Xplay (2003)
Xplay is a 2003 series. It stars Morgan Webb, Adam Sessler and Kristin Adams.
Cable television used to be where you found out whether a game was worth sixty dollars. X-Play did that job for fifteen years, reviewing on a schedule with real scores attached and sketch comedy wedged between the segments, which let it praise a game in one breath and mock the industry selling it in the next.
It started on 4 July 1998 as GameSpot TV on ZDTV, with Adam Sessler among the original hosts alongside Lauren Fielder and John Villarreal. When the GameSpot partnership ended in 2001 it became Extended Play, then settled as X-Play in 2003 on G4. Sessler anchored almost the entire run. Kate Botello co-hosted from 2000 to 2002 and Morgan Webb from 2003 to the end, and the pairing of a fast talker and a deadpan one gave the reviews their shape.
The show ran to January 2013 and came back in November 2021 as part of G4's relaunch. What dates it is also what makes it worth revisiting: a games press with a broadcast budget and a straight face, before every publisher had its own channel and every player had a comments section.
Quick answers
What is Xplay about?
Cable television used to be where you found out whether a game was worth sixty dollars. X-Play did that job for fifteen years, reviewing on a schedule with real scores attached and sketch comedy wedged between the segments, which let it praise a game in one breath and mock the industry selling it in the next. It started on 4 July 1998 as GameSpot TV on ZDTV, with Adam Sessler among the original hosts alongside Lauren Fielder and John Villarreal. When the GameSpot partnership ended in 2001 it became Extended Play, then settled as X-Play in 2003 on G4. Sessler anchored almost the entire run. Kate Botello co-hosted from 2000 to 2002 and Morgan Webb from 2003 to the end, and the pairing of a fast talker and a deadpan one gave the reviews their shape. The show ran to January 2013 and came back in November 2021 as part of G4's relaunch. What dates it is also what makes it worth revisiting: a games press with a broadcast budget and a straight face, before every publisher had its own channel and every player had a comments section.
When was Xplay released?
Xplay was released on 28 April 2003.
How many episodes does Xplay have?
Xplay has 644 episodes across 10 seasons.
Official site
Cast
A few thoughts on Xplay
Games writing is the thread to pull here. Jesper Juul's Half-real does it academically, working out how rules and fiction manage to occupy the same object, and it is a livelier read than that description suggests. Scott Kurtz's PvP does it from the other side, a long-running strip set in a games magazine office that lived through the same era of print and cable coverage. After that, Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb are both worth following into whatever they turned their attention to next.
Panel shows that pair real expertise with comedy jabs
X-Play reviewed games with genuine criticism and comedy sketches that punctured the industry's hype. These shows work the same seam, where informed hosts skewer their subject as much as they cover it: QI's clever trivia, Buzzcocks needling pop music, Celebrity Juice's chaos, Comedy Bang Bang's deadpan interviews, and Jim Jefferies' pointed nightly takes.