(Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2 and XBox)
by: “Tiger” Oliver

Shadow the Hedgehog, our favorite (and only) emo anthropomorphic hedgehog, debuted in Sonic Adventure 2 for the Sega Dreamcast in 2001 and re-released on the Nintendo GameCube just under one year later. After his success in SA2 and the surprisingly mediocre Sonic Heroes in 2003, it wasn’t too long afterward until he got his own game.

Thus is birthed one of the most screwed up games in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise.

This game goes deeper into the storyline of Shadow the Hedgehog than did the two previous titles. It takes place a whopping 50 years after Shadow was created by Dr. Gerald Robotnik (not to be confused with Dr. Eggman, who was originally named Dr. Ivo Robotnik) aboard the space colony ARK, with Shadow left with amnesia after the events of Sonic Adventure 2. Whilst pondering his exisence, a red cloud of destruction covers the sky and aliens drop out, destroying everything in its path. The aliens are led by a benevolent master by the name of Black Doom, who had struck a deal with Gerald Robotnik to use his DNA to give Shadow life; but, in return, Black Doom requires Shadow to collect the Chaos Emeralds fifty years into the future.

As you pass the first cutscene of the game, there’s a grid map that looks like this:

From the beginning level, the storyline can change dramatically depending on what you do. There are three ways you can progress: Hero, Normal and Dark. Some of these objectives include collecting rings, activating shields, defeating certain enemies, etc. However, my main problem with this is that it takes so God-awfully long! Completing the Hero mission in the first level alone took me well over 15 minutes!

Plus, to unlock the Final Story, you have to complete EVERY level, EVERY path and get ALL of the 10 possible endings.

But, I will say, the overall story is strange, even to Sonic the Hedgehog’s and my standards. Trust me, I’ve seen some pretty strange things in my time, and this part of Shadow’s story takes the cake. This makes Pink Floyd’s The Wall (both the movie and the album) make sense. Granted, it gets the job done; questions are answered and the background story of Shadow leaves the player satisfied after the end of the Final Story.

However, my biggest complaint about the storyline is the ending scenes. Contrast and compare Dr. Eggman’s exit from Sonic Heroes to Shadow the Hedgehog

My point exactly.

All this is compounded only by the horrible, horrible controls. Now, while I can’t vouch for the GameCube version, the PlayStation 2 version was UNPLAYABLE. SRSLY, after renting it for two weeks after it first came out, I STILL could not make it past the first level. Whenever Shadow gets up to top speed it’s easier to stop a bullet train with only your body than it is to control him. Thus, it’s easier to just go half-speed most of the time, which is still decently fast. The famous homing attack returns, but often times you either: hit a wall and do a wall run, attack the wrong target or careen off into an abyss for a lost life.

Thankfully, the movement aspect of the controls are highly remedied by the XBox controller and further bettered when played on the XBox 360. Heck, I’ve even made it to the last level of Shadow’s Pure Hero storyline after over 9000 deaths per level.

The graphics: universally, the worst of the post-Sonic Adventure games. They seem about as blocky as a Dreamcast game; and, at times, I’m wondering if I’m playing a beefed up PS1 game. To give it some credit, the levels are gorgeous and the actual CGI cutscenes are great. Too bad the gameplay graphics leave a lot to be desired. And the mouth movement during dialogue, Sonic Adventure was better than this. It looks like Sonic Team employed the guys from JibJab.com to animate everyone’s mouths. The graphics are slightly better on the XBox, but the XBox 360, in my opinion, enhances the flaws more than smooths them over.

(AN: If anyone’s played this game on a backward-compatable PS3, please let me know how the graphics compare to the PS2 version.)

The one saving grace of this game is the music. The soundtrack includes the usual Crush 40 fare, but with some exceptions, including: Magna-Fi’s “All Hail Shadow” for the Pure Hero ending, A2’s “Chosen One” for the Hero endings, Powerman 9000’s “Almost Dead” for the Dark endings and Julien-K’s “Waking Up” for the Normal endings. I’ve listened to all of them, but “All Hail Shadow” is way too cheesy for me.

