f13.net

Shake that moneymaker (http://www.f13.net/commentary.php?subaction=showfull&id=1123008374&archive=&start_from=&ucat=1&).

Touche.

The marketing overlords are really killing my interest in single player RPGs almost solely for this fact. I'm sick of graphics over gameplay. In other words, devs, we can all download porn. Porn is for beating off, games are for playing. I don't play with porn and I don't beat off to games, get that through your money hats.

I agree completely.  I've even commented that I'd play a game with stylized stick figures if the game was solid.  Sadly, it seems that people are willing to pay for this kind of crap... if not, we'd never see it.  I think the way to affect change in this industry is by talking with your wallet.  Unfortunately the people wanting this kind of crap seem to outnumber discriminating gamers.

Having said that, another nice read.  Thanks Haemish.

I want both graphic and gameplay.  If I can't have both I'll take my kids to the lake and have a better time anyway.  I rarely watch TV.  I definitely don't watch TV about gaming or electronics.  Too many other better things to do with my time.  That said I think it's always a shame when content gets tossed in favor of lowest social common denominator fluff.

Most television seems to me determined to self-immolate.

If this were Fark, someone would be screaming "This article is useless without pictures!"

You are right though. It only took seeing Spikes Video Game awards once to know that I never, ever want to see shows about video games on TV. It's not really that they don't get us though. It's that they don't care about us - the mature geeks. This shit is directed at the kids with mommy's credit card who wouldn't know quality content if it dickslapped them in the face.

I like teh shiney as much as the next guy, and I'm not offended by pixilated boobies. That being said, I sure as hell don't ever want to be associated with the mouthbreathers doing these shows, or those that these shows are targetting.

Seanbaby?  For shame.

Sure would be nice if we could have a female villain who didn't look like a thinly disguised Dominatrix.

I always liked to think of the gaming industry as just a bit less vapid than the MTV cockmasticators.  I shudder to think of the future this could bring us.

"HEY!  Remember what the Rob Liefeld mindset did for comics?  Christ, why haven't we tried that for games yet??"

I hate it when the world lives down to my expectations.

That rant made my day.  Awesome.

Well hon..

You did it again and I am thoroughly impressed with this article.

You managed to insult everything I hate AND mess with Seanbaby which although I think has sold out, I still very much like.

He's a scab on the internet and well, he makes me chuckle.

Thats how I feel also. I guess its a good thing that I dont watch g4 then. Also, anyone want to fill me in on who Seanbaby is? I think I missed that day.

*Wanders off to wiki Seanbaby*

Just Google it.

To be fair. DOA Volleyball was brilliant. Team Ninja took a ridiculous subject and took it seriously. They gave us Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive. I'll take Volleyball from them any day of the week. IIRC, DOAV came between DOA3 and Ninja Gaiden. It was a break from the norm and was a great cash-in. I applaud them and I look forward to them doing that on the 360. Now, if they only made DOAV because of the titty-cash (like Squeenix and FFX2...fuckers) I'd be pissed. But no, Itagaki and Co. get nothing but love from me.

Oh, and fuck Seanbaby. I'll rescind my ban on sellout to describe that worthless cocksucker. I hope Larry Probst is fucking him in the ass without a rubber. And gives him whatever he's got. Blech. I hope he gets a raging case of Madden motherfucking 06.

Oh, beyond that - beautiful Haem, as always.

Hey man, leave wrestling out of this!

Is this why I keep seeing some sort of "Direct2Drive Women of Games" shit on Fileplant and Gamespy and such? It's pretty clear that TV + games = total shit. I don' mind T&A in games but god damn Bloodrayne was a terrible game and if the main character was male it would have been reamed and then forgotten. Gaming awards and TV and such are even worse than TV/music/hollywood equivalents, if such a thing is even possible.

Oh well...I'm looking forward to next year, when best character in a game goes to Kasumi's breasts in DOA4.
---
I remember when I was young playing Art of Fighting, when you fight King and beat him with a fireball his top blows off and he has a bra on - OMG it's a woman! Ah...memories.

