X-Play logo

X-Play (previously Gamespot TV and Extended Play) is a video game review television show hosted by Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb. X-Play began on TechTV, but later moved to G4 after the May 2004 merger of G4 and TechTV. The show revolves around the two hosts' banter between reviews and previews of popular video games and the occasional quirky skits. The humor on the show is inconsistent, but tends to skew lowbrow. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1024x768, 128 KB)X-Play show logo. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1024x768, 128 KB)X-Play show logo. ... A computer game is a game composed of a computer-controlled virtual universe that players interact with in order to achieve a defined goal or set of goals. ... A television program is the content of television broadcasting. ... Adam Sessler Adam Sessler is best known as the co-host of the G4 (formerly G4techTV) television program X-Play (formerly Gamespot TV and Extended Play) with Morgan Webb. ... Morgan Webb Morgan Webb (born October 5, 1978 in Toronto, Canada) is co-host of the G4 (formerly G4techTV) television program X-Play with Adam Sessler, and the Gaming Goddess of FHM, where she contributes a monthly video game column. ... TechTV (May 11, 1998–May 28, 2004) was a 24-hour cable and satellite television channel based in San Francisco, California, featuring news and shows about computers, technology, and the Internet. ... Official G4 logo G4 is a cable and satellite television channel geared toward viewers aged 12–34 and devoted to the world of video games and the people who play them, and the import racing scene. ... This article is about the month of May. ... 2004 is a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The phrase mergers and acquisitions or M&A refers to the aspect of corporate finance strategy and management dealing with the merging and acquiring of different companies as well as assets. ... Highbrow is a colloquial synonym for intellectual. ...

Reviews and Coverage

The video game reviews on X-Play are scaled from 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest possible score. Games that score a 5 and many that score a 4 are compiled for both a holiday buyer's guide episode and an end-of-the-year "Best Of" show that categorizes the games according to genre (racing, platformer, etc). High-scoring games from the previous year that have since been reduced in retail price to $20 or less are reshown in the occasional segment Games for Cheap Bastards. The word holiday has related but different meanings in English-speaking countries. ... A racing game is any game that involves competing in races through a surrogate playing piece or vehicle, either getting it from one point to another or completing a number of circuits in the shortest time. ... Platform games, or platformers, are a very popular genre of video games that originated in the early 1980s. ... For people whose family name is Price see Price (disambiguation). ...

The show is also known for its indepth coverage of video games at annual conventions including the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and E3, although the latter event has been covered by the entire channel since TechTV merged with G4. Similar to the holiday review guide, an E3 episode will showcase buzzworthy games for all the current systems, leading up to what X-Play believes to be the most promising game of the year. The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is held each January in Las Vegas, Nevada, and is sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association. ... E³ logo The Electronic Entertainment Expo (or Exposition), commonly known as E³ or E3 , is the worlds largest annual trade show and the third largest gaming convention for the computer and video games industry. ...

Trademarks

The disembodied voice announcer begins each episode with an often over-the-top introduction to which the hosts usually respond or comment. In March 2005, production assistant and disembodied voice announcer Jason Frankovitz left X-Play. After a period of experimentation with new announcers, a new announcer was chosen. An announcer is a voice actor who works in television, radio and film, usually providing narrations, news updates, station identification, or an introduction of a product in television commercials or a guest on a talk show. ... March is the third month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days. ... 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and is the current year. ...

Adam Sessler occasionally says "Dik-Dik", and has been known to wear a Dik-Dik t-shirt on-air. This is in reference to the manga and video game Ultimate Muscle, which contains a character named Dik-Dik Van Dik. Sessler has said that this is a subtle way to legally use questionable words on television. [[Media::This article is about the Japanese medium. ... Ultimate Muscle: The Kinnikuman Legacy, known in Japan as Kinnikuman II Sei (キン肉マンII世), is a manga and anime series made by Yoshinori Nakai and Takashi Shimada under the pen name Yudetamago (Japanese for Boiled Egg). Ultimate Muscle is about Mantaro Muscle a. ...