Oh well, anything beats Tails’ theme from Sonic Adventure

The big thing that almost everyone complained about is the darker, more mature atmosphere of this game. Personally, I couldn’t stand seeing this game any other way. C’mon people, it’s Shadow the freakin-Hedgehog for God’s sake! He’s supposed to be the badass of the group!

Albeit, the addition of guns and vehicles are worthless, although in the Lost Impact level, the guns come in handy when annihilating the artificial Chaos. The vehicles, however, I didn’t like. Too hard to control on the PS2. Thus, I’ve never tired them on the XBox version of the game.

And, while some people think it was a disgrace to the Sonic franchise, I still like Shadow cursing. I mean, who hasn’t said “damn” before? It’s not like he’s dropping F-bombs like Tony Montana, David Della Rocco in The Boondock Saints or any character in any Quentin Tarantino film.

However, the strangest of storylines, the addition of weapons and vehicles, some cheesy music and abysmal controls makes this not only one of the worst games X-Play and I have ever played, but one of the worst PlayStation 2 games of all time.

My words of advise: DON’T, I repeat, DON’T play this game! Search for a video playlist entitled “Shadow the Hedgehog the Movie” and watch everything: you’ll be spared countless hours or raging for getting all of the good parts of the game.

Hi Audistas! Starting today, I’ll be posting in a different blog.

http://audiblog.e-games.com.ph

This will be the official blog for Audition. ^_^ GM Faith and I will be updating you on the latest happenings in Audition through there!

Hope to see you guys there! ^_^v

Hello Audistas!

Watch out as X-Play and e-Games brings you our Hottest Gaming Barkada in the flesh at our Audition’s Hottest Gaming Barkada Mall Show. Join us as celebrity bands and special guest such as Dice and K9, Pretty Young Thing, SAIA (lead vocalist from Singing Bee) and many more! We will also have online, offline events and FREE Voucher Codes to give away to all the loyal Audistas. Also, KA BLOG will feature the event on the GMA 7 morning show. So Come Join us! tell your friends and party with us at SM Manila Cyberzone on September 5, 2009 at 10:00 AM.

See you there! Dahil X-Play, SIKAT KA DITO!!

Congratulations to Moon for winning the “I Love Ninoy Day” contest!

Special mention to Crumble and –XACINTH– for being our runner ups!

Thanks so much to all the Audistas out there who supported “I Love Ninoy Day”! More power to you guys!

X-Play to unleash the most action packed online FPS in the country!

X-Play Online Games Inc., the joint venture of IP e-Game Ventures Inc and GMA New Media Inc., is proud to announce its newest casual gaming addition — OP7!

What is OP7? It is most action packed MMO FPS in the country. Its features are:

- Over 1000 Gun Customizations

- Cool Ballistic Physics

- Sprint and Peek mode and more!

OP7 will be on Closed Beta Testing starting today! You can use your existing e-Games account to play the game! So try out the newest and undoubtedly, the hottest thing to arrive since sliced bread!

Visit www.op7.com.ph for CBT details and more!

It’s time to roll out! Operation 7 is now on CBT!

Operation 7 is the greatest FPS game out there! You can customize your guns with over 1000 combinations!

How do you play?

• Just log-in to your existing e-Games account to give it a test run and see how amazingly realistic it is.
• You don’t have to worry about wipe-out after CBT because your account will be carried over to OBT, saan ka pa, di ba?
• The client is only 430MB so you don’t have to worry about it taking up too much space.

You can download the game at http://www.op7.com.ph.

This time next week, Xbox 360 owners will be enjoying the newest New Xbox Experience update. There are quite a few new features included in the update (check out X-Play’s preview to see some of them in action), but perhaps the most talked about feature, at least today, has to be reduced installation sizes.

Eurogamer did some snooping around the file sizes for a number of games, and found that users can generally expect to save five to 10 percent worth of hard drive space using the new installation process. Now, this doesn’t apply to every game. Apparently, Fable II took up the same amount of space before the update as after. However, there were dramatic decreases in other titles, including King of Fighters XII, which went from 3.4 GB to 703 MB, and Left 4 Dead, which dropped from 5 GB to 3.7 GB.