Really? (http://www.kingdomofloathing.com)

--GF

He did say "if the game was solid".  KOL is pretty fun, but good thing it's free.

Don't forget those shows that play rendered video instead of actual, you know, gameplay.  As a gamer I like teh shiney videos way more than actually playing.

If you don't know about Seanbaby then I recommend you read his stuff on Superfriends.  It's gold, genuine laugh out loud gold.

Gaming on TV, at its best, is going to be Korean style in-game coverage of games with commentators who actually know shit about the games.

In the west however we get minor celebrities who either are internet geeks that are so overjoyed at the thought of "really being on TV" that they'll slob on any knob going. Hell the coffee boy probably gets to rub one out on them. The other type of minor celebrities have probably never gotten any further than playing a few games of Madden on their X-box and are there because at least 100 people will actually recognise them. On top of this we get bright flashing lights and X-treme X-box aXion, possibly with an X-box free-falling out of a helicopter, landing on a sheer cliff and snowboarding down a mountain WHICH IS ALSO A GIANT X!!11!! After all this establishes that MTV thinks games are cool and totally rad everyone can wrap it up and congratulate themselves on a job well done. And this shit will probably help shift units, people who watch MTV don't give a shit about the release line-up or system specs, they're going to think, "man that X-box looks dope, I bet it'll play the new Madden/generic sports title hella cool." Their brains will the proceed to implode and any money or valuable possessions they have will be sent to me.

In a perfect world.

To go back on topic, this kind of show isn't designed to appeal to gamers. We're going to go on the internet and buy this stuff if we like the system and the line-up, having a preview of that stuff on MTV is going to sway a grand total of about 10 people. It will however let several hundred thousand other people know what the new X-box is coming and will truly be in your face. I'd be fairly confident that this will get enough extra interest in the X-box 360 to justify this travesty to any corporation's money men. Dignity is, after all, just a word. What can you buy with a word? Certainly not money hats.

Fuck DOA Volleyball.  Play Beach Spikers on the Gamecube.  Its beach volleyball that's actually FUN.  It uses more than 1 button!  It has lots more opponents!  It has create a player features!  It has codes so you can have a vball team with Nei from Phantasy Star 2 and Ulala from Space Channel 5 on it!  IT HAS NO BOUNCY BOOB PHYSICS.  Ok, it does have some lipstick lesbian vibes, but its clearly meant to be a game and not a 50 dollar game soley designed to rub one out while playing.

And its by Sega.

Suck it up, campers.

If you don't like G4, don't watch. I haven't, the Screen Savers was a show I watched regularly, but G4 always sucked. So I don't bitch about it, I just don't watch.

If you don't like boob-bounce physics, don't play those games. That's how capitalism works.

I think it's unfortunate, but corporate america is interested in hooking impressionable minds into a trendy (and spendy) lifestyle. That'll never change, until people stop being impressionable.
Now that just hurt, man. It's unfortunate that Madden will sell a hundred gazillion copies as sports fans can't go without their fix. Maybe VC (nee 2k Games) should make a football game with boob physics...for the political team. See Hillary's pendulous breasts knock out the opposition, the EA suits! See Joe Liebermann get sacked, with full bone-breaking action. Watch the nameless EA suit suck the life out of a lineman! The playing field could be the american flag, which could get churned and destroyed by the actions of the two teams.

The X-Box show, no, it's not designed for gamers. But the G4 show I'm bitching about in this article? The network is supposed to be all "4 gamers" or some shit. It's just about all they show on the network. Unfortunately for them, and the idiots who advertise on their station, they missed the target.

No one has mentioned CinemaTech on G4.  I like that show, and I like TiVo, since I don't have to look at any other G4 crap.  I have the episode where they showed the five-minute completion of Super Mario Bros.  That's my kind of stuff.

The only thing I watch on G4 is X-Play (and that only when they are reviewing something I am interested in). They have a good mix of humor and sarcasm that I find amusing. And Morgan Webb wears tight shirts, which I appreciate.

