G4 left a real legacy behind over the years, some shows garnering infamy for their, badly aged aspects, racism and misogyny, while some have been finding positive critical re-appraisal for being a perfect time capsule of their eras, but most have been completely forgotten, relegated to not much more than some text on wikipedia and an episode on youtube if you're lucky. i spent the last month watching as much G4 content as i possibly could, at least an episode of each and a full run if one was available to find which were actually worth going back to.

#1 cheat!: cheat is the best show on G4 and the main show i find myself going back to the most, it's as simple as the name, a host, either corey rouse or kritstin holt depending on the year of the episode telling you cheats, hints and walkthroughs for at the time new games, it's quaint and cozy, it doesn't have the misogyny and sleaze of the later G4 shows even when it was in that era and just kind of stayed how it was at the start, even when holt took over it only helped to improve the show as holt had much more charisma than rouse, it's a perfect time capsule and both era's are super charming and well worth watching, maybe you can even learn something new about games you love! it's also fairly well preserved with tons of episodes on youtube and it was one of the longest lasting shows, going from the channels beginning and even lasting until the late 00s as a segment on the much lesser show, xplay.

#2: icons

#3: the electric playground

#4: judgment day

#5: cinematech: half an hour of trailers, gameplay set to music and cinematics from games of its era, sometimes released games and sometimes cancelled ones both new and old, it's a perfect time capsule of its era and has a lot of pretty cool, unique footage of games in it, great for finding old trailers and new games that look cool, though the quality can vary depending on the trailers, sometimes it'll be banger after banger and sometimes it'll mostly be shooters and rts games. still it's one of the longest running shows and one of the most well preserved with hours upon hours of footage out there on the net, also had a spinoff show that will be discussed farther down the list

#6: G4TV.com: G4tv.com is a call in show hosted by a varity of people

filter is a top 10 show, or well thats how it started out anyway, what first was a regular top 10 show hosted by diane misota eventually became an overall tech show with a top 10 mixed in, focusing on game topics but still throwing in some new release movies, tech and net stuff, it's cool to see the old tech and net stuff but the top 10 format has never done much for me, as ahead of its time as it was, charming nonetheless still, even if it's jokes have aged more poorly than nay other early shows and john walsh is an awful co-host, crass and juvinile. this one is preserved okay and even has some of its special episodes up, i would rec the holiday special for a look into where tech was in 2004, great stuff.

#6 pulse is a show that, much like shows like game on and players, has very little surviving footage, it's really only got one episode online and some random clips, but that episode is pretty good, it's a news show intersperced with top 10's, interviews, new releases and some gameplay, it's cool! it's for sure kind of quaint, you really wouldnt see a show like this on tv any time after the 2000s and watching it now is very much dependant on weather the idea of 20+ year old news appeals to you, which for me it absolutely does and i wish there was more available, this one i hope gets more footage uploaded. reccomended to check out what you can of it.

#7: arena: this one is a perfect middle of the road G4 show in terms of content, quality and how badly parts of it are to watch, it's an old E-sports show with two hosts, wil wheton and travis oats in one era and michael lauden and lee rherman in another, commentating over gameplay and whichever team wins gets to stay on until next week, a cross between e-sports and a gameshow really, and it's fine. not as interesting as a lot of G4 shows but the people super into this kind of thing will get a lot out of it, the players are charmingly awkward with some very quotable lines "i just like to kill" and "i got twitchy fingers" standout to me and the hosts def have chemistry in both eras, though the wheaton era can be really difficult to watch as he's just grating and unlikable with most of the badly aged, sexist and homophobic jokes coming from him, plus painfully unfunny movie references, the latter hosts have a little less passion for the show but at least don't make really mean, agressive comments like wheton did. it was one of the longest running shows too, lasting until the mid 2K's at least and it's fairly well preserved online, not one i'd go out of my way to watch but if it was 2003 and it was on, i'd watch it.

#8: sweat is the secret other worst kind of G4 show, while some may be offensive and gross, at least they're interesting to hatewatch, shows like sweat, while innoffensive and well made, well hosted and well paced, it's also just boring. there's only so much that can be done with just sports games, and while the two hosts, cory and bobbito do have some good chemistry, there's just nothing here unless you're really into sports games and i can't imagine many people who read random neocities articles on G4 are. the episodes do cover a wide variety of games, the eps i could find, and not many are available, focused on games from shaq fu and michael jordon: chaos in the windy city to WWE and hockey, there's variety within sports games but its just not enough for me, reccomended only if you're really into sports games.

#9: game on: game on is the worst show on G4 by a mile, both considering the early G4 and the bad post aquisition shows, i'd expect this kind of crass misogyny, at times racism and juvinile hornyness from a post-tech TV show but i was shocked to see that this was fairly early on in the channels run, coming shortly after the initial wave. the gist of it, or what i can find as it is the worst preserved show on the list with only one episode being available as far as i could find, is two men (matt and randy) travel america, doing jackass style contests interspersed with flagrant misogyny, humilating random people and just kind of acting like the worst kinds of gamer steriotypes, each episode has two contests, each themed around a game where them and random people, or paid actresses, compete and the losing team/hosts has to do something embarressing, it's gross, bad and i can't reccomend it to anyone, maybe its for the best this one is lost.

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