GameBreak

This year's Comic-Con was filled to the brim with more celebrities than ever before, faces you could recognize from a thousand yards away. Of course, it was also packed with famous, beloved actors that even most hard-core nerds wouldn't recognize, simply because they've never seen their faces. I'm talking about the people who give life to your favorite cartoons and video game characters, voice actors. Today, we have an interview with one such actor (and film maker) who has lent his voice to such classic game series as Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Red Faction and Saints Row and current cartoon sensations like The Emperor’s New School, Justin Cowden.
 
What inspired you to want to do voice acting?

I always loved cartoons! You name it, I watched it; Hanna Barbara, Rankin and Bass, Looney Toons, Mel Blank was the King! But there was actually a moment when I was about eight years old. I grew up in Culver City and they were filming Matlock on my street. I got to meet Kenny Holiday. And when I found out that he was the voice of RoadBlock on GI.Joe, I went nuts. Not only was he the coolest, this guy was the biggest celebrity to me. I haven't seen him since, and I don't think he knows what he did for me. He inspired me. I wanted to be like him.

How did you get your start?

I kind of fell into voice acting. I had gone into an audition for a radio spot. They asked me if I did Spanish, which I do. After that, they sent me up against a bunch of little kids to play a little Latino boy on a cartoon, knowing that my voice wouldn't change and I was an adult. The producers hired me for Ozzy and Drix on Kids WB. That was where I met all my mentors and heroes: Pat Fraley, Rob Paulson, Jeff Bennett, Phill Lammar, Jim Cummings, Frank Welker, Alanna Ubach,Tasia Valenz, Billy West, and Jess Harnell. And that was only a few!!

Read More »

Hey hey hey! It's time again for another Intern's Corner. We skipped last week because things got a little crazy with AOTS's 1000th show, which was awesome! I got to help interview Sarah Lane and watch Kevin Pereira catch a greased pig. (Poor piggy!) So, this week, I'm bringing the Intern's Corner back with a discussion of my top 5 horror games.

5. Left 4 Dead - Zombies. A lot of people think know that the zombie apocalypse is inevitable. Most of those people work here, at g4tv.com. We take zombies very seriously and they scare the crap out of us. So, Left 4 Dead left me a little jumpy long after I'd switched it off. Of course, this isn't truly a horror title at heart, but having zombies in your face is scary, even if it's just for the sake of a shooter.

Read More »

I want to take the intern’s corner in a different direction this week. It’s time we all go back to our childhood and talk about the games we played religiously, but could never seam to beat. There are too many to describe in one blog post, but this list is going to cover the intern’s top five hardest games.

** To ensure variety, if a series of games punched our testes particularly hard we lumped them together.**
 

5. Devil May Cry Series

Devil May Cry fist came out on the Playstation 2. It introduced one of video game’s most memorable characters Dante. Dante was a foul mouthed, sword swinging, gun toting, magic casting, badass from hell who doesn’t care about anything. The DMC series is known for its notorious puzzles and teeth grinding boss battles.

No game of this series is more responsible for the destruction of gamer minds then Devil May Cry 3. DMC3 is the last game featuring Dante as the protagonist. It was launched on the Playstation 2 in 2005 to a symphonic harmony of nerd rage felt around the world. The primary antagonist for this game was Dante’s twin brother Virgil. He is one of the hardest bosses to defeat in video game history. Any player up to the challenge of DMC3 has to be prepared for the inevitable and self-inflicted blow to the head.

Read More »

Have you heard? The E3 video game convention kicks off in Los Angeles on Monday. G4 is here to break down our on-air schedule for the week of E3.

Monday

• 1:00 PM ET - E3 Spotlight: Microsoft Press Conference
• 4:30 PM ET - E3 Spotlights: EA & Ubisoft Press Conferences

Tuesday

• 11:00 AM ET - E3 Spotlights: Nintendo & Sony Press Conferences
• 6:00 PM ET - E3 Live Coverage
• All Day - Steve Wiebe Donkey Kong World Record Event

Wednesday

• 6:00 PM ET - E3 Live Coverage

Thursday

• 7:00 PM ET - E3 Live Coverage

All of that amounts to 22 hours of live coverage on G4 and we've got even more coverage here on the web. Keep your TV tuned to G4 all week and your browser locked to G4tv.com to be sure you don't miss a single thing.

What would you say if I told you you'd never have to file a tax return again? No money comes out of your paycheck for taxes and if you win a million dollars on a game show, you get a million dollars. What if we could complete dissolve the IRS? You'd probably say yes to all these things unless you work for the IRS or as a Turbo Tax programmer. Today's actual moment in de-evolution is about changing the funky tax system. We've got a few ideas, the Fair Tax, the Flat Tax, and the Wacky Tax. One of them is ours, the best ones are not.

The best idea: The Fair Tax
Most recently and widely known to be touted by Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee in the 2008 election, the fair tax was first formally proposed in Congress in January of this year and the basic gist is that income tax would not be taken out of your paycheck, the IRS would be dissolved (or to put it more bluntly as they do in the description, ABOLISHED) and the job of collecting tax would fall to the states, who would increase their sales tax percentages to make up for the loss of revenue.
Here's why I love this idea: Everyone buys things. Regardless of your income, your citizenship status, or the number of kids you have, you will be buying goods and services year round. This goes for everyone. If your hamburger is $1 and a 25% sales tax was tacked on, your burger is now $1.25. But you know what else, it's also $1.25 for the illegal alien who just got paid under the table and would have never paid any tax on his income. It's also $1.25 for the drug dealer who lives off his illegal trafficking.
The trouble is, it's also $1.25 for the AIG CEO who makes $23 million a year. It breaks down here because you don't want to charge the bum who just scrounged together 100% of his income to buy a hamburger, while Bernie Madoff isn't paying anything close to a fair percentage of his income for the same burger. But economists and mathematicians a billion times smarter than us can figure out how to make this work and I hope that someday soon it becomes a reality.

Read the proposed House bill here sponsored by John Linder of Georgia

The next best idea: The Flat Tax

Read More »

"Red to green, get ready to scream." That's the tag line for the most ominous toy ever created, the Lightning Reaction XTREME from Jumpin' Banana. The game, which supports up to four players, is a delicate mix of Jeopardy and torture, with a little Deer Hunter and Alfred Hitchcock thrown in for good measure.

Allow me to break that down for you, in case you've never played (and if you haven't , good for you). When you turn on the game, choosing either the low or high setting, the white circle in the middle begins to glow red and the device plays a disquieting tune that sounds like a cut from the score of Vertigo. When the music stops, the players must depress the red triggers at the top of the handles as quickly as possible. The last person to hit his or her trigger, or any person who hits their trigger prematurely, gets a fierce, painful jolt sent through their bodies.

"Tee, hee," you say. "I bet it's no worse than those cheesy joy buzzers which don't even hurt," you say. Well, friend, although I understand your credulity regarding the pain this device inflicts, let me tell you now that you're wrong. In fact, I've included quotes from AOTS staffers and Feed writers that might help you understand the gravitas of this supposed child's play thing. These aren't kids either, they're grown ass men (and a grown ass woman)!

Read More »