These reductions are being attributed to the elimination security-related “filler bytes” and duplicated game data from the installation process. Better still, games won’t take a performance hit as a result. Smaller file sizes and an unaffected gaming experience? Um, yes please.

From what you’ve seen so far, what feature of the new update are you most interested in checking out?

http://pettingparty.net/2009/07/26/porn-parodies/

This is the final part of the podcasts posts where I will explain the rest of the podcasts that I listen to.  There are far more that I have listened to over my time with the casts but if I was to list them all here it would never end.

Infendo Radio – http://www.infendo.com

This is a Nintendo related podcast that covers all the latest news, reviews and speculation around Nintendo, the Wii and the DS.  Very good, can be a little fan boyish at times and they don’t seem to want to deal with the fact that hardcore games on the Wii are all but dead but for half an hour a week it is a great way of keeping up with the latest news.

Taverncast – http://www.taverncast.com

This was a WoW podcast when it started for hardcore gamers, however then all the hosts stopped playing.  They have kept the cast going however and it has now turned into a general podcast where they talk about a particular topic that they want to talk about.  They also drink throughout the podcast and they explain what they are drinking at the beginning of the show and although they don’t get drunk they do have a good time.  The only drawback is that their output can be really few and far between.

Major Spoilers – http://www.majorspoilers.com

My second favourite podcast and due to the fact that it is weekly (sometimes twice a week) it is the one I listen to the most.  This is the ultimate show for comic book fans.  They review some of the latest issues, they go into detail on a trade paperback and they have polls of the week.  They are called major spoilers for a reason though, so if you don’t like to hear any of the surprises that might await you in your comic books you should read them first, they don’t spoil everything  but they do spoil enough.

Mark Kermode Film Reviews – http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/entertainment/kermode.shtml

Dr Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo host a film review programme that has won the BBC lots more awards.  Mark Kermode brings his massive knowledge of films (horror in particular), his wit and a small amount of snobbery to review films.  They will review the latest releases, they have listener input and games.  Highly enjoyable.

The Real Deal – http://www.cnet.com/real-deal-podcast/

The second podcast I listen to from CNET the same people who do Buzz Out Loud.  The Real Deal covers one topic that is linked to technology in some way, some of these include Chrome Vs Firefox, Phone Communications, Domain Names and audience questions.  Hosted by Tom Merritt from Buzz Out Loud and Rafe Needleman, these guys know what they are talking about.

Treks in Sci-Fi – http://treksinscifi.com/podcast_notes/

The second geekiest podcast I listen to, yes this is all about Star Trek and Sci-Fi.  The host covers an episode of star trek or a film franchise of some sort, plays clips from the shows, or can play the whole show.  Also goes through latest news, reviews and generally things that are going on in nerd world.  Warning only for people that are truly into Star Trek otherwise this will be far to geeky for you.

Medispective/Video Games News Radio – http://www.videogamenews.com/

The oldest of the podcasts, this show has being going on for ages.  This show is very rough around the edges and it hasn’t improved in technically quality even though it has been going to 5 years now, but that is its charm.  The hosts of which there are 3/4 review games, talk films and reminisce about their childhood (this is the best part).  It needs to be heard to be believed, you need to give it 2 or 3 shows and if you don’t like it by then you probably never will, but I have never laughed so hard at a show.

 X-Plays Daily Video Games Podcast – http://g4tv.com/podcasts/index.html

This podcast takes segments of their show that airs in America and puts them into podcast form.  This includes 2 – 3 minute reviews of the latest games that are coming out.  They also have excellent coverage of E3 and other conferences, great for gamers.

Turntable with crossfader

X-Play correspondent (G4), Blair H, was able to get a sit down hands on look at Activision’s new rhythm game DJ Hero earlier this week at E3, and from what I saw, I’m totally jazzed.

A few weeks ago I posted a picture of the turntable controller, and now that I’ve seen an actual demo played live I’m happy to see there is an additional peripheral as well on top of the turntable….that is the cross fader.  No price has been announced and no actual release date, but Activision led viewers to believe it would be ready this fall just in time for the holiday season.  At launch DLC content will also be made available on top of tracks released with the game on disc.

