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X-Play, G4's flagship show, has received a lot of flack from both gamers and TV viewers, two completely different groups of people who have nothing in common. While many criticisms are valid, 2008 has been a standout year for the show. 4 months into their new format, they are clearly listening to their critics, in obvious ways like shortening a 45 second opening down to 10 seconds, putting a nice Daily Show style spin on the daily gaming news, getting rid of the horrendous in show forum/chat pop up every 2 seconds, but also in subtler ways some people might not take note of, like taking huge segments of time, and dedicating that time to serious topics.
Most recently, Adam Sessler (the reason other than Morgan Webb's boobs that the show lasted during the dark times (that is not a dig on Morgan, just a sad, pathetic truth)) spoke with Dr Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson of Harvard's mental health and media department about their $1,500,000 government funded study about how video games effect children, which they cleverly titled Grand Theft Childhood. It is a very interesting topic and handled so well by Sessler and X-Play. It would be so easy for the show to be childish and "I told you so" about video game violence with children, but instead, they let the experts do all the talking and make themselves look smarter for doing so.
Check out the segment below:
I am also a big fan of Sessler's Soapbox, a rant on various topics every week or so. You can view his latest diatribe about the Resident Evil 5 racist controvery below:
2 comments:
That rant on Sessler's Soapbox kindof aggrivated me. I disliked RE4 because they took the zombification and other monsters (lickers, and the like...) out of the game and all of a sudden turned it into a 'cult' that you're mowing down. So agree with that. RE has always been about zombies and T-Virus strains, etc.
But...if he's got such a problem with Cris Redfield killing off Africans in RE5, why did he barely touch on Leon killing off spanish people in RE4? What makes it so uncomfortable for him for one game, but not the other? Is that not rasicm right there? Somehow killing black people is more derogatory than killing off spanish people...?
When there is a majority of one race in agame that gets killed in large numbers or shown to be bad guys it has to be whitish european descendants or the game is labeled racist.
Or it can be robots. And that's just because they have no political action committee yet.
They can always go the Grand Theft Auto route and have ever possible race and creed in the game to be killed, toyed with and/or abused as the player sees fit. That way the game itself cannot be considered racist.
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