Gaming G4: waste or worth it?

[Dragonboym2]

[COLOR=Blue]Hey out there! Is G4 a good channel to watch, or is it just a pile of fluff, like so many reality shows? Well, I think it has it's moments. The shows I like to watch on it are:

X-PLAY: I find this show informitve and witty. Adam is really funny, and Morgan..she's pretty smart, and not to mention pretty. :D I like the hilierious skits and bits they do as well. But they give most games I like "A three, out of five." They better not gave DBZ Budokai 3 a three out of five. Vegeta might find out. And he WON'T be happy(Run, Adam! Run! Run for your life!!)

Players: I had no idead so many celebritys played games. From musicans, actors, ans sports stars, this game looks at what celebs like to play games. I had no idea Robin Williams was such an avid gamer. I liked the one at The E3. Some guys and girls of the WWE were promoting their new games. Who was there...Ray Mysterio, The Big Show, Triple H, Stacy, Trish, and Boston's own John Cena. He's a big gamer, too. Cool.

Electric Playground/Judgement day: These two shows are mostly the same. Tommy Tellorico and Victor Lucas look at games, talk to game developers, and even look at action figures, and comics. Pretty good, but needs a little more variaity.

Cinematech: Footage and cut scenes from all games of all kinds. From the latest, to the oldest. To the bad, to the good. I like seeing stuff from new games.

Filter: The top ten list in games, gadgets, gear, and other words that don't begin with the letter G. Diane Mizota is pretty too. And she looks great in those outfits she wears.

G4TV: This show is hip, quirky, and just plain fun. It's a interactive talk show where veiwers can send in comments via e-mail, or call in. The hosts are pretty cool too. Tina is the brains, Geoff is new, but he ads valuable input to the show, and Laura...Laura..Laaauraa...Well, she's INSANE. (No hard feelings, Laura you know we love you.) She's got alot of energy, and is very humorous too. She makes me laugh.

What do you guys think?

"KAMEHAMEHA!"

Dragonboym2[/COLOR]

[Jonexe]

I can honestly say I never, ever watch that channel anymore.

I used to watch it a lot, before they cut most of the TechTV people.

X Play - I find my views damn near always the completely opposite of their's, Adam acts like a complete moron, and the only thing Morgan has going for her is her good looks.

Players - The show annoys me. I don't care about the life of the rich and famous, and what games they like to play.

Electric Playground/Judgement Day - These two are not TOO bad, at least... not as bad as the others... the only problem I really have with Judgement Day is they never really seem to show games I actually enjoy; but that's not really the show's fault. I do like the reviews on hardware, and I DO find myself agreeing with most of what they say on the games I have played. All together decent shows that I really don't have any major qualms about.

Cinematech - It's... ok... I get bored of it after the first time I've seen the episode -_-';; let along the tenth.

Filter - That show has some of the absolute worst writing I've ever seen. Who ever writes the hostess' lines really... really needs some help. The lines are not witty, or funny; more over just annoying. Though, it IS kinda cool to see all the weird Top Ten topics they come up with, and the ability to vote on them.

G4TV - I really haven't found a point to this show. 90% of the time it has nothing to do with games, and when it does... it's just boring. That, and the hosts annoy me to no end.

The only show I really, really liked was Screensavers. That was great. A little bit of games, a little bit of tech, good hosts, decent humor... BUT OH WAIT! G4 fired the good hosts. Bleh.

[Semjaza]

They ruined The Screensavers. X-Play has gotten even more lame than I ever imagined it would. All the other shows are not even worth discussing.

The only exception is Icons, which I think is well done and enjoyable.

[Vatch]

I agree with Generic NPC #3 on the fact that Screensavers had gotten lamer. But all together it's a good channel. I still find X-Play to be funny, and I love Icons, so what if I have to suffer a few bad shows, they make it all worth while for me

[2010DigitalBoy]

Screen Savers was always lame. Its gone now, though, and Attack of the Show is here, which is practically the same, except I like it!

There are a few shows you guys didn't mention

Cheat: this how has gotten much better without Corey as the host (though i liked him more) The used to do cheat codes, but they were practically useless. Now they do strtegies, which is cool, because its much easier to know what to do when you see it than when you read the guide.

Anime Unleashed: Some of the shows they play on here, and it saves me from buying the DVDs.

Unscrewed with Martin Seargent: CRAP. I am SO glad they got rid of this.

Arena: I love this show. I get to see how the real pros play, and it helps tteach me what to do.

As for the other shows

XPlay: God, I love these shows! Even if the actual reviews totally suck, I just watch the show to get a good laugh.

Electric Playground: I dont really like this show, because no one ever seems to know what the freak the're talking about.

Judgement Day: While I love the fact that they give their own opinions on games, they need a bigger variety of reviewers.

