Why the tester tests my patience

I’ve been playing around with this idea for a few weeks now, why the heck does this show rub me the wrong way? I’ve come up with a short (haha) list of probable reasons:

Focus of the show

We see about 2 minutes of footage about how these guys interact between events, personally I’d like to see more about the individual interactions of all the people. We get about 15 minutes of random competitions where they’re building cars, covered in roaches, whatever! It’s… interesting, but not really what I’ve come to watch, I want to see some context for people’s relationships, survivor does it really well, it’s an hour long show that establishes the individual relationships so we, the audience, can form slightly more reasonable opinions about the contestants.

The basic prize

The position of being an actual “tester” is nothing to be too keen on; especially if you’re working on a specific game you’ll be playing the crap out of this game to the point where gaming becomes work! As a gamer, I usually don’t spend more than 40 hours on a game, but you could probably expect hundreds upon hundreds of hours on any given game checking to make sure your character interacts with the environment properly. By the time the game comes out you’ll be ready for speed runs!

The new prize

Ok, so this season they’ve upped the ante with an associate producer position. This position is relatively undefined; it’s more of an assistant position, helping the producer, giving massages, lathering him/her in oil while feeding them grapes. All joking aside, if you’re working closely with the producer you might just learn a shit ton of stuff about the world of game development. Unfortunately, this isn’t guaranteed, there’s an equal chance you’ll just be writing emails, getting coffee, and lathering that oil (how else do producers stay so fresh ;P )

The competitions are unassociated with Game Design

Ok, so this is a common opinion of the series, what does building a car, pulling it down a road while shooting targets have to do with game design? No idea, because it would make for a shitty game idea. This is perhaps my greatest qualm with the show. The show uses Fear Factor elements to basically route out the weaker characters, which makes sense from a team work environment, but someone who’s good at appealing to the judges might have little to no qualification for…oh, right, game tester, never mind.

The focus of the show isn’t gaming

Remember that show, Video Arcade Top 10? You know, I loved that show because it was basically everything to do with video games. Hints, game clips, ads for upcoming/existing games (how else would you find out about some of these cheats other than a Nintendo Power subscription), we could even write in and ask questions, it was great! So, what does this show have in terms of gameplay? I timed the last episode, between the beginning and the end of the Twisted Metal fight less than a full minute had passed, which included the clips of people talking (say 45 seconds of gameplay). The clips also jumped around, the enemy’s health bar flipping around in a disorienting way so when the winner was announced it had no impact. Show us some real gaming! I want to see these guys going head to head for the positions, wouldn’t that be better anyways? Wouldn’t you want the best gamer as your game tester? Wouldn't L33T gaming sk!||z be a desirable in a game tester?

Undermining the intelligence of the audience

Ok, I can’t really ignore this. The first episode of Season 3 felt like a 30 minute commercial for PlayStation. When they played Twisted Metal on the second episode and people were saying, “Twisted metal is my favorite game!” I was like, “bull shit.” To be fair, maybe it’s legit or maybe I’m the minority here. Who knows, it felt forced and the new one came out the day the episode aired. I personally loved Twisted Metal 2 for PS1, I played the crap out of that game with my brother when we were kids, but it wouldn’t come anywhere near my top 10 list and it’s certainly not a series worth “following” like one would love Mass Effect, Resident Evil, or Assassin’s Creed. Also, I’m of the opinion that Xbox 360 is superior to PS3, so when burnNibelheim said she works at GameStop and pushes the PS3 I was not impressed.  Pushing a console regardless of the customer’s requirements is lame. XBox vs PS consoles aren’t the same, so a sales rep should be finding out what works for the customer not shoving PS products down their throat, once again there could be more to the interview that was edited away but the Judge was happy with her response, so go figure.

Inconsistent or weird Judging
I don't know where to start with this one... Here might be a good place.  So basically, the judges give very lame, inconsistent reasons for their choice of who to vote off.  
The first episode they had a perfectly pleasant interview with Ashichan who showed initiative but was accused of being unremarkable, this was after they listed her stronger traits from memory.  They then said Kwajamonster was over-sharing during her interview.  So what was worse?  Well, not sticking out enough!  Basically, not being entertaining enough for the show.  
Second episode, Asuuka was taken off for letting her team down while her partner Suzkaiden was just as much there and claimed to have a history of building.  Asuuka was taken off for not owning up to her inadequacies, Suzkaiden just shut her mouth and let Asuuka bury herself.  Now Suzkaiden has started this trend of being accused of failure over and over again while toughing it up, basically she's appealing to the judges and they are lapping it up like a starved kittens.
Third episode, ok so this one looked like it was finally going well.  They worked as a team and everyone was happy.  As this was a timed event, Suzkaiden ignored the warning of "each contestant hits one target" and basically sunk her team.  The judges then asked for the team's opinion and everyone who would point a finger said "Suzkaiden" and everyone else on the team said they were still a team and wouldn't out their team-mates.  The result?  The judges said, "well, if you aren't going to choose then we will."  Wait, was this supposed to be a formal vote?  No it wasn't, did they express an opinion that one of them should go?  YES!  Three of the contestants pointed the finger at Suzkaiden, so who goes home?  Egoraptor!  Their reasoning was that he had been on the losing team 3 times in a row and that he hadn't stayed to help the team after shooting the target!  So, apparently your past episode's transgressions are held against you, so by that logic, Suzkaiden has two against her as well.  Finally, they had to send a second person home, they were obviously behind as two had to go from the first episode and they showed mercy and kept Egoraptor.  Nibelheim went home, I don't really know why... they said she should have shown more initiative.  
In summary, while there is a bit of solid reasoning for Nibelheim and Asuuka, Suzkaiden should have been gone in the third episode, she was actively holding her team back but interfering with Nibelheim. 


So basically they tortured Egoraptor for 3 episodes and then sent him home, fuck this show.


And I wrote a songish thing!