24 Hours with G4

Nathan Smart writes "A writer for satire site The Game Rag watches 24 hours of G4TV and lives to tell about it." From the article: "'Cheat' had to evolve into a broader format, which coincidentally no longer involves actual cheating, and became a show about walkthroughs and tips. So right off the bat there's an immediate problem, and it ties back into that internet-thing I said earlier. There is nothing, seriously nothing, you can get from this show that you couldn't find with a simple trip to your local neighborhood Gamefaqs.com. Nothing. And Strike two is the disgustingly cheerful host, Kristin Holt. My assumption is that G4 wanted to hire some attractive women, as that falls under the category of 'things nerds like to look at', but Miss Holt, in my professional opinion, has NEVER SEEN A VIDEO GAME IN HER LIFE." He's already posted the second part of his outing, and G4 has a response to his project on their website.

Comments

Pics

[mobby_6kl]

Be careful when searching the net for pics, or you may end up with this on your monitor.

Re:Pics

[AKAImBatman]

Be careful when searching the net for pics, or you may end up with this on your monitor.

Oh my God. It's a normal looking woman. Run for the hills. The disgust is palpable. I can't believe that anyone would allow photos of real women on the Internet. They must all be super-models that are so skinny they only look right in the warping of a camera lense. Viva la myspace.

*rolls eyes*

What I get a kick out of, is that the "reviewer" (and I use the term loosely) chose to give Ms. Holt a poor score while letting Ms. Webb completely off the hook. Apparently, he has no problem sacrificing journalistic integrity in favor of broadcasting his fantasies about Ms. Webb in the slight hope that she might one day fullfill them. (Which is pretty pathetic when you think about it.)

The truth is that Ms. Webb and Mr. Sessler are painful to watch on the screen. All their jokes are delivered exactly as if they were reading from a script (which they are), they constantly look back and forth between each other and the camera (that's a very distracting movement, and should be minimized), they need to get their damn hands out of their pockets so that they don't look like pretzels, and they really need to loosen up and act more natural. Would it kill them to adlib a bit? Perhaps jump off into unscripted side conversations? Or does G4 believe them to be so void of any intelligence that they can't loosen the leash for even a second?

X-Play could be a decent show. Too bad it's hosts are strangling the life out of it.

Re:Pics

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Not to insult you but she really isn't very good looking. She's slightly below average IMO

As for your rant on stick figure women, well everyone has a weight their body is comftable at, some people it's over weight, some it's under. If you stick to that your body will run at it's best, where as if you fight against it (stick figures) you'll end up very ill and suffer from it.

Give it time and natural selection will nuke the shallow stick girls.

Re:Pics

[drsquare]

Oh my God. It's a normal looking woman.

No, it's an unhealthily overweight woman. If being obese is considered normal and acceptable, then society really is going down the shitter. What happened to the days when people looked after their appearance and ate healthily, and exercised now and again?

Re:Pics

[AKAImBatman]

No, it's an unhealthily overweight woman.

Apparently you think that "Mildly Obese" is the same thing as "unhealthily overweight". You must be one of those people who was highly offended by the Dove Soap advertisements? I'm sure you would have just died trying to find a woman skinny enough for your tastes a hundred years ago. Never mind that they were naturally bulkier than the unnaturally skinny women you apparently so covet. Medical science (read: the mob-rule) has decided that bucking nature is again the best bet for fitness!

Honestly, the way guys react towards women these days is disgusting. Unless the women actually are at an unhealthy weight (which is to say, too skinny to survive into their 30's) they're branded as "fat". I see plenty of thin women like that walk down the street here in Chicago, and I just want to puke. They're so skinny that there's practicly no muscle attached to the bone. I've seen some women with arms and legs having a radius of barely 2 inches. 2 INCHES! And I just know that these women aren't going to survive long, or will have to go through serious therapy if they do. And it's all because society keeps telling them that they're too fat. How does it feel to be encouraging women to die from painful conditions like anorexia and bulimia? Hmm?