Cinematech: It depends on the episode...

Filter: This show sucks. Period. I have nothing more to say. Oh, and I think that the top twn lists are rigged.

G4TV: I really like this show because the girls are really funny and I like thaat they talk to real people, and the fact that those girls actually play video games is cool.

[Semjaza]

The Screen Savers was actually intelligent and had good information when it was on Tech TV. Perhaps it was always "lame", but now it's just useless and crappy.

[Shinmaru]

The few episodes of Icons that I've seen have been pretty cool. I enjoyed watching X-Play when it was Extended Play, and Kate Botello was hosting the show with Adam Sessler, but the show went downhill after the name change. I haven't watched it in a long, long time, so I have no idea whether it's still the same at the moment.

Those are the only shows that I've ever bothered to watch on TechTV.

[Jonexe]

[quote name='Generic NPC #3']The Screen Savers was actually intelligent and had good information when it was on Tech TV. Perhaps it was always "lame", but now it's just useless and crappy.[/quote]

I completely agree. It was the only show I actually felt like I GOT something out of watching...

I really, really wish G4 wouldn't have taken over TechTV... TechTV was oh-so-much better.

[Semjaza]

[QUOTE=Shinmaru]The few episodes of Icons that I've seen have been pretty cool. I enjoyed watching X-Play when it was Extended Play, and Kate Botello was hosting the show with Adam Sessler, but the show went downhill after the name change. I haven't watched it in a long, long time, so I have no idea whether it's still the same at the moment.

Those are the only shows that I've ever bothered to watch on TechTV.[/QUOTE]

I liked Extended Play... Now it's if they told the hosts to be "cool", which they're simply not capable of. I like Sessler, but he's a total dork with a funny voice, making him act edgy doesn't work. The girl (I forget her name) seems to put on this act where she acts ditzy and innocent, yet knows just what to say about the games. Bleh. I cringe through most of it when I happen to catch it on TV.

I don't totally hate the show, they gave SMT: Nocturne a 5/5.

Also, Tommy Talarico is a total goon that thinks way too highly of himself.

[LoneTecko]

I really don't care I just like some of the shows, I always watch anime unleashed Gad Guard, Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, Gungrave, and Read or Die series I like watchin Jugement Day because they help me on buyin games I got pissed when vic and Tom gave that new Musashi game an adverage score also X-play has it's up's and down's sometimes but still cool, they did ruin the screensavers, and CHEAT! the only reason people watch CHEAT! I guess is because of Kristian Holt because she's hot especialy on the Halo 2 CHEAT! when she was wearin a mini skirt that's just stupid, they took out Cory Rouse what's up with that he was funny he shoulda stayed on but G4 is good and bad sometimes G4tv.com the show is sweet mostly my favorite.

(I love Diane Mizota she cute!)

[Gelgoog Pilot]

Not sure reality Tv is a good genre for this channel...or well what you claimed them to be in the first post...The way times are now...reality Tv is that crap like fear factor. These...hmmm I'd call them like talk shows which is basically what they do...I don't watch it anymore...I had a big falling out with it as others have stated.

I do like Icons...and I can still get a kick out of X-play. Cheat...well cheat I always liked...I sort of miss it being all cheats...I find that cheating is just fun, but best to do it after you've beaten the game fairly otherwise, you actually USE the cheats your first time through.

[2010DigitalBoy]

THE SCREEN SAVERS DOES NOT EXIST!!!! How many times do I have to say it? It was REPLACED by Attack of the Show, which is much cooler.

Also, there is another show that people are forgetting about. Sweat, the sports show. Personally, I don't care for it.

Also, I forgot to mention that I think Icons is a really cool show and helps me organize my knowledge of select series. Sometimes, though, they forget to mention certain games. In the Final Fantasy episode they didn't mention the tactics games, and they could have at least brought up the buhmilion FF spin-offs square has done.

ALSO, their coming out with a new show thats all about cars and babes. Snore.

Oh, and Galgoog Pilot, what reality show are you tlking about?

[Semjaza]

[quote name='ThatOneOddDude']THE SCREEN SAVERS DOES NOT EXIST!!!! How many times do I have to say it? It was REPLACED by Attack of the Show, which is much cooler.[/quote]

I've already read that the first time you said it and I knew of the change weeks ago. What does it matter if it doesn't exist in name any longer? They retooled the show and changed the name, just like they retooled the show and kept the name before. Who cares, honestly? A dislike of what they've done to the show since its original incarnation is still a decent enough reason to dislike the station, regardless of the name change. They could call it "Farty McCrap" and it still wouldn't affect that.

Being much cooler than the last version of the show doesn't take much work. It still is subpar.

[Manic Webb]

I miss Fresh Gear and Call For Help so much...

