Hikari On The Subject

Okay. By know, we should all know that G4TV.com has been killed, and we must bid a fond farewell to Laura Foy, Geoff Keighley and Tina Wood (seen below), as their show will soon be nothing more than a bittersweet Television memory. G4 has chosen press the kill-switch on the only show that was even close to a industry news series, and a perfect outlet for roundtable discussion on things pertaining to video games. While most shows that may *comment* on games every once in a blue moon, G4TV.com covered games exclusively.

Why should G4 keep G4TV.com around? A number of reasons. Most of all, they're slowly becoming like MTV, in that they're showing more and more content, that has absolutely *nothing* to do with the reason the channel for in the first place, such as The Man Show, Street Fury, and Fastlane. Now, while I've got no problem with them airing different shows for more variety, I do have a problem when people have trouble staying on point. If you're gonna air regular shows? Pick up something like Dark Angel, or Earth 2; shows that with a tech/sci-fi appeal that would resonate with your geeked out fan base.

Another reason? They cannot afford to start running off their existing fan base. When TechTV and G4 merged, they had an excellent chance to make something beautiful by simply merging the 2 channels together. Both channels had a slight problem of not having enough content to properly fill a week long calendar, and thus, often reran things multiple times a day or through out the week. If the had just combined both line ups, they could have more deeply filled their schedule and ran fewer reruns.

And probably the best reason for keeping G4TV.com around? There's nothing else on that's really like it, and once its gone, unless G4 replaces it, there won't be anything like it, period. Nobody else has a show that goes in depth about what's new in games, or treats them like a serious topic as opposed to treating them like hottest new toy or the device that's polluting the minds of unsupervised children everywhere.

CNN, occasionally, has something on the game industry but only if there's a console launch, E3, or a big scandal such as with the Hot Coffee situation, or the moral short-comings found in games like NARC, but it doesn't have any thing dedicated to the games industry. This, despite the fact that you can watch the ticker at the bottom of the screen scroll with news about celebrities, and the newest iPod, long before seeing updates on the situtation in Iraq.

When I was younger I used to dream about a network that ran Game reviews, previews, interviews, tips-n-tricks, tournamnets, and everything that repesented video games. A network devoted totally to gaming culture. That dream came true when I found out about G4, then...it became a nightmare.

First, G4: the only network for gamers, swallowed up my favorite network, TechTV, which in my opinion was the far superior network from the get go with better programing, that was only getting better and better as it continued to grow and evolve. Soon, shows I loved were being cancelled, fading from the line-ups, until all that remind was X-Play, which ironically was a gaming show that was better than anything that G4 had running, with the exception of a few shows, like Judgement Day.

Eventually, G4 began to grow on me, and I actually found myself enjoying shows like the horriblely named Attack of the Show, and G4TV.com, with Laura Foy, Tina Wood and Geoff Keighley. Like TechTV, I watched this show go through a rough patch, but saw it become something enjoyable, and when the show's female hosts weren't doing something asinine like dumping buckets of something on another and the like, and stuck to pure interviews, discussion and debating, they really shined through and made the show fun to watch.

But, now, just like almost every other show I liked on the network, it too is getting the Ax. Tina Wood announced on her blog that G4TV.com has been given then old heave-hoe and is about to film it's final show on Friday. This pisses me off to no measurable end as this was the last good show of its kind on the network.

With AOTS killing the Screensavers and becoming more of a varity series, this was the only show that really appealed to the debater in me. The side of me that loves to go off on rants about an issue in the indusry. And now, like everything else I held dear about TechTV, the show, will soon be no more.

What is wrong with the fucking G4 execs? These idiots don't seem to realize when they've got a good thing going or when they should funnel more money into a project, rather than buying up crap shows like Fast Line, or hiring personalities like Kristin Holt simply for sex appeal.

They're on a downward spiral as it is. If they wanna save themselves, they need to start by bringing back more of the old TechTV content, like Big Thinkers, TechLive, The Screensavers, Fresh Gear. I don't mean the mockeries they made of Screensavers and Fresh Gear we called the new Filter and AOTS, I mean the old shows where they took a clean and simple look at the gear and gadgets they were talking about without the lame over acted commentary. They need to become educational and informative like they were when they had Patrick Norton and Leo Laport hosting the Screensavers, or Chris Parillo or Leo hosting Call for Help (they brought back CoH thank god, but it runs in the mornings when almost no one is gonna see it). They need better programming and less hook orentited shows like Street Fury and it's Asian models (don't get me wrong, they're more than cute, but if I wanna stare at boobs all day, I'll go to a car model site and do it without all the moving cameras).

G4TV.com was by no means the best show on TV, but it was the most serious about discussing things in the game industry, and shining a decent amount of light at the topics we as gamers face today. With it gone, no longer do we have a persistant voice raising or discussing these issues, and will probably have to rely on the occasioanl "G4 Special Report" to get anything close to real discussion, and even then you'll only see it when the shit hits the fan within the industry. Rockstar or some other company will release a game that sparks controversy or some dumb ass new law gets passed that prompts G4 to run an hour long special on the related topic.

While history has shown that shows can be saved through letter writing campaiges, and ulltra high fan support, I don't think G4TV.com willl get that treatment. For a show to be saved that way, it has to have a lot of viewers, and sadly, after G4 gobbled up TechTV, many people found themselves tuning out.

In the coming months, I fear for the safety of my favorite G4 shows, X-Play and Judgement Day. Will they be spared, shown mercy by the G4 execs, or will they be forced to suffer the same fate as G4TV.com, The Screensavers, and so many others? The only ones who know that are G4 and you're remote controls.

After E3, the gaming community was all a buzz about 2 controllers; The PS3's boomerang, and the Revolution's remote. While people have warmed up to Revolution controller, still freaked out but, intrigued nonetheless, many are still concerned about what'll happen if they chuck their PS3 controller across the room; will it smash into the wall, or come back and smack 'em in the eye?

After some digging I came across some interesting comparisons to a 3rd party PS1 controller by a company called Alps, which has a very similar design to the PS3 controller. One thing that struck me about the control, aside from the similarities, is that many people seemed to actually like it. As I look around for info on it, kept coming across phrases like "Best controller ever!" and "4-out-of-5!" While I still don't know about the PS3 controller, I'm gonna give it a chance here and take a look at their new tool of interaction.

Given the fact that the controller looks like it's got the same essential layout as the Dual-Shock series, it shouldn't be too different for people already used to the current setup. Still, that left analog stick and the d-pad are in a little weirdly placed in my opinion. But, people have been using that setup for almost 10 years now, so if it ain't broke don't fix it, right? Though, I know more than a few people who say that layout is less than perfect.

In terms of features, it looks about the same as the original, however, Sony has stated that this time around their control would feature wireless capabilities. The nice thing about the coming generation overall is that all 3 consoles will be wireless, rather having another set of cords cluttering up your gaming space.

As for the overall shape, I can't really imagine my self holding it. When I first see just about any other controller, I can imagine what it looks and feels like. The PS3s banana of a control is a little harder for me to wrap my hands around, especially I haven't seen anyone actually hold the thing.

While Sony started out saying that the control was a concept design, they later said that it's pretty close to what the final control will be like. Is it possible that the newer PS3 controller, could eventually look more like the Alps PS1 controller and be just as beloved or will it be awkward, uncomfy, and open the door for lawsuits because there's no warning that the control will come back when thrown? Only time and Sony will tell.