What is "My Two Bits?"

My Two Bits is the official editorial page for the editor of Techtite.com. Techtite will accept reader submissions, for reviews as well as any editorials deemed well written and pertinent to this web site's audience.

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---100 Years to Live...? Poor You!

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No sidebar comments for this review. Yet.

My Two Bits for June/July, 2005 is titled :

Long Live G4TV

...While It Lasts.

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There's this cool new cable channel called G4TV. I'm not being paid to say this because quite frankly, this is an editorial, and what I'm about to say for this station's own good is a bit harsh. However, I love the concept this network has behind it, and I'd love to see it succeed in the long run.

The premise of the network is simple: games. There are these various shows on the channel, that review games, preview games, offer cheats and hints, and so forth. To those who say there isn't an audience for such a channel: you don't go to many stores, do you? Electronic gaming is a whole two-thirds of even the largest computer/electronics/media store. If an aisle isn't filled with games, it's filled with the sound cards and graphic cards and controllers needed to play them. It's that simple: we needed G4TV!

Mind you; it would've been a whole lot cooler if this network had the guts to be 24 hours of video game goodness. It isn't; a huge chunk of the programming, at least for now, is a whole lot of infomercials. Don't tell me this is just to make ends meet, because there are varying ways to do so. Back in the day, MTV had very few music videos to show, at the beginning of the network...but that didn't keep them from showing whatever videos were available, 24 hours a day. Likewise for the Game Show Channel (now "GSN"), which at first had only oldie game shows from the 1970's, but at least they showed them 24 hours a day. Then there was Cartoon Network, which at first had only a few old Warner Brothers cartoons to start out with, but they showed them 24/7. You probably get the idea.

Which brings us to the first polite "jab" against G4TV. It has great subject matter, but it can be annoying among so many infomercials. There's like two thirds of infomercials and only one third new programming each day. The effect is not unlike going to a web site with one page of news covered with two pages worth of pop-ups. That's not good.

It's not even like the core programming is so bad that they couldn't show it 24/7. Sure sometimes the programs are low-budget, but they keep your interest. Even with an admittedly gratuitous parody of a beauty pageant called "Video Vixens," I liked the way their supposed "panel of judges," and the host, knew a lot more about games than you would expect. These are people who look at games the way Roger Ebert looks at movies. In short, for game fans, G4 is a breath of fresh air.

Not that this is just one big commercial for the network. In fact, looking at the sorry fates of similar attempts at a smug game review source --Daily Radar, anyone?-- this cable network may not last forever, at least not in its current format. I mean, come on; how seriously can you take the opinion of a cable network which crowned "Tina" from Dead or Alive as the sexiest female video game character of all time? She isn't even the most amusing character within her own game series. Rebuttals to the contrary are Wrong. Sorry.

Yet I really love the idea of a video game channel. Among the channels for every lifestyle or interest under the sun, we video game fans need our due. G4 TV may be very rough around the edges, but it's got great promise. Do your part and at least give this new network a look. Gamers' chances of being entertained in front of the TV are a whole lot better. 

As Always: I'm Techtite, and these are My Two Bits...