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Television Media Entertainment Games

Game Over CG Sitcom Debuts, Censored, Gets Machinima 71

Posted by simoniker from the not-so-great dept.
Thanks to GamePro for its interview with the creator of UPN's new CG videogame-related sitcom, Game Over, which debuted last night. The interview notes: "For gamers, it's great to see in-jokes and cameos - like when the entire cast of Oddworld shows up in the first episode. But is prime time ready for a gaming 'toon?" Even before debuting, "Game Over has fallen prey to network censors", with dialog and risque CG nudity cut, and reaction to the show is mixed, but to promote it, UPN is giving away an interactive PC game/machinima download in conjunction with Fountainhead Entertainment, so "players are able to use ['Game Over' character Raquel] in interactive and non-interactive ways by employing Machinimation tools" - the download is available via FilePlanet. Update: 03/12 04:10 GMT by S : Reuters are reporting disappointing ratings for the debut episode.
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Game Over CG Sitcom Debuts, Censored, Gets Machinima More

Game Over CG Sitcom Debuts, Censored, Gets Machinima

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  • Reviews?

    I'll admit it. I was too skeptical to tape it. But I'm open minded.

    • Re:Reviews? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Not bad, could be better. Worth catching the replay on Friday if you missed it the first time.

    • Re:Reviews? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by DLWormwood ( 154934 ) <[moc.em] [ta] [doowmrow]> on Thursday March 11, 2004 @05:36PM (#8537220) Homepage
      The writing needs to be tightend up... or loosened up. They are trying to be both an "Excel Saga" type show while trying to stay "grounded" in the standard "family sitcom" format... These are mutually opposing goals, leading to a wishy-washy feeling to the show.

      They should either let loose and shoot for getting cult status at the risk of losing mainstream ratings... (think Police Squad!) Or they can tighten up the premise in the hopes that it can last long term but risk alienating their original intended audience. (e.g. The Simpsons in recent years)

    • I've posted a detailed review/editorial on the show, explaining where I think it fails the gamer audience and how I think it might be saved:

      Why not call it Game On? [gamestay.com]

      With so many rich areas to mine, this could be a kick-ass show. But they have a long way to go, if the pilot is any indication.

      I have some experience with TV writing, so I do know a thing or two. I hope the show succeeds, because there is some good stuff there. Unfortunately, the not-so-good and downright crappy parts tend to overwhelm

  • Pics? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Gr33nNight ( 679837 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @04:52PM (#8536711)
    risque CG nudity cut..

    Got pics?
  • There are times that I forget such a network exists.

    Honestly, I'm aware that there is such a network, but I keep forgetting where it is on my campus cable setup...
    • If The Parkers [upn.com] had a white cast, it'd be up for a Best Comedy Emmy every year. (And lose to some unfunny, pretentious Murphy Brown-ish garabge, but what can you do?)

      Plus Smackdown! Or is it RAW? Anyway, one of them is on UPN.

  • Actually (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kalidasa ( 577403 ) * on Thursday March 11, 2004 @04:53PM (#8536723) Journal
    It wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. The characters were pretty good, and the CG was good. I'd give it 2.5 stars out of 4.

    • Re:Actually (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Rick the Red ( 307103 ) <Rick.The.Red@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Thursday March 11, 2004 @05:03PM (#8536849) Journal
      It wasn't as good as I'd hoped. Certainly not worth moving Enterprise opposite Angel. And why put The Mullets between them? Why oh why do they think the SF/gamer crowd would watch that crap?

      • Re:Actually (Score:4, Interesting)

        by kalidasa ( 577403 ) * on Thursday March 11, 2004 @05:44PM (#8537297) Journal
        Because they're planning on moving Enterprise to Neptunday night? I.e., right off the schedule. Yeah, I know, they're saying they'll renew it, but they put it up not only against Angel, but West Wing. The Slot'o'death.