Is there a problem with obesity in this nation? Yes, but that photograph is NOT IT. Especially if you understand that any photograph automatically makes the subject look heavier. (Why the hell do you think that super-models are so skinny?) As it so happens, she will probably lead a long and healthy life. Unfortunately, it's difficult to say the same for the women in these photos.

duh

[voice_of_all_reason]

There is nothing, seriously nothing, you can get from this show that you couldn't find with a simple trip to your local neighborhood Gamefaqs.com

What kind of blindingly obvious claim is this? "You can get more information from a website with thousands of users contributing information over 10 years in realtime compared to a half-hour television show." Lol, duh?

Both have their uses. I still subscribe to game mags, for example, because they provide a general overview of what's out/coming soon pretty pictures to boot. Once a buy a game, I head over to gamefaqs for in-depth strategy.

Public access feel missing

[192939495969798999]

The G4 channel is missing the hardware/software hacking stuff big time. They need that public-access feel. Forget that hot girl, get some guy with an spf 3000 tan in front of a wall of machines with a hand scanner securty system in his basement. The opening shot where he says 'Not now mom, I'm on the air! So anyways, check this out...' lets you know you're about to see something incredible.

People still watch G4?

[Anonymous Coward]

I got rid of that channel when they eliminated the rest of the old TechTV programming - I still fail to see the business model behind G4. I probably should've gotten rid of it earlier - it seems the only thing I can remember was how turned off I was on the entire channel. G4 wanted to buy the audience, rather than figure out why, perhaps, that their channel sucked so badly in the first place that it's got very few subscribers. Once the TechTV shows started being infected, well... I can't stand 10 minutes of that channel now, nevermind 24. I think CPAC (Canadian version of C-SPAN) would be more bearable to watch. And G4 Canada was considered the saner channel.

Programming about games done in a style that attracts teens and younger? Who these days use the 'net for the same content? At least TechTV inspired an older generation of people who still rely on "old media" (TV/radio/newspaper/magazines) just as much as "new media" (Internet - web/blogs/etc).

He's spot on

[falcon5768]

Seriously while to most of us its obvious apparently the suit at Comcast still havent realized that G4 is the biggest piece of shit they have ever tried to force down peoples throats.

For one thing, it kept none of the humor (ie it was witty and brainy) that made Tech TV great. Guys I know its hard to understand here but most gamers actually HAVE a brain. Hell most of us are over the age of 21.

Second the reruns SUCK. I flip it on and just about every show on there IS a rerun. At least Tech TV managed to make 12 hours of original content. G4 even after buying Tech TV still hasnt gone past 4 hours of new shows.

Third hot girls who dont have a clue about anything technical is NOT attractive. Likewise there are a whole legion of girl gamers out there too, start bringing them into to it too instead of thinking gaming = guys.

The list could go on, but I think the biggest killer is the fact that, quite frankly there wasnt enough content to keep the TV shows about games going in the 80's-90's why do you think that just because its a few years later there would be enough for a whole fucking channel! There isnt, not unless you get technical which you guys seem to be afraid to do.

In the end though I think the current turnaround for G4 is the most telling... more and more its becoming less about gaming and more about guys, and well we have a non-digital cable channel for all of that (Spike) so why the hell would we watch yours when Spike actually has some decent original shows once in a while.

Re:He's spot on

[Turn-X Alphonse]

There is more than enough content to fill out an entire channel with games content. Look at how many leagues and matchs go on every week with just FPSes. Cover these, infact Game-network in the UK used to cover the major TFC tournaments, I'd happily sit and watch them, it was like a geek's sports channel when they did that.

We have 30-40 years of history worth listening to. Why can't they do content covering the past? What about old game series like Dizzy? Why not do a documentry based on him and his many adventures.

There is more than enough content for a games only channel, the problem is it requires you to think about things and not just do the obvious. Many people make music videos of their games and post them to places like Youtube, why not get these sort of things put on the air?

How about covering the guild wars play offs and showing the best PvP matchs in the top tier clans of the last week for an hour or so?

