Reviews on the Run
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Reviews on the Run (formerly known in the United States as Judgment Day) is a video game review TV show hosted by Victor Lucas and Tommy Tallarico, and produced by Lucas' production company, Greedy Productions. The two hosts rate games independently on a scale of .5 point increments from 0 through 10, with 0 being the lowest and 10 being the highest. The show started as a segment on The Electric Playground called "Reviews on the Run", but was spun off into its own show in 2002. The show was previously shown in the United States on G4 (formerly G4TechTV), and on A-Channel and SPACE in Canada. Reviews on the Run currently airs on G4TechTV Canada and OMNI.1.
The show is filmed on location at several different locales including Vancouver, BC. Episodes are also occasionally recorded in other cities. The hosts stand in frame as video game footage is projected onto an object in the background such as a billboard or the side of a building. The show is filmed over the course of several hours and later edited to fit the show's thirty minute time frame.
Reviews on the Run also has reviews of various video game peripherals as well as a segment called "Buried Treasures" in which a host picks a game from the past that he feels was great, but was often overlooked by the masses. "Classic Reviews" is a review from a previous episode, that usually relates to one of the reviews being done on the current episode; for example, after reviewing Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend, a clip from the review of Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness was played. The "Hit List" is a quick rundown of the top five games in a particular category, such as a particular genre, or a given system; in 2006 a variation called the "Sh_t List" appeared, which has the bottom five games in a given category. The final segment of each episode, "Versus" compares two or three games of similar genre, title, or subject matter. "Pocket Reviews" is a segment reserved for rating handheld titles, where only one of the hosts rates the game; aside from a few games in the Versus segment, the only handheld games to be rated by both hosts were Nintendogs (DS), and Madden NFL 06 (PSP).
The highest rated games on the show so far, of which Lucas and Tallarico both gave 10/10, are three multiplatform titles: Burnout 3: Takedown, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, and Burnout Revenge (which Lucas actually wanted to give an 11/10 before finally agreeing to a 10). The lowest rated game on the show was Torrente (PC) which Lucas gave 1/10 and Tallarico gave 0.5/10. Tallarico was quoted as saying, "It sucks" and "I had Montezuma's Revenge playing this game". The only known 0/10 was given by Tallarico for the game High Heat Major League Baseball 2003; he hated the game so much he stormed off partway through the review, followed by sounds of a car screeching away. Sometimes, the two hosts will have completely differing opinions on a game, with one giving way different scores than the other. (An example of this was the 2005 review of We Love Katamari; while Lucas enjoyed the gameplay and pointed out the good of the game, Tallarico hated the game, particularly its music. The result: Lucas gave it an 8/10 while Tallarico gave it a 3/10.)
Lucas and Tallarico have been both co-workers and good friends since their first meeting at E³ in 1995. Onscreen the two enjoy plenty of brotherly scraps, with Tallarico typically playing the role of a more aggressive, even gutter-minded gamer and Lucas being more businesslike and sedate. (A typical exchange - Tallarico: "Come on, you're saying that you never shot any of those guys in the crotch, even once?" Lucas: "No, I did NOT!")
Current Lost cast member Evangeline Lilly's first job in television was as a "Hardware Girl" for Reviews on the Run. Hardware Girls show off pieces of video-gaming hardware on the show while Lucas and Tallarico review the product in question, and rate it as either "Recommended" or "Not Recommended".
On January 13, 2006, Lucas announced on the G4 forums that Judgment Day was no longer going to be produced for G4. The program will still run internationally (including on G4techTV Canada) as the original Reviews on the Run. [1] Later that day, Tallarico posted that he and Lucas were in contract negotiations with other networks in an effort to bring Judgment Day back to US TV, albeit with the Reviews on the Run name, as G4 owns the rights to the Judgment Day title. Tallarico also stated that the show was not cancelled, but it was a decision they made personally so that they could reach a broader audience. Specific details about the negotiations have not been disclosed.
On December 31, 2006, Lucas announced on the The Electric Playground forums that Greedy Productions had cancelled its contract with CHUM television, which broadcast Electric Playground and Reviews on the Run on SPACE and A-Channel, and signed a two year exclusive deal with Rogers Communications, to broadcast the shows on G4techTV Canada and then additionally on other Rogers owned TV stations. [2] This has drawn the ire of some viewers as the CHUM stations were available on normal cable packages and locally broadcast in some areas, while G4TechTV Canada is only available on digital cable. On January 28, 2007, Reviews on the Run has begun airing on OMNI.1. [3]