They had a great line about GTA:SA Hot Coffee- "If you are a 10 year old kid and your Mom buys you GTA:SA, that might not be your biggest problem.". Heh.

Blood & Gore TV will solve all our problems. (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/07/11/goretv/index_np.html)

Morgan Webb's RE4 review nearly had me on the floor from laughing so hard.

"Blowing up monks is FUN! They're filled with Candy!"

That's because you don't get nearly enough action. Don't ask me why, it just is.

It wouldn't have mattered what she looked like in this instance; It was what she was saying, and how she was saying it, that I found so funny.

I've seen X-Play do some funny bits, like the stupid game with the dog that was amusing.

Attack of the Show is fucking ass, the car shows are horrible although the drifting thing was strange enough to watch for about 5minutes.  Versus sucks balls I hate both the hosts with a passion and they suck at everything they do.  Lets not even talk about the top 10 show the asian lady hosts I mean seriously I swear some of her punchlines involved pissing her pants in the one episode I watched.

Yegolev is right though, CinemaTech is a solid interesting thing to have on in the backround, I've seen some cool things on that.  Also because I am not ub3r geeky and wouldn't bother to look this stuff up on my own I have found some of the Icon shows interesting, but not the StarWars one, I didn't need to know anything more about StarWars.

Sir, I like the way you think.

I never thought I'd see a bunch of guys who fear Jennifer Garner's man-jaw say anything nice about Morgan Webb. Frankly, I think the girl needs to fire her stylist - what was up with the sleeveless hoodie/Elvira hairdo combo?!? And I'm sorry, but unless you know how to walk in those things (which she clearly doesn't) ENOUGH with the heels! No, they DON'T go with everything.

But I think that she and Adam Sessler are teh funneh, which is why I watch. And Icons, when it was on, was pretty great too. I have the Zelda episode perma-saved on the Tivo.

Morgan Webb has a FACE??

Morgan Webb isn't CGI?

CGI hosts...  someday soon they will try that, imagine the abuse of elf-boobies as G4 hosts.

I havent watched much G4 yet.  Just got rid of cable and went satellite with DVR. (Yay Dish Network!)

At the moment its all Cartoon Network and Toon Disney.  What can I say?  Im a complete slut for that Kim Possible show.  Im sure I will hate G4 soon enough...

Kim Possible is just a low rent Totally Spies.

Yes, but Kim has a brain instead of being a fluffy 'omg look I fell on your dick' valley slut.

TS is banned in my house.. I flipped-out enough when my 6-year-old daughter told me she wanted a Bratz doll. I don't need her aspiring to be that vapid, too.

As for digital boobies, I've got no problems with them when they're either the point of the game (DOA volleyball) or just patently fanservice in an otherwise good game.  Disgust of pixellated boobage is, to me, just a step shy from the usual "OMGWTFSEX!!!" attitude that pervades the US.  However, using a 1/2 second 'jiggle-shot' as the focus of a marketing campain for a game like SC2, yeah that'll get my blood boiling.


There's already a CGI news host out there. Damned if I can remember who or what newservice she was for, though.  I vaguely remember hearing about digital nude hosts as well.

(http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/art/max/4.jpg)

Matt Frewer is the biggity-bomb.

Not that I watch Totally Spies all the time, but as an adult you can see the entire thing is pretty tongue n cheek and sarcastic. I guess little ones might just take it at face value though.

Yes, exactly.  It's a teen 'toon while Kim is "all ages" so it requires a little less critical thinking.   Plus, I just can't stand ditzy women/ girls, even in comedies.

Kim Possible is just funny.  That's why I watch it.  It amuses me.
Doesn't look anime, takes potshots at teen culture, and is clearly made
by people who spent WAAAY too much time watching Bond movies while
high.

What the fuck... now these guys are gonna start showing anime (http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/7408.html)...

Lame.

G4 (or at least when it was TechTV) has always shown anime.