When I first heard about the G4/TechTV merger (which turned out to be a total acquisition on G4's part), I thought it'd be an okay change of pace. After all, neither network had that good of a line-up. TechTV had some good shows (X-Play, Future Fighting Machines, Fresh Gear, Call For Help, the original Screensavers), but they were too few to stretch for an entire day.

Then G4 totally screwed TechTV over by canning all but a handful of their shows. They kept Robot Wars and Anime Unleashed simply because they had pre-established fanbases. Then they got rid of everything except for Screensavers, X-Play, and Unscrewed. Then when it became abundantly clear that Martin Sargeant didn't like games at all, he was canned. Screensavers was warped beyond recognition, until they just had to rename it Attack of the Show.

And it's not like G4's original programming was [i]all that[/i] to begin with. Electric Playground and Judgement Day would be decent shows if Vic wasn't some frighteningly generic spikey-haired, goateed hipster tool (like Carson Daly with a melon-shaped head, basically), and Tommy didn't have his own head shoved half-way up his arse. Diane Mizota is hot and all, but Filter just feels like such a waste of time. Cheat has all the convenience of a strategy guide, with less than half of the usefulness. Arena? Sure, let's watch other people frag, rather than actually play the game ourselves. Icons is probably the only good show G4 had, as it's basically an in-depth history lesson in the world of videogames.

In the end, the G4-TechTV "merger" turned into G4 with anime and X-Play. And really, that's all I watch. I never got to watch Extended Play (I didn't get TechTV until after they had just changed the name), so I can't comment on that. I do like that Adam is such a huge nerd, and Morgan is presently the only intelligent woman on the entire G4 network. Plus Morgan has my last name. You can't go wrong there. Their reviews tend to be a bit iffy (although I've always considered a 3/5 rating or higher basically meaning it's a good game), but I tend to agree with them on most games. It's also a fun show to watch. My only gripe is that G4 has been influencing their schedule by forcing them to dedicate entire episodes to [i]pre[/i]views of recently released "big name" games, like Half-Life 2. I get it; it's a good game. Do I have to watch a full half-hour of them hyping it up before they've actually reviewed it?

[Gentle]

Most of the shows that come on G4 now aren't really worth watching. They're mainly about games: what's good/bad about them and who plays them. Every now and then, X-Play or Robot Wars would come on and I would watch it but then X-Play became too uninteresting. The reviews are three or four for most every game they show, and they make Adam too dumb to be funny anymore.

Then Robot Wars was okay but to me they never did anything. I could go to a lot of places and see smart kids with joysticks controlling little machines on wheels and crash them. It's all the same.

I usually just catch Anime Unleashed because of the anime and there's literally nowhere to get any here except Yu-Gi-Oh and DBZ.

[Doc]

[font=Century Gothic][size=1][color=darkslategray]^_^ Manic hit my opinions nail right on the head.[/color][/size][/font]

[font=Century Gothic][size=1][color=darkslategray]I had worshipped TechTV when my cable company first started offering it, just afte the "Extended Play" name change. I had lived off of the Call for Help, Screensavers, X-Play, Future Fighting Machines, & Fresh Gear. I had learned so much, and it had forced me into teaching myself more info, such as HTML.[/color][/size][/font]

[font=Century Gothic][size=1][color=darkslategray]I loved Screensavers and Call for Help, mainly because it was intellegent, comidic, and interesting at the same time. I also felt that I would learn something new each time I watched it. ^_^ Plus they had LEO!!![/color][/size][/font]

[font=Century Gothic][size=1][color=darkslategray]Then there's things like Future Fighting Machines. Who doesn't wanna know how a land mine or tomohawk missle works?[/color][/size][/font]

[font=Century Gothic][size=1][color=darkslategray]All in all, I'm pissed that the only great shows on TechTV are gone, and even more pissed that I've gone the last 3 months without it. My cable company has taken it off the catagory it was shown on... and is now offereing it for an additional $5 a month. _o_ I can't afford that for ONE CHANNEL and 3 other crap channels I"ve never heard of![/color][/size][/font]

[Final Remix]

[font=comic sans ms][color=blue]I gotta agree completely with your post in its entirety, Doc. I actually had the luxury of getting TechTV a few months before the Extended Play / X-play shift.
I was hooked on G4TV for about a half-hour, until i realized that their review shows seem more like hype/ads for the games rather than "We really hated this game because... and the gameplay was..." etc. I had TechTV programmed as a favorite on my old GeroldG.I. cable box. Even after the X-Play shift, it seemed more like a sitcom that still reviewed games. I remember they actually had a speed-episode where they swore to tear through a month's worth of releases/previews/reviews over the summer. It was amazing. They had 22 mintues (commercial breaks, remember?) and still managed to back-up their reviews and opinions for over 30 games. I stuck to their reviews like glue. To me, their scores and articles were spot-on.
[I]Besides, who can forget the Intern-wars?[/I]
Screensavers, Call for Help, Robot Wars, F.F.Machines, and all the other TechTV-pure shows were my favorite of all time.

the G4-Tech """merge""" really gets me steamed. I was skeptical at first, but saw at they were keeping the Screensavers, etc. I thought that it couldn't be too bad, but watched as the G4 crept over the Tech- and all hell broke loose. I still try to catch X-play when possible. It's still fairly decent, and in some of their viewer-mail segments they actually flamed G4. It was a beautiful thing.
But like all beautiful things, the end must come...

