So far it hasn’t been as embarassing as I once feared. The concept of the show is that there is a game an episode. First the contestants compete is a real life activity related to that game. For the first episode it was Rock Band 2 so they had to perform a song on real guitars. Their performance is rated and makes up half of their score for the episode. Then they compete in the game and that makes up the final half of the score. The person with the highest combined score chooses someone to face the person with the lowest combined score in an elimination challenge in the same game.
So far I am not buying all of the cast and I am extremely annoyed by the douche with the Halloween contacts and the chick who cries every time she’s on camera. I think the concept of the real life challenges is dumb but I can understand why they don’t want to just show gaming all episode. And I have to root for Dante because he’s a tester.
The format of the show already has it where the second best guy can end up in last place, and then get saved through a Survivor-style “alliance.”
I suppose it’s an interesting concept, but the rules make it less of the preferable “Top Chef” type of Reality TV competition and more like watching Survivor with video games.
I guess I see gamers as being fans of true competition at heart. This show looks like it will be anything but.
Yeah, I thought the rule about the highest scorer choosing someone to face the lowest was dumb and just there to create drama. But it’ll still be good for some laughs for sure.
I also wonder how much the producers have to do with the choices being made. I honestly cannot fathom the winner not simply taking this opportunity to eliminate “Prodigy” on what probably amounts to be his weakest game (a game where he was by all rights at worst second-best out of the 12 of them). Any competitive gamer (and that’s what these guys are purported to be, right?) doesn’t waste an opportunity to “exploit” the system in order to get ahead.
I mean it seems pretty obvious that glowy-eyed ego-maniac gamer guy is more interesting and makes for better television than random sports-game jock. Either that or it would undermine the way the show was setup if that guy, who by all accounts probably is an excellent all-around gamer, got eliminated in the first round when it was obvious he was better than almost everyone else at the chosen game (he got screwed twice by being randomly put on both losing teams).
The show was more interesting than I expected, but I’m not sure how well it sells the whole WCG concept since the actual videogame playing was by far the most boring part of the show. It was painful to watch them try to make it seem like it was even close, ever.
The way the show is structured (both in terms of the way alliances can be used and the fact that they chose mostly gamers who specialize in certain genres) seems pretty much destined to make all the actual game playing extremely one-sided and boring as fuck.
I can’t stand how extreme they’ve made over most of the contestants in this show. It’s embarrassing, really, with Dante’s hair strands in close contention with the other guys cyan contact lenses. Jesus…
It was painful to watch them try to make it seem like it was even close, ever.
I knew it was going to be a massacre because about 10 seconds into the game they stopped showing the side by side scores. Not a good sign.
Okay, who watched this last night? I’m not just saying this because I’m doing the blog, but last night’s show was totally awesome. It was pretty shamelessly manipulative that they played up the Geoff/Kelly thing, but I suppose that’s just good reality TV for you. Also, I think I liked the real world challenge better than the game challenge. Seeing Geoff tear through those boards was pretty gratifying. And could they make that Dante fellow any less likeable? Yeesh.
Even though neither of the girls was very good, the Virtua Fighter 5 showdown was a lot better than the Rock Band massacre. I look forward to seeing how the show deals with later matches between skilled players.
I think that if they wanted this to be about an all-around gamer they should have chosen more all-around gamers to participate. Also, I laughed so much at all the crying in the last episode. But yes, when the black team said Geoff “looked slow” I knew they were fucked.
I watched this this morning. It’s good for laughing at when they say stuff like " game on" or “game over”, and when mr. martial arts expert cries. While the more closely matched game made for a better viewing, even I could see that they were playing at a pretty low level. Unfortunately, i think the elimination selection will almost always gravitate towards the worst players, leaving us with not really impressive game play due to the specialization of most of the contestants.
As far as a gaming reality show, I think this is about as good as a format as could be expected, and produces a reasonably entertaining result (sometimes unintentionally).
Also, i’m curious to see how the guy from the Bronx who has never driven before does in the next episode. I know way too many New Yorkers like him who figure they’ll just never need that skill.
I enjoyed tuesday’s episode. Watching the final was sorta painful (BLOCK! Stop Ducking!), but it was satisfyingly close.
I continue to be suspicious about the rules for picking who is first/last. The only thing they showed or mentioned was the person they got to, and multiple people were tied for last given losing real world + getting to the same guy in isolation. Either they have some arcane tie breaking that they should explain, or the producers are choosing who loses/wins out of a possible group.
I hadn’t heard of this, but now I’m intrigued about what they do on the real-life half when it comes to shooting games. A racing game might be fun too.
Unless you’re tone deaf or Alyson, singing is probably the easiest thing to do in Rock Band.
I disagree. Singing requires the most familiarity with the songs of any “instrument” in Rock Band. You can easily take a tune you’ve never heard before (or that often) like, say, “Chop Suey,” and sight-read your way through the guitar, bass, or drum tracks, because those little colored bars tell you precisely what to hit. Try that song in vocals, though, and it’s 10x harder.
At least, it was for me, because I’m not at all familiar with SOAD. And since there’s no music staff or notes to speak of, you’re reliant on trying to follow that arrow. I can sight-read sheet music well enough to get along, but that doesn’t help at all in Rock Band.
Sure, it’s a piece of cake if you know the tune in question, and sing along with it regularly, but if you don’t, it’s much harder to fake it.
I think they royally fucked up last week. Robert is good and he only ended up in last place last week by total chance and bad luck. They should have used him to eliminate someone good but they wasted him on sports dude. I think they should have thrown Dante in there with him and eliminated one of the real threats…