Sketches are sometimes shown between reviews. These sketches normally deal with video game related topics. For example, one episode had a sketch about poorly done Japanese-to-English language translations in video games, while another documented games you should never buy. Adam and Morgan are often seen playing recurring character roles in many of these sketches. Sessler's trademark character is Shad Grimgravy, an excessively flamboyant and melodramatic Rip Taylor lookalike, and Webb's alter ego being Morgan Von Vebb, a mad scientist with a deliberately bad Transylvanian accent and dominatrix-like undertones. Rip Taylor (born Jan 13, 1937 in Washington D.C.), is an American actor and comedian. ... Transylvania (Romanian: Transilvania or Ardeal, Hungarian: Erdély, German: Siebenbürgen, Serbian: Transilvanija, Turkish: Erdel, Slovak: Sedmohradsko or Transylvánia, Polish: Siedmiogród) forms the western and central parts of Romania. ... A dominatrix is a woman who takes the dominant role in sado-masochistic sexual practices. ...

Constant themes show up throughout the series. Such themes include Adam and Morgan's eternal hatred for card battle games such as "Yu-Gi-Oh!", dating simulations, the hosts' constant abuse of the show's interns, the vitriol towards Adam and Morgan in viewer e-mails sent by Dragon Ball Z, Final Fantasy, Full Metal Alchemist, and Star Wars fanboys, and members of the X-Play message boards. There are regular appearances by Ratty, an obscenity-spewing hand puppet first introduced during a review of NRA Varmint Hunter (known for the phrases 'suck it', 'dayum', and 'puppet haters!'). Other supporting characters include Johnny Extreme, a caricature and personification of the "X-treme" sports genre. Guy LaFleur, a French Canadian stereotype, and Drunk Link, a parody of Link from the Legend of Zelda series, performed by one of the show's interns. Sessler is also known to make remarks expressing his lack of bladder control, hatred for his own life, and occasionally even alludes to suicide. Yu-Gi-Oh! manga volume 1 (English version) Yu-Gi-Oh! (遊☆戯☆王 YÅ«giō, Japanese for King of Games) is a popular Japanese anime and manga franchise from Kazuki Takahashi that mainly involves characters who play a card game called Duel Monsters (originally called Magic & Wizards in the manga. ... In North America, an intern is one who works in a temporary position with an emphasis on education rather than merely employment, making it similar in some respects to an apprenticeship. ... The Dragon Ball Z logo (English manga) Dragon Ball Z (ドラゴンボール Z, Doragon Bōru Z) is the long-running sequel to the popular shōnen anime Dragon Ball. ... Final Fantasy (Japanese: ファイナルファンタジー Fainaru Fantajii) is a popular series of role playing games produced by Square Enix (originally Square Co. ... Fullmetal Alchemist DVD cover by FUNimation Fullmetal Alchemist (鋼の錬金術師, Hagane no Renkinjutsushi in the original Japanese) is a 51-episode anime TV series which ran in Japan from October 4, 2003 to October 2, 2004. ... Star Wars is a series of science fantasy films created by writer/producer/director George Lucas. ... Fanboy or Fanboi is a term used to describe someone who is utterly devoted to a single subject or hobby, often to the point where it is considered an obsession. ... Obscenity has several connotations. ... The National Rifle Association, or NRA, is a highly organized 501(c)(4) group for gun promotion in the United States. ... French Canadian is a term that has several different connotations. ... Main article: The Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening. ... The Legend of Zelda series (ゼルダの伝説 シリーズ; often shortened to just Zelda series) is a series of action-adventure video games created by Nintendo and industry legend Shigeru Miyamoto beginning in 1986. ... The Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David, 1787 Suicide (from Latin sui caedere, to kill oneself) is the act of willfully ending ones own life; it is sometimes a noun for one who has committed or attempted the act. ...