In the demo I saw the graphics are somewhat similar to the cartoony look of the Guitar Hero, but with a slightly more urban slant.  I was also happy to here that some songs will also allow players to use their GH: World Tour microphones and maybe even a guitar for bass inspired riffs for multiplay action!  That’s pretty cool…even this white-boy will get a chance to rap.

Beta screenshot

The song they demo’d was a Gwen Stefani and Rick James mix of his classic,  ’Give it to me baby’, and it sounded great! Game controls use both hands….one of the cross fade and sampling buttons, the other on the turn-table with three button note controllers.   The game track looked nice, and instead of GH’s ’star power’, DJ Hero uses ‘euphoria’, and when built up, will allow for bonus points and other effects.

Communication is key in many things.

For example, today I wanted to execute (what I thought was) a really cool move in soccer.  I was to cut across to the right, and fake a shot.  At which point my teammate would cut across left and since I was supposed to have totally faked out the goal keeper, my teammate would go in for the easy goal.

Long story short, we almost collided.  I jumped to avoid him, landed on the ball, and twisted my ankle.  Oh yes, and I was yelling the aptly named “X-play!” the entire time leading up to the fall.

My highly-stretched point is this.  We all want to do awesome things.  If we can just communicate that properly, magic can happen.  Sola Caritas’s profile page can help people effectively communicate their philanthropic awesomeness to potential employers, schools, and colleagues alike.  

Confucius once said “He who wishes to secure the good of others, has already secured his own.”  We’re so happy to see so many people who have created profiles in one short week.  Not only that, we have been greatly inspired by the good they have selflessly done for others!

Keep striving to do and secure good things for your community and for yourselves.  Keep striving for that super cool play.  Let us do the work in helping you record and share your amazing feats.

Somethin' like that...

- David Beckham, Co-founder

It’s good to make a list. You know, so you don’t forget stuff, you can prioritize all that. But it’s really great to make a list when it means someone else has put you on it because it means people are thinking of you. Even better when the list is the top ten hottest celebrity nerds.

That’s why we are pleased to congratulate three of G4’s hosts for making just such a list. Kristin Adams, Morgan Webb, and Olivia Munn can count themselves among the hottest nerd celebrities up there with the likes of Alyson Hannigan and Kristen Bell. Check out the rest of the list at the Manofest site.

Sleep: Slept/cocoon’d till 2:30pm.  To be fair, I have no clue when I got to sleep.  i kept expecting the sun to come up, but never saw it.

Food: dried apricots, Superfood, dried cranberries, hamburger, French fries, cranberry juice, oj, and choco biscuits.

Tum: Terrible appetite and feeling sick down there.

Mood: Very, very sad and again unable to cry.  Oh, and my motivation has been horrendously low.

Suicidal Tendencies: No.

Productivity: Sent e-mail and finalized KRAZ.

Joy: Played a good chunk o’ SM64 and watched a few X-Play videos.

Sex: Not yet today.

I spent nearly six hours playing Resident Evil 5 today with a friend (we were close to two-thirds complete when I left), and we love it. It’s like a suped up version of Resident Evil 4, a game we both rank as one of our top favorites. Adam Sessler of X-Play would probably agree that RE4 is a great game considering his show labeled it their game of the year in 2005. Sessler isn’t too pleased with RE5, however. He goes into detail in his written review, video review, and his Soapbox.

While I typically agree with Sessler (especially on Crisis Core), I think he’s dead wrong about Resident Evil 5.

[RE5's] control scheme mirrors that of RE4 which was an improvement for the series back then but comes across as an unfortunate anachronism wholly unjustified by the game in 2009.

There’s been lots of discussion regarding just how “horrible” RE5’s controls are, despite their being extremely similar to those introduced in that RE4 game everyone loved so much. Sessler gives some of the specific reasons he feels the controls are so lacking.

Chris Redfield and his co-op partner Sheva once again move with plodding sluggishness that is only partially relieved by running and still cannot move while shooting.  Rotating the character to aim or just see what’s happening is equally slow and the quick 180-degree turns so frequently discombobulate your perspective that the aggregate effect of the controls neuters the satisfaction of combat.

