UPDATE (9/30/0 Added Pac-Man & Arcades episode. Completely revised! ------------------------------------------------- This is the first edition of my new blog series, G4 Flashback; a monthly look back at the classic G4 shows. Before I start this off, here's a bit of my personal history with G4. Back when I first found out about G4, I was amazed of the fact that there was a dedicated channel for gamers and I started watching it every minute of the day. Hell, I loved it so much, that I once called in sick from school on a Friday, just to watch all these kickass shows (Judgement Day, G4TV.com, Cheat!, Arena, Cinematech, Filter, Portal, Starcade, etc.). I consider the old G4 as a past equivalent to ScrewAttack, I was that hooked! But in 2005, all has changed, when G4 changed it's program format from an all gaming channel to a male-targeted network, resulting in firing their valued members, hosts, and worst of all, canceling most of it's original shows, now only having X-Play as the only gaming show on the network. I mean... what the ****!?! There's already a "TV for Men" station out there, its called Spike TV! Why the hell do we need more of these mindless frat boy/gramer channels? I just hope that maybe one day, G4 will go back to its roots, but for those who are fortunate to still have G4, there's always G4 Rewind in the morning. As for some (like me, for example) who does not have any premium cable service such as Comcast, I'll just be posting my findings of classic G4 shows floating around on the net. Alright, I bet you had enough of my blabbering, so let's get this blog on the road. This week, I'll be starting off with my most favorite show on G4. Icons is a series of biographic documentaries about the history of the greatest [in some cases, failed] consoles, games, industry personalities, etc. Each episode had always educated me about these important figures, and I loved how they presented them in detail. Ever since the change of programming, they still managed to keep the show, but in a different direction. Instead of documenting the gaming industry, they focused more on pop culture figures. It was an epic fail, nobody would give a rat's about most of those people (except for Kevin Smith). Though they're still running reruns under the name "Game Makers", I've managed to find a few episodes lying around various video websites for you to relive those great Icons moments. Icons: Hideo Kojima/Metal Gear http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHjbUhzS-Ug (part 1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P87yQYH7klk (part 2) Icons: The Legend of Zelda http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6337298919420470497 Icons: Sega Dreamcast http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9214419766443021135 Icons: GameBoy http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4744541364808223156 Icons: SNK http://www.veoh.com/videos/v274982tzQcMkqD Icons: Pac-Man http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLtBeGx4fTE (Part 1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuRt6G2QLdU (Part 2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX18yB7aitM (Part 3) Icons: The Arcade (Game Makers version) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvr7ke1Iv9Q (Part 1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJdtOiGKp2A (Part 2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riZSFHButwQ (Part 3)