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WTFriday: Won't You Be My Gamer?

I watched a lot of children's television when I was younger (this morning counts as younger, right?). Sesame Street was essential, Lamb Chop was interesting, David the Gnome was enaging, even Barney was fun in an ironic manner years ahead of becoming a jaded teenager, but Mister Roger's Neighborhood never quite felt right to me. Fred Rogers himself was like a warm grandfather figure who never had anything better to do than play make believe and aks whoever he came across pedantic questions about their immediate surroundings and actions. Even as a child I found this unsettling.

Had I seen this clip as a child, though, I would have at least had an exact moment to pinpoint "that's what creeped me out about him." Fred Rogers visits the arcade in the back of a restaurant of some sort and proceeds to ask a young boy about Donkey Kong. The whole thing sounds like an exchange with the elderly pedophile on Family Guy:

Posted Mar 13 2009, 05:00 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with 2 comment(s)

Filed under: derrick sanskrit, donkey kong, television, wtfriday, mister rogers neighborhood

"Reality" Competition To Find "Ultimate Gamer" Looks "Awesome"

World Cyber Games has announced their new "Reality Competition Series" (these things don't count as game shows anymore, do they?) titled, imaginatively, WCG Ultimate Gamer to air on Sci-Fi this March in eight one-hour installments. Sci-Fi recently had a similar competition program in Cha$e, which designed itself to be a "real-life video game" (like childhood favorites manhunt or tag, only with iPhones and sidequests), but Ultimate Gamer looks to more closely follow previous Sci-Fi reality competition Who Wants To Be A Superhero?

Much like Superhero tested the costume characters' application of heroism and courage in real world scenarios, Ultimate Gamer will test participants proficiency at popular games as well as real-life simulations of those games. Play Rock Band 2, then play a real electric guitar. Halo 3, then real paintball. Project Gotham Racing 4, then real street-ready cars.

Posted Jan 16 2009, 03:00 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with no comments

Filed under: derrick sanskrit, television, competitive gaming, ultimate gamer, sci-fi

Robot Chicken Torments the Excite Bike Guy

I've always been of two minds about Robot Chicken. It's basically a lot of claymation jokes about our favourite childhood toys and mascots farting and pooping and I am so above that. (*frt*) But sometimes the show comes out with something that makes me laugh in spite of myself. It happened again today, in the middle of a library. :(

Robot Chicken: Excitebike follows the innocent little biker from Excite Bike on the NES. He's just tooling around, driving home from a long day at work to see the wife and kids--

Wait, does the Excite Bike dude have a name or a background? What do we know about his life? His motivation? His credit history? Even F-Zero's tight-muscled pilot, Captain Falcon, has gained a certain amount of infamy. We now know he loves to brawl, he writes slash fanfiction about himself and Samurai Goroh and he fathered an illegitimate son somehow.

And despite all that, I think I'd rather date the Excite Bike guy. A bit of mystery is sexy. Looks like he'll have to take care of his shattered legs, first.

Also, I'm a new admirer of the adjective "anus-shattering."

Posted Sep 18 2008, 06:03 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with no comments

Filed under: nintendo, nes, f-zero, 8-bit, retro, television, nadia oxford, captain falcon, excite bike, robot chicken

WTFriday: 20/20 from 20 Years Ago Copes With Nintendo

It's always fun to take a trip back in time and see the media's reaction to something new back when it wasn't as innocuous as it is today. Case in point: ABC news magazine 20/20's 1988 investigative piece, "Nuts for Nintendo," where a youngish John Stossel grows unreasonably cranky at the concept of a childlike sense of wonder.

Part 1

Part 2

Posted Sep 05 2008, 03:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s)

Filed under: nintendo, bob mackey, television, wtfriday, super mario 2

Aliens and Games and TV, Oh My: The Jace Hall Show

Videogames, they’re played on televisions. Well, they’re played on computer monitors too, but those have all but turned into televisions in recent years, right? Right. Of course, 61 Frames Per Second has been pondering and expounding on the relative merits of televised programming based on and about videogames of late. As our very own Amber Ahlborn made the point the other day, videogame television aimed at avid players is typically schlock ridden garbage, marred by a need to come off as both cool enough for the cool kids and geekily informed enough to appeal to the really cool kids. Amber’s spot-on in saying that the best game television is on the internet. When it comes to quality, the comedic characters created by Yahtzee and the Angry Video Game Nerd are joined by the first truly successful preview/review show, The 1up Show. Ryan O’Donnell and Jane Pinckard found the winning formula of scripted dialogue, personality and informed journalism lacking in every other attempt at the form, and O’Donnell has kept it strong for three years running.