Sessler is proposing that, in four years, RE4’s control scheme has gone from “revelation” to reject. Apparantly the controls were rapidly outdated, faster than any game in history.

Reading Sessler’s review, one would assume RE5 (and RE4 by default) finds the player bumbling around clumsily, struggling more with exploring his surroundings than with eliminating the zombie hordes. “Of course, you cannot move or even pivot in place while shooting,” Sessler says matter of factly. This is a half untrue and half misguided statement.

You can pivot while shooting, just as you could in all of the other core Resident Evil games. And while it is true that you can’t fire while on the move, anyone who has played RE4 or 5 should realize that allowing such an action would work against the games.

The radically different control scheme and playstyle introduced in Resident Evil 4 placed great emphasis on pinpoint accuracy. Of course, limited ammo also played a part in the game as it has since the series began. Accuracy and ammo conservation would fly out the window with the ability to shoot while running.

Sessler moves onto RE5’s heavy emphasis upon co-op gameplay, but only uses it to deliver another blow to the game’s control scheme.

The concept clearly is that the challenges presented by the controls and the more 360-degree nature of the combat are alleviated by having another character that can flank enemies and offer assistance.

In 2005, Leon had to escort the President’s daughter through infested villages, castles, caves, and military complexes, forcing her to hide in dumpsters when things got rough. That didn’t stop the game from receiving X-Play’s (and many other game reviewers’) “Game of the Year” award. Four years later, Sessler feels that Resident Evil 5’s inclusion of a partner who can shoot, heal, and carry your extra ammo is an effort to draw attention away from the game’s lacking control scheme, the same control scheme you had when a high-picthed teen you literally treated like garbage was your only sidekick.

I’m sure the introduction of a much more involved partner brings some new issues to the Resident Evil series (I wouldn’t know as I’ve been playing the game the way it was intended: co-op on the same system), but to claim that it was done in an effort to make up for poor controls is just plain ignorant. Sessler never makes it quite clear how four years time has rendered useless the controls of a widely celebrated game.

I could go on about Sessler’s misguided opinion on RE5’s plot and the contrast he makes with Metal Gear Solid 4’s “satisfying plot wrap-up” (really?) or his pretentious disapproval of the game’s “loaded images” (ie, the “racism” Kotaku won’t stop advertising), but I’d rather not draw the focus away from Sessler’s hypocritical control complaints.

The idea of Resident Evil 5’s controls being so significantly poor would seem to imply that Resident Evil 4’s are equally poor. So, is nostalgia the only thing that allows me to enjoy RE4 in 2009? Am I ignorantly bumbling around fictional regions of Spain and Africa, oblivious to the fact that I’m not having fun despite the smile on my face during an extended play session?

Sessler is a smart man and a good video game journalist, certainly better than the legion of writers who just fall in line with popular opinion, but I really think he missed the mark on Resident Evil 5.

No, that’s not my 14 year old nephew’s AIM screen name, it’s an article about X-Play’s latest review of the bastard daughter of Lara Croft and Dante from Devil May Cry. Needless to say, they hated the game. But worst of all, they had associate furries into the mix with the piece of crap!

Enemy types are also dismayingly uncreative. They range from tiny dinosaurs, to Lizardmen, to something that appears to be a furry…[]…I’m sorry, shouldn’t you be yiffing in a furpile somewhere?

Really, X-Play? Was that necessary? What’s the matter with something like:

They range from tiny dinosaurs, to Lizardmen, to something that appears to be a werewolf. Where are my silver bullets when I need them?

Say what you will about furcons; I don’t care if you say I go around having sex with people. Heck, that’s more than most people on the internet can say. But I’ll be LOATHE to stand by and let you imply I waste my time playing crappy games!

X-Blades review on X-Play

Something that I have done with a surprising amount of consistency since late-2003 is watch X-Play.  X-Play, for those of you who don’t know, is a video game review show formerly on the TechTv Network, and that show carried over as the network was bought by G4tv.  X-Play reinvented itself last year and became an all-video gaming news and reviews program.  I’ve maintained my viewership with the show because I’ve always found it to be rather humorous and intelligent to watch.  When I wake up in the morning and have my breakfast, I do it watching X-Play before beginning my day.  I think there might have been maybe three episodes I’ve missed since I started watching the show.  X-Play is one of three places I usually go to for my games reviews (the other being IGN and 1up.  Frankly, just check out Metacritic and find one or two sites they direct you to that you like to consistently read and you’ll do just fine).