The fact that they are going to show Colorful... on a anime segment of programming called WIRE BISCUIT of all things... I just shake my head. You might as well call the segment Random Words Our Marketing Twats Think Will Appeal to Dragonball Z and Mountain Dew Extreme Sports Fans.

Colorful is just too weird to ever be viewed by humans.

Colorful fucking rules, it's just too much for your Down Home Country Fried Mississippi Mind to comprehend. Or something. Perhaps I'm insane.

Perhaps you have been out in the Valley sun too long.

I'm boycotting green text. I find it too PC. As in PlayerCharacter.

I'm boycotting the beige text. I find it too PH. As in PlayerHater.

I'm boycotting all text because I don't like to read.

Gestaltic language acquisition and texton neighborhood efficiencies FTW!!! (http://www.cs.ucla.edu/~cguo/primal_sketch.htm)

So far I have found Barbed Wire Biscuit to be a failure.

Braniac is ok, but its really just a slightly risque British Mythbusters, and the one anime show is supposed to be good. (Haven't watched it off my DVR yet.)

But the other 2 selections are PURE ASS.  And tend to be shown the most.  Cinematech is relatively dumb to begin with.  One designed to show mostly violent game content, bugfuck Japanese games, or t&a without actually showing any t&a is even more dumb. 
And Happy Tree Friends has ALWAYS sucked, and showing it on TV doesn't make its one note joke any more amusing.  A show based around OMG THEY KILLED KENNY isn't exactly brilliance.  Its quasi hateful, and not even funny.  Yay.  Cute animal characters die horribly.  How hilarious.  The only possible way this show could amuse is if you ambushed furries with it and got to watch their reactions.  But that would require getting near furries and who the frig wants to do that?

Adult Swim still wins I think.  Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Sealab, Brak, Family Guy, Futurama, Harvey Birdman, and a few other shows beat out Barbed Wire Biscuit.  Not to mention no ads for the "Whip Set".

The Whip set is an important slot for G4, because they need to appeal more to the hardcore Madden and Halo drones.

Execpt Stroker and Hoop sucks ass.
And I am going start a riot soon, if I don't get new Venture Bros.

I'm not big on Stroker and Hoop.

I hate FMA.

I can't even watch Inuyasha anymore.

Bring back GitS, and move Lupin the 3rd up in the lineup.



Oh, and if I may be on topic for a moment....

My parents got a deal on Digital cable recently, so now there is On Demand on the TV in the den....so I was flipping through the stuff, and came upon a few parts of the Video Vixens piece.

Wow, just....wow...

Worthless television if I have ever seen it. I wonder how much of a whore Hal Sparks felt like during that show. If that's the best he can get, he should just quit "show biz" and get a "normal" job.

You would like Ghost in the Shell. :roll:

People forcing me to watch Akira and Ghost in the Shell are what left the permanent scar on my brain the keeps me from ever giving anime another try.

Yea, I was making fun of Strazos. Akira didn't bother me much, but GitS is some Shit.

Hey, at least he's got all those "I Love the 80s" and "I lOve the 90s" spots on VH-1. S'done wonders for Michael Ian BLack's career.

I realized you were making fun of him, but the mention of GitS just made me twitch.  I blocked out most of my experience watching Akira.  I get a migrane trying to remember why I hated it so much beyond the fact that it just kept dragging on.  It holds a special place of hatred in me though, much like DBZ (and by extension people with DBZ screen names).

Hey, I like all the GitS stuff.

But take note that i'm not a rabid Anime fan. Inuyasha is turning into shit for me, while FMA and One Piece have been shit to me from the moment I first saw them.

Glad I fell asleep then.  I was curious, but now I'm not. 

Adult Swim had some cards up a week or two ago talking about how Venture Bros. season 2 had just gotten into the storyboard process and new eps would be seen in January, didn't they? I could have been hallucinating again.

Stroker and Hoop were ok, much better than that 12 oz. Mouse shit they kept trying to foist on us, or Tom Goes to the Mayor, for that matter. But the pure luv of a block of new Harvey Birdman, ATHF, Robot Chicken and Sealab, followed by Venture Bros.? Beats all anime hands down, even the good shit.