        • Re:Actually (Score:2, Informative)

          by MurphyZero ( 717692 )
          Well Angel's only got a few more shows itself. And its on the WB, so who knows when the next episode will be shown or if it will be shown two weeks in a row.
          • We're only up to the "Lorne's Sleep" episode here in Australia. Does it get any better?
            • I don't know the episode titles, but Spike joins the show in this current season and really livens things up. I'm going to miss it when it goes.

              • I like Spike but I think the current season is just awful. I'm buying up the previous seasons of Angel as it comes out on DVD and I love the show but I just think the current season is full of misses. Even Spike didn't really hit his groove until recently, his timing and delivery with the rest of the cast were really weird the first few episodes. The Wolfram and Hart storyline just plain sucks; the way that Gunn's character changes is totally out of left field; getting rid of Cordelia cuts the heart out of

  • Well... (Score:2)

    by Otter ( 3800 )
    For gamers, it's great to see in-jokes and cameos - like when the entire cast of Oddworld shows up in the first episode. But is prime time ready for a gaming 'toon?"

    Unless "Oddworld" has something to do with that whiny unemployed guy whose website was famous for 15 minutes, it looks like the show will be completely over my head.

    • Re:Well... (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      'Oddworld' was (supposed to be) a series of video games.

      The first was "Abe's Oddysey", followed by "Abe's Exoddus" and "Munch's Oddysey".

      I dunno about "the entire cast".. I only noticed Abe sneaking between two barrels at the toxic-waste dump.

  • I saw about 8 minutes of this drek... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by isaac ( 2852 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @04:58PM (#8536789)
    Crass, poorly written, pandering to its target audience. In other words, your standard UPN show.

    Fail!

    -Isaac

  • Anyone else remember the Megaman cartoon? :)

    • Re:Game-related 'toon (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      As revenge for reminding me of that, I summon memories of the Super Mario Bros. Super Show with which to smite thee. Do the Mario!

    • Re:Game-related 'toon (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MMaestro ( 585010 )
      Don't forget about the Sonic cartoon and the Captain N show, which managed to rolled all of Nintendo's best characters in one show and mar our memories of them.

      Recently in Japan, video game characters are begining to get their own TV serieses (besides from Pokemon and Digimon being the most obvious). Some of them include a Sonic remake, a series on Star Ocean The Second Story (PS1 game), a Megaman series based on the Megaman/Rockman Battle Network GBA series, and a "sequel" series taking place after the .ha

  • The show has a catch... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 11, 2004 @05:52PM (#8537373)
    You can only watch it for 6 months, then you have to upgrade your TV.

    But I hear the show will look twice as good every 1.8 years.

  • Not bad, give it a few weeks. (Score:5, Informative)

    by MalachiConstant ( 553800 ) on Thursday March 11, 2004 @07:17PM (#8538031)
    I'd never heard of this show til I saw an ad for it right before it came on. I don't watch much TV, but it looked like it might be decent, so I watched it.

    Overall it feels like it was well written, then attacked by a commitee of executives. There are moments that are really funny and well animated, but there are clunkers, too. The fact that there ARE actually good jokes and references give me hope that it could become a good show if it gets time to mature. Seinfeld, and even the Simpsons didn't find their stride until a few seasons in, I'd like to see this show get that same chance.

    A few game references I spotted:

    -A guy comes out of nowhere and punches the dad while they're at a mall and he says, "What is this, Vice City?"

    -The mom is an obvious Lara Croft wannabe, always raiding tombs looking for sacred artifacts to decorate her home with, she even has the dual pistols. Her daughter starts picketing outside the tombs for desecrating them.

    -A sort of old, fat, and bitter Sonic knockoff named Turbo who they adopt as a pet and who encourages the kids to smoke and rob stores

    -The oddworld cast, of course, (we even see Abe do his "sneak-by" move), which attacks Turbo at the end. They even got the names for a few of them right;

    -The son skates through the mall, grinding on escaltors just like Tony Hawk games.