Other characters include Jaded Star Wars Fanboy, known for trying to slay Adam and Morgan after a 2-out-of-5 score for Star Wars: Jedi Outcast; Slippy the Fish and Slappy the Fish, used as comedic props during the less-than-exciting GDC conferences; the Screaming Intern; Timmy the Intern with Braces; the Nebraskan Intern, known for his hip-hop gear and phrase of "Booty booty, woo-woo!"; Special Agent Bob and Secret Agent Steve, characters from the Splinter Cell Co-op Theater; Hard Drinking Intern, a female staffer who is always seen chain smoking and drinking from a bottle of Southern Comfort; "Rodney", the 'special' helmet-wearing intern; Cobra and Mongoose, badly drawn cartoon spoofs of characters from the movie Top Gun; Old Man Stumpy Hazleton, the X-Play video game historian; "Grover the drug squirrel", introduced in a review of the seedy M-rated game NARC;the Resident Evil 4 Merchant, who haunts the cubicles of the G4 offices with the constant query of "What'r ya buyin'?" and the Nemisis from Resident Evil 3, whom became a staff member with an obsession for meat. GDC is a three letter acronym, or more accurately an initialism, for: Game Developers Conference Guglielmi Detachable Coil Game Development Club This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... In North America, an intern is one who works in a temporary position with an emphasis on education rather than merely employment, making it similar in some respects to an apprenticeship. ... Hip hop is a cultural movement that began among urban African Americans, and Hispanics in New York City in the early 1970s, and has since spread around the world. ... The latest game in the series, Chaos Theory was released in 2005 Splinter Cell is a series of video games and novels created by American author Tom Clancy. ... Southern Comfort (sometimes referred to as SoCo) is a caramel-flavored liqueur, produced in since 1874, beginning in New Orleans, Louisiana, and moving to Memphis, Tennessee in 1889. ... This is an article about a movie. ... A narc, also spelled nark, is a term for a narcotics agent or police informant who snitches on drug offenders. ... Resident Evil, known as Biohazard (バイオハザード) in Japan, is a successful franchise of horror-adventure video games developed by Capcom. ... Resident Evil, known as Biohazard (バイオハザード) in Japan, is a successful franchise of horror-adventure video games developed by Capcom. ...

'Celebrity Cameos' include those by Steven Segal, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tom Cruise, Paris Hilton, Sean Connery, Patrick Stewart, The Beatles, Barry Bonds, and Ozzy Osbourne. Steven Seagal (born April 10, 1951) is a popular action movie actor and an 7th dan black belt in aikido. ... Arnold Schwarzenegger 38th Governor of California Shown here as Governor of California, with the gubernatorial seal in the background. ... Tom Cruise as seen on a poster for the 2001 film Vanilla Sky Tom Cruise (born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV July 3, 1962 in Syracuse, New York, USA) is an American actor and producer who has starred in a number of top-grossing movies. ... Paris Whitney Hilton (born February 17, 1981) is an American heiress of the Hilton Hotel fortune, a socialite, model, actress, and writer. ... Sean Connery Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born August 25, 1930 in Edinburgh, Scotland) better known simply as Sean Connery, is a Scottish film actor who has starred in many films and is best known as the original cinematic James Bond. ... Patrick Stewart Patrick Stewart, OBE, (born July 13, 1940 in Mirfield, Yorkshire, England) is a British film, television and stage actor best known for his roles in Shakespearean productions, Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Professor Xavier in both X-Men and X2. ... The Beatles (L-R, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, John Lennon), in 1964, performing on The Ed Sullivan Show promoting their first U.S. hit song, I Want To Hold Your Hand, and ushering in the British Invasion of American popular music. ... Barry Lamar Bonds (born July 24, 1964 in Riverside, California) is a professional baseball player for the San Francisco Giants; he is most famous for his home run hitting. ... Ozzy Osbourne John Michael Osbourne (born December 3, 1948, in Aston, West Midlands, United Kingdom), better known as Ozzy Osbourne, was the lead singer of the rock band Black Sabbath and later a popular solo artist and reality television star. ...

During reviews, poorly cropped images of kittens are often used to censor particularly violent sequences. Kitten The term kitten (Old English genitive of Cat) most commonly refers to a pre-adolescent cat. ... Censorship is the use of governmental power to control speech and other forms of human expression. ...

External link

• X-Play official site
• Unoffical X-play Forums