G4: Television for Gamers
Every flip your cable box into the 100s? It’s kind of like taking your DeLorean to 88 miles an hour. You could go into the future or you could get buried in the past. Either way, its fun when your capacitor is still fluxing.
I’ve recently spent some time lounging about the G4 network trying to figure out how exactly you build a channel around video games (no, not like this). Originally titled “Tech TV” back when it was practical to sell ad space without the help of really, really hot women, G4 has branded itself on being a channel for gamers of the video variety. Outside the obvious questions like, “wait, aren’t gamers too busy playing games to dedicate their time to a 24-hour television network?” there are the more basic problems of how, exactly, you fill an entire schedule with video game related programming.
The solution? Well, substituting the word “gamers” for “fifteen year old boys who don’t go outside much” is a great place to start. G4’s lineup is full of perennial fanboy favorites such as Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Man Show (?), and apparently Arrested Development (!!), as well as a few shows made especially for the network which I recently sat down to watch — and which I will tell you about right after the break…
X-Play — Kind of an “Ebert and Roper” for the video game set, this standard game-review program is one of the better things on the network (assuming you’re tuning in because you actually like video games and not just for you love of The Man Show). The show is hosted by Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb, two people who at the very least are convincing in their knowledge of the material. In X-Play the two offer fairly reasoned criticisms of new releases despite giving just about everything a four out of five. Still, I actually found the show to be useful despite the fact that I might purchase a video game once every three months. The show also utilizes the popular G4 motif of having some dude stand next to a preposterously attractive girl talking about really nerdy things. In other words: a license to print money.
Cheat! — Structurally identical to X-Play, Cheat! swaps out one really attractive girl for another and loses the dude altogether. A how-to-beat-the-boss show sounds kind of perfect for a video game network. Unfortunately, it doesn’t exactly translate the same way an issue of Nintendo Power would. The problem is that you find yourself much more interested in the footage from the video game than in what they’re trying to tell you. When you watch zombies being blown away while walking down a spookie, hallway covered in rusted steel, the last thing you think to do would be writing down the button combination that will allow you to open a secret door or get unlimited lives. Still, it isn’t a wholly unpleasant experience (or noneducational) as I’m pretty sure I could get you past this one level in the Destroy All Humans sequel despite not exactly knowing the title of the game or the level in which what I’m thinking of actually takes place.
Attack of the Show! — This is really the signature program for the whole network. Attack of the Show! (exclamation points are huge at G4) is basically a combination of World News Tonight and The View targeted at people who can name all the major characters in Gears of War AND who happen to be in high school. This hour-long news/talk show is hosted by Kevin Pereira and the hot (natch) Olivia Munn. I can’t say the two are a perfect on screen team, but they certainly seem to be having a lot of fun (even if more times than not it just comes off as Regis and Kelly via UCB Level 2).
Attack of the Show! airs daily and promises to catch you up on everything you may have missed in the past 24-hours of digital media. It’s too bad that throughout most of the show the hosts are too busy trying to convince us how cool and/or hot they are because I found the technology interviews to be legitimately interesting.
The irony is that any gamer worth his weight in WoW gold is going to have all ready gotten whatever information they’re dishing out five hours ago on the web (complete with the pithy comments, comedic videos and hot chicks). So who’s watching? Probably just your average semi-interested 15 year olds, and of course, TV bloggers.
The moral of the story is that Arrested Development airs nightly on G4. TUNE IN!
Photo of Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn, hosts of Attack of the Show! via G4TV.com
Tags: G4
February 19th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
I used to really enjoy this network back when it was TechTv. The programing covered a much broader range of tech related issues. Shows like “Screen Savers”, “Fresh Gear”, “Call for Help”, and “Big Thinkers” come to mind. In fact, I can only recall one program (X-Play) that dealt solely with gaming.
Nowadays the lineup seems to run the gamut from “Some Nerd Talking About Video Games” to “Some Hot Girl Talking About Video Games” to my favorite, “Some Nerd and a Hot Girl Talking About Video Games”. Fascinating stuff.
February 23rd, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Banzai!