    As another poster mentioned they seem to be flipping between standard sitcom stuff (the dad has to take his daughter to buy her first bra) and video-game-characters-as-a-family humor (their neighbors are kung-fu fighters who are constantly fighting off ninjas that are attacking their house). They need to find their balance between these. Some of the jokes are less than hilarious (the father brings all the manly stuff he can carry when they go to the ligere (sp?) shop), but there's some really funny stuff like when the daughters yelling over the cell phone wakes up the monsters the mom is trying to creep by, and the dad can't figure out how to drive the moms high-tech minivan ("Don't you drive a car for a living, dad?" "Shut up!").

    The animation can be a little weak at times, but I can forgive that on a weekly show. I even saw a texturing problem when the mom was fighting the big rock monster at the end. The Turbo character annoys me for some reason.

    Overall I'm willing to watch the show to see if they can iron out these problems. There's lots of good stuff they could do, there's always new games coming out. Think if Penny Arcade-style humor was made into a show, like this recent comic. [penny-arcade.com]

    • regarding the references, the guy who punches the father at the mall is a character from "state of emergency" whose name eludes me at the moment... So no, it WOULDN'T be Vice City, it would be "Capital City." (groan.)
    • I even saw a texturing problem when the mom was fighting the big rock monster at the end.

      I noticed that texturing problem, too, but I think it may have been intentional. That's what my suspension of disbelief led me to believe, anyway.

      The monster was so low-poly compared to everything else that it would either have to be intentional, or extremely unprofessional.

      It did look cheesy, but I think (and hope) that it was meant to be like that. Since it was in her in-game world, I think the big scary low-poly
    • The problem was, most of the jokes fell flat. Much of its content was just the usual bickering within a dysfunctional family.

      The only thing I found funny was the Tommy Vicetti look-alike that randomly punched out the father in the mall.

      I was hoping for more video game-esque jokes in it. For example, when the kid was going down the escalator(rail grinding), I would have had a cheesy balance-o-meter hover over him for the full Tony Hawk joke effect.

      There was also a cameo by Crash bandicoot on the "got milk
      • I agree with all your points. I'm no fan of the show (unless they manage to get a whole lot better), but I'm reminded of the Troy McClure hosted Simpsons flashback epidode. They showed one of the original pieces from the Tracy Ullman show where Bart pontificates about the nature of reality or something and cut back to Troy with a strained smile on his face saying "Ha ha! They haven't changed a bit, have they?"

        There's a hint of cleverness in the show which is more than you see in most sitcoms.

  • Don't bother. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Adrian De Leon ( 30979 ) <adrian.deleon@gm a i l . com> on Thursday March 11, 2004 @08:15PM (#8538449) Homepage
    If it is any good, they will cancel it, and it if sucks, it will stay on the air for years.

    Either way, we are screwed.

    (Yeah, I am still bitter about FireFly, Farscape, Angel, etc...)
    • That seems to be the case with shows that are really good. For example, The Critic, Futurama, and Family Guy (but that's coming back, I hear). I haven't seen this show yet, but i might not, I'd have to find out what channel UPN is in my town. Believe it or not I haven't really come up with a reason to find UPN.

  • BitTorrent Link (Score:4, Informative)

    by RexHowland ( 71795 ) on Friday March 12, 2004 @02:06AM (#8540757)
    I don't want to support TV piracy, but if somebody missed the show and wants to see it, you can find it here [66.199.180.26] or here [66.90.75.92]. (File is approximately 172MB.)

  • Poor ratings - no surprise (Score:4, Interesting)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Friday March 12, 2004 @07:45AM (#8542157) Homepage Journal
    They put this opposite Smallville (at least in my area). As a result the target market is presented with the choice of:
    1. Watching Game Over, then watching the last half of Smallville and wondering what is going on.
    2. Watching Game Over, then watching part of The Mullets, then plucking their eyeballs out with a rusty fork.
    3. Watching Smallville.


    Since UPN will be following the minor networks' habit of repeating shows a few days later to cover up their lack of content (and saying it is for the "convinience" of the viewer) it would be interesting to see if the second showing has better ratings.
  • That stuff's funny as hell, and if it got a late enough time slot it could easily be a winner on Tech TV or Spike TV or something like that.

    Just don't put it on too late or your prospective audience will be too busy playing HALO to watch.

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