market but this is also the audience that watches the least amount of tv statistically speaking. Why target an audience that isn't there?

Oh boy. G4. A topic I can go on about forever. Or at least for the length of a decently lengthy comment. Maybe.

X-Play - Great show. Consistent, humorous, and they know their shit. The first show I ever saw on the network and, if it is ever cancelled, it will be the last. X-Play is seriously all that's really keeping me a loyal daily viewer of G4. The potty humor and stupid skits a lot of you are referring to have ALWAYS been there (at least as long as Adam and Morgan have co-hosted the show), so don't think these are new things. Hell, the first episode I ever watched featured Adam being pissed on by a bum. Good times.

Attack of the Show - Decent show that used to be great. When Attack of the Show was The Screen Savers it every TV loving nerd's wet dream. Now it's turned in the direction of the rest of the network (no surprise there, though) and, frankly, I miss Kevin Rose. Kevin Pereira is the only thing holding the show together for me, and Layla Kayleigh can shut her god damn mouth. Right now. I mean it.

Cinematech - Meh. I really never got into this show (which is odd, because I totally LOVED Arena, which was admittedly pretty crappy). There's something about the complete lack of a feeling that Cinematech is actually run by actual people or that those at G4 are actually even aware of its existence on the network pulls it down to just a step above Portal. I mean, seriously... when I watch Cinematech (or watched portal) I always get this image in my head of guys sitting in a control room and noticing that the show is one and saying "How the fuck did that get there?". Maybe its just me, but I seriously have a hard time finding it entertaining.

Cheat - Fuck you. If I wanted tips, tricks, and spoilers I'd bitchslap them out of you dumb bitch.

The Man Show - WTF? Wasn't this funny like 10 years ago? Man Show, meet "test of time". You fail.

Star Trek Version 2.0 - Uhhh. If I wanted fuckheaded chatroom comments while watching TV, I'd watch Fuse.

Formula D - Drift your way right off of my network, please.

Icons - Michelle Rodriguez? Are you effing serious? What ever gave the guys at G4 the idea that a gamer demographic would be even remotely interested in watching Michelle Rodriguez do anything except die on Lost. This show was good when it focused on video game creators, etc.

Filter - Same case as above. When this show was top ten video game countdowns and not just a bunch of random lists it was entertaining. Now it's just worthless and yet another victim of the irritating trend sweeping networks targeted at the 18-34 demographic. In case you were wondering, that trend is known as "shitty".

Electric Playground - Am I the only one who feels really akward when the EP music plays? It seems like such a high energy show with pretty electric hosts and characters, but the lazy techno-ish music just kind of throws it all into neutral and makes me feel like I'm missing some big joke.

Fastlane - I actually like this show, if nothing else for the intentionally cheesy and over-the-top action and plotline. Once I got to see a black guy pistol whip a drug dealer across the face while in a mexican stand off taking place in Mexico, which was following a high-speed car chase involving a hot chick whose car flipped about a dozen times down a hill and was STILL OK... well, let's just say I've accepted Fastlane. But if it actually took itself seriously, I would agree with the general opinion that it is crap.

SHOWS I MISS:

G4TV.com - Third only to X-Play and The Screen Savers. Great hosts, great setup, great game info.

The Screen Savers - BUT WE HAVE AOTS, NOW! Goodie. No. I want TSS back. Those of you who were fans then and now understand why.

Pulse - What happened to the pulse? This show was awesome, and I feel like it really established G4 as a valid video game network. It seemed like a really nice pillar for the video game community to have was an actual news show based on video games. I guess the geniuses at G4 disagree.

Judement Day - Like Electric Playground, but it managed to hit the atmosphere right and focused more on video games than tech. Plus, Tommy Talarico was definately worth watching.

Players - I actually enjoyed watching celebs and the video games they played. Shoot me.

Arena - I actually enjoyed watching geeky teams of gamers play multiplayer games against eachother. Eat me.

Icons, Filter, etc. - The shows that still technically exist but have been bastardized and tainted by corporate ickyness no longer exist in my mind. Miyamoto rest their souls.

So, basically.. I record X-play and and AOTS on my DVR, and catch some of the other *ahem* "worthwhile" shows very occasionally. I skip through large chunks of AOTS, but I try to catch every second of X-Play. I kinda wish TechTV would come back and buy out the salvagable properties from G4.

Rambling done.

I still think the US feed of the station is is better then the Canada peace of crap we got. For example I took at look at the play times of the two major shows G4TTV has and Call for Help gets re shown every 5 hours the same program. The same can be said for ATOS as well.