We live in an era where games are like sports, we could have an entire channel dedicated to nothing but a 24 hour CS server, using interactive TV we could follow any damn player we wanted. If people will watch crpa like big brother why can't we do this shit with CS:S or HL2:DM?

Just because you can't think of anything worth while doesn't mean it's not possible for others.

I'm not feeling it...

[AP2k]

G4 just doesn't make me feel like going out and smashing one-of-a-kind phonograph cylinders while yelling "sh!t" to everyone like TechTV.

Re:TechTV

[zentinal]

I too mourned the death of TechTV, but I no longer miss it.

I now watch DL.TV and TWIT.TV, which gives me about 80% of what I got from TechTV.

True, it was convenient to have everything gathered on one cable channel (if you ignored all of the useless repeats), but I'd argue that the natural environment for TechTV's content is the web. Plus, now, using a good RSS feed reader, you can roll your own TechTV. Can't you do that with TIVO and Freevo now?

Now, all we need is for Joshua "Yoshi" DeHerrera to start up a modding video podcast then all will truly be right with the world, with all TechTV goodness gathered on the web, in nicely downloadable / streamable gobbits.

Where did the geek-girls go?

[Jess (geek-chick)]

I used to watch Tech TV, and loved that they had knowledgable geek/gamer females as hosts. When the change over was made, they have gotten rid of them, and instead just have the typical model/bimbo type as hosts. What the hell? Sure we don't make up the majority of the gamer and geek market, but they definitely lost my viewing. My hubby only watches Attack of the Show and some of the "Midnight Spank" shows.

Big example: When Attack of the Show had a contest for a co-host. They had to show how geeky, personable, and well they would do on the show. A guy got the job (I believe only guys made the finals.) When they replaced Sarah Lane, they put some girl who doesn't contribute much. And some skinny British girl to report "The Feed". Why couldn't they hold another contest? They had a lot of geek girls on their "MySpace Girl of the Week", and I'm sure there would be plenty who would love to be a co-host.

It seems the people who decide all that just thought Pretty girls = male viewers, when any geek/gamer could tell you they'd rather see a knowledgeable geek/gamer girl than just eye candy. Plus they'd get the female demographic. Your mileage may vary.

24 hours with a Mac

[falzbro]

And I thought this was 24 hours with an older Mac. I would have been more interested in that..

G4 Shows

[MrCopilot]

Attack of the Show, Sometimes good, sometimes painful. The Feed, now very painful. I miss Sarah, but not her husband

XPlay, Good Reviews, and subtle comedy that you have to listen carefully for.

Icons, Reruns that are gaming History related, New ones not so much.

Everything Else, Change the channel.

The Demographic they are trying to zero in on, is not one I would like to be associated with. I mean, I like hot chicks as much as the next guy, but damn, there has to be Content OR Nudity. Content would be preferred we already have Nudity channels. What we don't have are Technical Content. Hardware, Software, Internet, and Geek Culture on tv.

If maybe I hadn't seen every StarTrek and NextGeneration 10 years ago, I might include them as high points.

Re:G4 Shows

[British]

Icons, Reruns that are gaming History related, New ones not so much.

I noticed that Icons had an episode about THE SUICIDE GIRLS. I mean come on, they are not icons to any extent of the imagination. They are just dang good at marketing what would otherwise be a pay adult site. Why would they have them on the same show that would focus on Sid Meier, Romero, etc is beyond me.

Nope, I'm glad I got rid of my digital cable service(went back to basic) with horrible offerings like G4, VH-1 Classic(oh boy did that jump the shark), and "rerun the same show" channels(like Discovery Wings?), etc.

8 billion channels, and still nothing to watch. Hey YouTube, start your own channel. Have a "viral video" hour or something like Web Junk 20.

Ed the Sock's Night Party

[austinpoet]

I have this guilty pleasure watching this show. I don't really know why.

and Cheaters is just another guilty pleasure. The episode where the dude confronts his girlfriend/wife and his best friend (who she'd been fucking) as they came out of the Planned Parenthood was just priceless. She lost the baby too. Fucking Hilarious!