The golden rule of entertainment is that when you make something that works, someone is going to imitate you on the quick.

Posted Aug 28 2008, 06:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s)

Filed under: john constantine, 1up, yahtzee, angry video game nerd, fear, monolith, aliens, gearbox, television, condemned, borderlands

Video Game Television the Canadian Way, Eh?

All this talk about Video Power and Gamepro TV has made my phantom leg-warmers itch. I watched both religiously. In fact, Gamepro TV deserves a hearty "thank you" for spoiling the twist near the end of Mega Man 4. Yeah, so maybe it doesn't take a genius to figure out that Dr Wily was manipulating Dr Cossack, but I was, like, ten at the time. That's serious shit when you're ten.

Unlike most of you, I had one more video game show in my Saturday roster: Canada's own Video & Arcade Top 10. It debuted in 1991 on YTV and, if I'm not reading my sources incorrectly, it still endures.

There's a definite charm to Canadian television that I would sorely miss if I were to follow up on my life's dream to live among penguins. Canadian television is terribly low-budget, but goddamn if it doesn't try hard. And, more often than not, it comes out smelling beautiful in its own funky way, like the smell of a dog you loved through childhood. If a Canadian show reaches cult status in America, it's a hit. Kids in the Hall got lucky, as did ReBoot--and both wholly deserve(d) the success they receive(d). In all, Canadian television reflects a relaxed culture that ~~smokes a lot of marijuana~~ isn't as uptight about censorship and sponsors. That's why Video & Arcade Top 10 is as cheesy as France, but doesn't try to be anything spectacular. Its theme song was ripped straight from Crash Man's stage in Mega Man 2.

Posted Aug 22 2008, 02:59 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 2 comment(s)

Filed under: television, g4, video & arcade top 10, gamepro tv, game television, morgan webb, nadia oxford, video power

Video Game TV: Can It Ever Be Good?

In a recent post here at 61fps, fellow blogger Bob Mackey dredged up from the pit of nostalgia GamePro TV. I am pretty darn sure I watched this when I was younger. I think there was another show even earlier in my childhood that reviewed games on the Nickelodeon network that I would watch. Looking back I wonder at how awful those shows were. More recently there were things like G4 which showed numerous programs aimed at the gamer audience. I don't think even the ones that continue to survive are what I would call great. Why do Video Game TV shows suck, and can they possibly be done in a way that's appealing?

Posted Aug 22 2008, 10:00 AM by Amber Ahlborn with | with 3 comment(s)

Filed under: amber ahlborn, nostalgia, television

Horrors that Time Forgot: GamePro TV

On last week’s episode of GFW Radio, co-host Shawn Elliot spent a few minutes riffing on some old episodes of GamePro TV he’d just seen on YouTube. When I was a kid, this was a show I watched on purpose--and taped for later, obsessive re-viewings. Granted, it didn’t take me long to become spiteful and jaded, but in 1991, people on TV talking about video games was a big goddamned deal. For the love of all that’s holy, I even watched both versions of Video Power.

Looking back, GamePro TV wasn’t nearly as terrible as it could have been. Everything on the show looks like it was hit with a hose that sprayed both splatter paint and denim, but this was simply a fact of life for those of us living through the rough transition from the 80s to the 90s. And we certainly didn’t let the guitar riffs that accompanied all of our actions get us down. Life was all about hanging with your friends who were an odd mix of Wayne, Garth, and Cody from Step By Step, and kickin’ back with some Battletoads (crystal meth had not been not invented yet).

Posted Aug 21 2008, 10:00 AM by Bob Mackey with | with 3 comment(s)

Filed under: gamepro, bob mackey, television

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.