Of the other projects which the two X-Play co-hosts are involved, Morgan Webb had a daily news podcast that recently ended I enjoyed watching called Webbalert.  It was a five to seven minute roundup of the day’s top tech headlines.  Since I am a tech news junkie, it was a great starting point for deciding which news stories to read.  Adam Sessler recently became Editor in Chief, Games Content for G4tv, which I take to mean he is now more responsible for what we see on their site and our TV’s.  I believe he was also responsible for making many of the arrangements for G4 to get the access and interviews it gets during some of the gaming conferences in the past couple of years.  Extremely intelligent  and mature about videogames and I enjoy hearing what he has to say.

Another thing Adam Sessler does, is produce a weekly video podcast about five minutes in length called Sessler’s Soapbox.  It is a weekly show in which he expresses his opinions on any subject he feels like expressing.  A couple of weeks ago, he released the following segment responding to messages on the G4tv.com message board about their Killzone 2 review.  Here is a link to the original episode and the comments thereafter.  But watch it here, it is only about 7 minutes long and very entertaining:

This podcast kind of underscores a general problem I have with playing videogames.  I don’t believe that the majority of video gamers are racist, bigoted, white supremacist children that act and maybe actually ARE only twelve years old.  But I think that those people are the only ones with enough time on their hands to speak up and post in these community message boards.  I am very tepid about participating in message boards, especially message boards such as those on G4tv.com because of all the stupidity out there.  The posts are so juvenile, nit-picky, and in some cases scary, that I can’t bring myself to participate in them for very long.  I’ve mentioned about dozen times since this blog was created how I think the people complaining that the iPhone doesn’t have cut and paste capabilities are being childish.  Well, almost EVERY decent video game message board is that same way times ten.  That’s a shame, because I would like to participate, but I can’t even read through half the posts.  I don’t have the kind of time other people do, so when I see an entire page of comments saying “PS3 sucks” or “Wii is for losers” instead of participating in what the original discussion topic was, I get deterred and I move on to other things.

This underscores another issue I have: that of multiplayer.  I don’t play games for the multiplayer.  I play the story mode in a game and then I move on to another game.  Why, you may ask?  BECAUSE I HAVE A JOB!  There are a lot of games I want to play, but I have very little time to play them.  Every time I go on to XBox Live, I get my ass handed to me by some kid whose balls I don’t think have even dropped yet, because they can spend time practicing and preparing and I’m just looking to go and play for a couple of hours.  I had that kind of time when I was their age too, but not anymore.  And while I certainly have grown and matured, even when I was a kid and participating in AOL chat rooms and message boards (online multiplayer didn’t exist back then, except on PC), I never would have said or done the things I see today.  Also, gamers aren’t the most welcoming and inviting of new people, or at least people not at their same skill level.  That is very sad, because if you don’t welcome the new people in, someday you won’t have anybody new to welcome (seen how much new talent we have performing and recording Jazz, lately?)  So all of my multiplayer experiences since around 2003 have been pretty unfun.  Which means I stop playing multiplayer.

At the end of the podcast I posted above, Adam Sessler makes a suggestion which I think would be great if there was a way to implement it well.  Have a place where gamers could have an intelligent discussion. I’d love to see that, and I’d love to participate in that.  It is something I have been looking for since I stopped participating in these online groups.  But how could this be implemented?  That podcast actually got me thinking about it since it first came out.  It has been on my mind the past couple of weeks.  I do not know, as I’ve been trying to think of a way for this to be fair to everyone that wants to participate.  Do you charge a fee to participate in the community?  That would certainly eliminate all or almost all of the stupidity.  But it would probably eliminate people who would contribute meaningfully to the community, and that would probably include me.  Is it 100% moderated?  That could work also, but who has time to moderate a site like that.  And moderate at what level?  How do you decide when a post contributes to the site and when something doesn’t?  Some sites give its community ranks, and the people with lower ranks can be filtered out.  That system can be gamed also.