I think the new Venture Bros. will be sometime in 2006, as well as Robot Chicken after that. I think they are staggering new stuff so that there's always 1 new show in a block of 3 reruns.

TGttM: a few chuckles but raw.
S&H: not even mildly amused.

Another thing I miss Big O.  Its like Cowboy Bebop, never get tired of watching it.

More like Batman with giant robots, but I mean that as a compliment.

Yeah, I can dig Big O.

And Cowboy Bebop....I wish they would never take it off, just to keep the crap from filling the vacancy.

Big O featured an animation style that was like visual abortions. I just couldn't cope with it. Couldn't cope with Batman: TAS either.

Wow.  The first person I have ever heard of outside of the hardcore anime elitists who doesn't like Batman TAS, or at least its art style.

Ya learn something new every day.

Not liking the style of Batman TAS is akin to being a damn pinko commie.

Here's a newflash for you:

Schild IS a hardcore anime elitist pinko doe-eyed anime fairy.

Not at all. I just can't account for some people's bad taste. Hardcore anime elitists don't love Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Sealab the way I  :heart: them.

I thought that was a requiste to being an expert on Japanese media....

Just because someone knows more about something than you doesn't make them an expert. It just makes you an uninformed schmuck when you enter conversations about said topic. I'm not talking about you in particular here, just in general how these things work. For example, the playstation 2. We get it. You don't have one. You're broke and in college. Great. Now shut the fuck up.

I dub thee "Mod of Strazos".

*But who the fuck am I, anyhow?  :|

[edit] Or in other words:

Owned (I hate that word too...But it's suitable).

We have pictures for such occasions!

(http://www.f13.net/grief/owned.jpg)

Somewhat on-topic for the derail: I somehow got my wife to actual watch and like both Aqua Teens and Sealab.  I'm really not sure how I managed that. 

There was a time when I owned one.

I then traded it in for an Xbox, because I didn't like the PS2 library, and liked some of the games coming down the pipeline for Xbox.

I'm considering trading in all my Xbox stuff for cash or credit, because I don't use the damn thing.

EDIT: I tend to be disappointed by consoles for one reason or another. I tend to be let down more often by the console games I buy than by PC games, and I've only ever bought 1 (arguably) bad PC game, to my knowledge.

EDIT 2: ooo....Arcanum and Star Trek: Armada;  make that two and a half.

It seems like a lot of things disappoint you or don't meet your standards.  I can only imagine that you grew up on Mt. Olympus before being cast down with us mortals and only the sweetest ambrosia can satisfy you.

Uhh...I thought you were a chick.

Boy is his wife gonna be pissed when she finds out!  :evil:

Same here, but I suppose that she likes dumb/random humor... which explains why she married me.  My MST3K'ing of Atelier Iris had her sides hurting last night.  She is totally on-board with all the good Adult Swim, being the one ordering the ATHF and Birdman DVDs as proof.  We are on edge with that Venture Bros. cliffhanger.

Not sure what made the Big O animation so bad, unless you mean the use of only black and red ink.

Ironically I have been an anime fan since 1990.  But not enough of one that I can't adore quality western productions.

I mean, shit.  Superman and Captain Marvel's fight on Justice League Unlimited beats almost every fight I have ever seen in an anime ever.  COMBINED.  I love the Timm/Dini DC shows.  Love the cool art style, love the stories. Hell, give them the controls of the DC comic books.  Might keep shit like the end of War Games from happening.  (Which is extra shitty since its pretty awesome till then.  Sort of like going from the current Teen Titans comic to having Liefield drawing it for 2 months.  It makes the bad look worse since its replacing goodness.)

Ive been lucky.  I like anime but I don't worship Japanese stuff.  Hell, I have a BIGGER disgust for the Hentai and the Pocky and the shitty console RPGs because of my knowledge of anime.

Doesn't hurt most anime sucks now, and whatever is cool (like Azumanga Diaho), gets ruined by the Internet and Dojinshi deviants so I can't ever share or enjoy because where I see a cool or sweet show they see spank material.  Deviant spank material.