Even before G4 when the way of titties and Star Trek it's Canada counterpart was crippled then as well doomed to show the same 14 shows everyday. Most of them repeated every 5 hours a day. E3 coverage when they show it they have the real program of it from the US feed (G4TTV for the most part uses the G4 US feed they just edit some of the programs out and replace them with one of the 14 that they are aloud to show in that time frame. It's very noticeable) and they also show a Canada made "pre-game" show after and they switch back and forth for how ever long E3 runs for.

Around half of the programing on G4TTV is Canada made (the tech programming) and a lot of it is very hard to watch. The only reason I see why we have Leo's show here in Canada is because the Canada version of the network has to answer to the CRTC they are the Canada government arm of the TV. You can think of them like our version of Australia's OFLC but they are not as strict, don't rate video games and they have a rule that is quite stupid in this day and age now that in order to keep broadcasting up here in Canada you need to have quite a lot of Canada made programing on tap for show as well. And if you seen Canada made programing quite a lot of it is pure crap just made to air to make the Government's TV arm (CRTC) happy. And we don't get some US shows (reality TV comes on at the same time as the US air date) until the next year. Like for example we are just getting the first season of Robot Chicken this fall and Venture Bros. season 2 will not show up here until January of 2007. I already saw most of the 2nd season of these programs by the way thanks to a computer and a quick internet connection or you can go out and by the DVD's of the program way before the Canada air date. So Canada's TV system in my mind fails FTW. I just wanted to make that clear to the people in the US about our TV system and our version of G4TTV.

Anyways I also can't wait for 10 - 15 years down the road when people like us take over the networks and tell the octagenerians (smart word for old people) "YOU! Off our network!" and be able to truly make G4 rise form the dead back to the way it was before the out of touch hands of dumbasses screwed it up for everybody. And I hope in my country TV in Canada will be come more US styled and no more year or two long waits for some programs to pass government TV customs.

/rant

"Hell, I hated Leo Laporte (he didnt know crap about computing and his answer to everthing is, "install linux on it!"), but at least he was more entertaining than the crap they have now."

Shit man, back in the days of ZDTV with "The Screen Savers" and "Call for Help" Leo Laporte was the baddest mother fucker around.

Call for Help actually stills airs in Canada, Australia, and Google Video.
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=call+for+help

If X-Play is the best original program they've got left(and it probably is, if Icons is dead), then G4 is in real trouble. Why exactly would I want to see two people who didn't actually review the game pretend they did and read someone else's review? I'm not doubting that the hosts play games, but clearly they're not playing the games they review...everytime a video clip shows the character's name, it's always "xplayintern" or some other variation. Video game reviews are flawed as a rule--with games lasting 6-40 hours, who has the time to play them completely and compose a worthwhile review in time? I don't particularly blame X-Play for this, but does it have to be on TV?

The "jokes" are atrocious, and by the way, we get it--you're liberals. Nothing says "Question Authority" like dressing up as jedi and zombies to talk about video games. Fight the power!

MookieFL:

That's not totally correct. I read an interview with Adam Sessler about this very topic.

Apparently, they DO review several of the games on the show. They simply don't have the time to review every one. Most of the titles that are smaller than, say, Resident Evil 4 or Grand Theft Auto, are shipped to various reviewers in various locations to be reviewed. I'm sure quite a bit of it is done by interns as well, but they don't try to hide this fact at all. As you said, they show the usernames as "Intern" a lot, and they actually show interns playing the games quite often.

I'm also fairly certain, though, that Adam and Morgan DO play most of the games that come on the show, if nothing else than for enough of the game to be credible when talking about it.

Waaaaaaaaaay-back I used to watch the precursor to the precursor to X-Play, it was called GameSpot TV (although I don't know if it had any affiliation to the Website, or if the fact that the website existed was the reason they changed the name.) GameSpot TV was hosted by a young Adam Sessler , and his co-host, Kate Botello (who, unlike Adam, actually wrote some of the reviews for the show) and was filmed at the Sony Metreon arcade. Fast-forward to the dawn of TechTV, the show stayed but was renamed to Extended Play.

All was welol in the world. The show relied only on game related features for comedy (the best one I can remember was a feature titled "The good, the bad, and the shitty," which was about a trio of N64 games reviewed in the same episode, the shitty was of course referring to Superman 64.)

And then Kate Botello left to follow her dream of acting on Broadway, and the show was never the same. Adam actually hosted Extended Play alone for a while, until of course, the show was changed to fit the "X-treme" marketing culture and was cahnged into X-Play.

Fuck Morgan Webb. I want Kate Botello back.