[i]everything that has a beginning has an end[/i] (the only good line from an otherwise sub-par movie.)[/font][/color]

[Gelgoog Pilot]

[QUOTE=ThatOneOddDude]

Oh, and Galgoog Pilot, what reality show are you tlking about?[/QUOTE]

Oh well the first post states that these are all reality shows and asked us if we thought they were all fluff like the others...I jsut said that they aren't what I'd call a reality show now-a-days...

[Dragonboym2]

[COLOR=Blue]Actully Geloogpilot,, I was saying that all reality TV was fluff. Like "The Simple Life", "Surviver", and God knows what else. I wasn't saying that G4 was fluff, just those awful reality shows. If I see one more reality show, I'll scream. [/COLOR]

[Final Remix]

[IMG]http://www.thegamespage.com/staff/remix/Reality.jpg[/IMG]
[COLOR=Blue][FONT=Comic Sans MS]Tada! now scream. :animesmil [/FONT] [/COLOR]

[Dragonboym2]

[I]Tada! now scream. [/I]

[COLOR=Blue]Ahem.
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!

Thank you.

"KAMEHAMEHA!"

Dragonboym2[/COLOR]

[Desbreko]

[color=#4B0082]*looks at the last two posts* ... I don't know whether I should delete those on account of them kind of being spammy, or just point and laugh. ... *points and laughs*

Though seriously, let's try not to completely let ourselves go, eh? I don't even get basic cable, but I was enjoying the discussion about the various shows all the same. ^_^[/color]

[Foshi Foci]

I've been watching this channel sense the days of ZDTV. This is the only channel thats really worth watching on cable. The Screen Savers is now Attack of the Show and it is decent, but it won't ever reach the level of the days of Leo and Pat. X-Play/Judgment Day are good for reviews and humor. Icons is a great show that offers a lot on the video game industry/history. G4TV.COM the Show is good, but it should be an hour long not just thirty minutes. This way they could talk about all of the major releases in a week and not have to wait until the following week to talk about games a week old. This is a good channel with a lot of different content. Some of the hosts might seem stupid, but its all done in good humor.

[50 cent]

First of all G4 ever since they joined up with tech tv I think it has gotten lame, but still is a good channel if you want some game reviews or news on some of the latest games that you might not hear about from any where else. You don't watch it because of lame lines that the hosts say you watch it for the reviews and news. Honestly I don't really like any of the hosts from screensavers, but still thats my opinion, I actually like the g4tv.com hosts better but there just about the same show just g4tv.com is more about games and screensavers is more computers and stuff like. Well I mostly watch the game review shows and the latest game news shows. To tell you the truth don't go rent/buy a game because it got a good rating you get it for whats in the game that you like. So even if a game got a like a 1 out of 5 and it has elements I like then I'll rent it, show it will show some of the new elements in games that I like and show me these games that I have never heard of before. So honestly its a good channedl

[Zen]

[color=darkred][size=1]


I watch G4Tech TV more than I actually play video games, so yeah, I'm a fan. I just really dig watching the hosts talk about stuff that I can actually comment on too. One of my favorite shows as of current is "Attack of the Show", more for entertainment value than getting tech info (but I love "It Came From EBay" and "The Feed" and stuff like that). I mean, the hosts screw up so much, its just fun to watch, it seems like something that would happen if me and my buds put together a TV show, save the computers.

I also love X Play, particularly enjoy Adam Sesslers commentaries during reveiws. The guy makes such great comaprisons and metaphors, I can't help but to laugh. Icons, is another show I love. I particularly enjoyed their peice on Frank Miller and Mortal Kombat. I do miss "Pulse" alot, but not that much. I wish they'd update Arena, that was okay fun to watch. I also like their show G4TV.com, which I watch as often as I can. Two words, Laura Foy.

I do wish they would take advantage of the national fighting game and FPS tournaments that happen around the country. I think it would be really cool to see the greatest Street Fighter players in action. That would be something I'd watch. Or having a show like the ones on AMC where the greatest movie directors come together and talk about their stuff, but replaced with game makers. Eh? Eh?

Well, anyway, I love G4Tech TV, more for the gaming than the computer stuff. And I watch it whenever I get a chance. I love this channel.[/color][/size]