And its because of those fuckos that I can't even say I love the Kim Possible show without someone claiming its being a pervert, instead of liking the pop culture slams and the general high quality funny.

This is all anime and anime fandom's fault.

Apparently the otaku of the world want to out freak the furries or some shit.

About the DC comics shows: I think they have gotten progressively worse. Batman:TAS was gold. Batman Baryond I hear was really good, though I only saw an ep or 2. Superman was ok, as was Justice League. JLU is pretty bad IMO. Way too many 2 part stories that only have enough content for 1 part, way too many characters, etc.

It seems to me that in Justice League and JLU, a large part of the fun is knowing and recognizing the characters from the comics. If you don't half of them come of as very extraneous and silly. Look, it's a bat woman. Look, it's some sort of Cowboy and a guy riding a pegasus or some shit...

I dunno, I agree that there's too many characters and you get lost sometimes, but there've been some pretty good stories in there.   I really liked the Booster Gold episode, but that's me.

Some of the issues explored in the most current season were interesting takes on things. Nothing that I'd like to see as the greater-continuity of the DC Universe (as much as I care, which isn't much) but were good nonetheless. I also really liked that they kind of wrapped-up Batman Beyond for those of us who'd wanted to see more of the show before it was canned.

If you dislike JLU, I'd REALLY avoid that new Batman cartoon on the WB.  It's like Batman done by the ad execs who came up with Mt. Dew's "EXTREEEEEEEEEEEEEME" image.

BUZZZ FUCKING BUNNNNY, BITCHAZZZ!!

(http://www.nuklearpower.com/images/godawfulinaneshit.jpg)

Actually, a lot of what they explored this current season is eerily (and I gather this was planned) similar to the things that are happening in current DC continuity with the prelude to Infinite Crisis stuff (only without the rape and murder of Sue Dibney and the subsequent mind-wiping issues). They haven't quite gotten to the level of animosity between the big 3 that the comics are getting to now, but it's been close.

As a diehard comics fan, seeing all those obscure characters like Wildebeest in JLU just makes it that much better. The portrayal of the characters that have been more than window dressing, like Green Arrow, Black Canary, Captain Atom, etc. has either been really true to the comics, or really well done and fit in with the universe.

JLU started off kind of weak.  I wasn't too impressed.  This last season though has just been so fucking good.  I go into complete geek-out moments every episode, and squeel with joy.  And it's just well written and witty for the most part.  Like Batman bailing out of the Batwing and losing his parachute in midair in the middle of a large scale battle.

Into the com-link:
"This is Batman.  I could use some air support.  Because I can't fly.  At all.  Now would be good."

The crossovers with Batman Beyond were quite fantastic.

Present Batman in the future:  "I'll hit the streets, see what I can dig up."
Batman Beyond: "That might not be such a good idea, we've got a different breed of lowlife these days."
Present Batman in the future:  "Are criminals still superstitious and cowardly?"
Aged Bruce Wayne:  "Oh yeah."
Present Batman in the future:  "I'll be fine."

I think part of my problem is that they have a lot of 2-part episodes that don't seem to have enough content to really be 2 parts.

Overall though I think it is safe to say that JLU is meant to appeal much more to DC Comics fans than the other series. You don't need to know that much to watch B:TAS or normal JL, but a lot of the enjoyment for JLU seems to be in all the random characters and such. I guess it's better if you are a big DC fan, but it just leaves me cold. The stories and characters just aren't that compelling to me.

I'm not even a big DC fan, or even a comic guy, and I still like JLU for the multitude of characters.

Take that for whatever it's worth.

Star Trek: Armada is quite kickass, but only if you go here (http://project90.aenonimity.com/armada/).

Aside from the nerd-glee of watching the Enterprise get it's ass handed to it by an Imperial Star Destroyer, this mod also adds a SHITLOAD of content.  The smallest of the three Federation shipyards can build more different classes of scout ship, with this mod, than the entire unmodded faction had ships of any sort.