N-Philes

Morgan Webb. She's best known for co-hosing G4's video game review show, X-Play. Voted one of FHM's "100 Sexiest Women in the World" in 2005, Webb is certainly one of the sexiest women in the video game industry. On top of her X-Play gig, Morgan is FHM's "Gaming Goddess", where she answers game-related questions in her monthly column. Witty, colorful, and with mean Mario Kart skills, Morgan Webb sits down with N-Philes to discuss Wii's name, controller, and her expectations for this year's E3 show.

N-Philes: I know you have a very busy schedule, so I want to thank you for taking some time to sit down with N-Philes. We really appreciate it.

Morgan Webb: You are welcome!

N-P: So, Morgan... may I call you Morgan?

MW: How about Madam Webb! You can call me Morgan.

N-P: Last week, Nintendo announced that their Next-Gen console will be called "Wii", just "Wii". What's your take on the new name and how much fun is X-Play going to have with it?

MW: Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! About that much. You don't really have to make a joke about it; you just kinda insert it into any sentence and it becomes hysterical. "Wii rise to the occasion."

N-P: Will you play with my Wii later this fall?

MW: Exactly!

N-P: After Nintendo unveiled Wii's controller at TGS last year, you and X-Play co-host Adam Sessler spoke positively about it. Have you had a chance to try it out? What do you think about the Wii-mote?

MW: I think "Wii-mote" is really stupid. Can you imagine two frat guys sitting around saying, "Hey dude, will you pass me the wii-mote?" It's not going to happen. I still think that the mechanism is very interesting. I haven't had a chance to play it – of course we'll get to do that at E3. I think the idea behind it is still a good one... it's just, that name is going to take it down a peg, but I'm still excited about a new way to interface with games.

N-P: Morgan, How long have you been playing video games?

MW: My first video game system was the Atari 2600, so you can just count back the years!

N-P: Nintendo is going to have its NES, SNES, and N64 games available for download on the Wii, along with Sega Genesis and TurboGrafx 16 games.

MW: Are you reading this?

N-P: Yes. I am. Sorry. (laughs) Are there any titles that you're looking forward to downloading and playing again?

MW: (laughs) What will I download? Of course the first think I'm going to do is download all the Super Mario Bros. stuff. I also liked Star Fox. We had a Sega Genesis, so if I could download any Sega game, I would totally download Phantasy Star III. It's the only game they haven't actually made a remake of... bastards. It's popularly known as one of the worst Phantasy Star games, but it has it has a soft spot in my heart because I played it for maybe three years straight.

N-P: Moving more to E3, what games are you interested in seeing, or hoping to play on the show floor?

MW: Well, right now, we don't know exactly which games are necessarily going to be playable on the show floor. I'm definitely interested in seeing... at this point, I'm kinda more interested in seeing the games that are kinda coming out for the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 more than a game that isn't necessarily going to be playable. Of course I'm going to get on the floor and play a lot of the games. I'm a dork, and I'm kinda looking forward to Command & Conquer 3, and I am interested in Assassin's Creed from Ubisoft. It looks interesting. We've only seen the trailer, but for some reason I'm really excited about it. Probably because Ubisoft does a really good job with their games as a general rule. Of course there's a new Battlefield, which I'm kinda excited about, and Crisis, which is built on the Far Cry engine, which is very interesting. It's a shooter, but it's beautiful, it's absolutely beautiful, which is exciting. I'm a dork, but I also like, you know this game for the DS, it's called [oops!-ed]. It's the US version of [bad Morgan Webb! bad!]. I like that Nintendo is taking chances on some of these interesting games and translating it for the American audience.

N-P: That's pretty exciting!

MW: Yeah, it is really exciting!

N-P: I hear there's going to be a new Dragon Ball Z: Budokai game on the floor, are you excited about that?

MW: Uhhhh... suuuuuure. And by "sure", I mean "meh". I have to say that when I get home at night, the first thing that I put in my console is not Dragon Ball Z Budokai.

N-P: This E3 could very well be the biggest and most exciting yet. What do you think that Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo have to steal the show?

MW: Well, Nintendo would have to change the name. Microsoft, I think is going to show a lot of beautiful games. I don't think anyone is looking for them to steal the show because they sort of had their thunder last year. I think people are looking at the show knowing that there are interesting things about each company; I don't think that one of them will steal the show but we'll see! I mean, we haven't had any of the press conferences yet so we don't know. So check back with G4's E3 coverage because we're going to do three hours live everyday, so you'll definitely hear our opinions about every little piece and smidgen that happens there. So, that will be the best place to find that.

N-P: Well thank you again, Madam Webb, for sitting down with us. Have a fun time at E3.

MW: Thank you!

Webb, along with X-Play's Adam Sessler and Attack of the Show's Kevin Pereira, will be hosting G4's E3 event coverage, which kicks off on Monday, May 8 at 7:00 PM ET/PT. Tuesday through Friday, you'll be able to catch three hours of live coverage of E3 on the network.