Adam Sessler has had me thinking about this since he first mentioned it and I wish there was an answer for it.  If something like this existed I would like to join it.  And if they extended their community to multiplayer where we could all get together and play online, I might even give that another shot (sure, we can all frag each other in Gears 2 or Halo 3, but let’s frag respectfully and make new people feel welcome).  It just seems to me that I can’t be the only one wanting a community that is more mature to exist.  Despite what you see on the news, there are a lot of gamers over the age of 18.  Where do we go if we want to enjoy our hobby?  If some enterprising individual would come along and create something professional and rigidly enforce things so they remain at an adult level while still keeping it appealing to everyone wanting to be involved under those guidelines; and could figure out a business model for it, I think it would be a success.  There have got to be other people out there who feel as I do about gaming communities.

Ex-Play?

It’s yet another sad bit of news for techies, gamers, and closet geeks like myself alike.

It has been confirmed by the parent company who produces the gamer and techie centric shows over at the G4 network, that both Attack of the Show (AOTS) and X-Play will be restructered yet again, and not for the better.

It wasn’t too long ago it was announced that X-Play was going to double show length, and now it appears the exact opposite will be happening.  X-Play hosting and production staff has been cut, and new weekly episodes will be reduced from five to three.

It isn’t much better over at AOTS either.  Beginning March 2nd, original episodes will also be reduced from five to just four a week.

And since fewer shows will be shot on a weekly basis, G4 did indeed confirm a decrease in staff, but also says that savings resulting from these changes will go directly towards more original programming in 2009.  While G4 claims this is not a budget cut and they remain loyal and dedicated to these core franchises, I beg to differ.

I have personally noticed that X-Play repeats have already been scaled back on a daily basis only to be replaced with other non-gaming and non-tech shows.  If I ever missed an episode of X-Play at 8pm, I could always catch the repeat later in the evening or TiVo it in the wee hours of the morning to enjoy the next day.

All I see now is yet more episodes of Cheaters, Cops, and infomercials….like we need any more of these because they play on about 10 other channels throughout the week or Gremlins hasn’t already been shown 10 times this week.

Remind me again G4 how ‘Cheaters’ fits into Tech/Gaming TV?

It’s really a sad commentary when the only bastion of technically inclined television (and gaming for that matter( can’t even support it’s core demographic any longer, to where there pretty much is no other options left any more.

Adam Sessler don’t take no guff!  Everyone hates the trolls, flamers and jackasses that seems to populate every forum, bulletin board, comment section, etc. known to man.  Sessler is the host of G4’s game review show, X-Play, so he gets loads of emails and comments from pissed off viewers in response to his various reviews and recommendations.  We’ll he is sick of their negative attitudes and just all around abysmal outlook on everything.  He recently gave a review of Killzone 2 which you can.. see……  HERE! Apparently the comment section for this video devolved into an all out slug fest for fanboys to just lay into Adam.  There are lots of claims by the comment posters of G4 being biased to certain platforms/companies and Sessler strikes back to refute those claims….

I personally don’t watch X-Play or anything else on G4 so I can’t add an opinion to this debate.  the only reason I’m even commenting on this situation is because I know everyone that broadcasts their opinions online to the public has to deal with these creatures of pure pessimism.  I appreciate the way Sessler responded to the opposition and I think that if everyone started taking this kind of approach when dealing with these people it might help to quell the never ending tide of trolls.

Of course, not everyone the responded to that review was negative, because a majority of the internet is mentally stable.  Intelligent debate is always welcome and criticism is a necessary facet of every organization because it helps to improve and better the people, segments, features, etc. that are related to that subject.  It helps bolster creativity, change and evolution by incorporating the differing views and ideals of the content producers with those of their audience.  I encourage you to be vocal in the comments section of where ever your web surfing takes you, but keep the conversation relevant and civilized.

Everyone isn’t always going to get along but thats just a fact of life.  I hope some of the “troll” type posters take something away from this and change their ways. (Can’t blame me for dreaming! D )  At the least this provided us all with a good laugh.

-Z-

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