Episode 1: Coming Out Swinging
Episode 2: Making Waves
Episode 3: On Thin Ice
Episode 4: Blind Sided
Episode 5: In the Crosshairs
Episode 6: Climbing the Walls
Episode 7: The Gauntlet
Episode 8: The Grand Finale
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Episode 6: Climbing the Walls
There were eight episodes last season. There have been six this season. To date, I have survived fourteen one-hour episodes of this show. Think about that: I could almost be done watching the fourth and fifth seasons of The Simpsons. I am giving up a lot to write these. You owe me.
2:44 – Faye: “When Caesar came back, we were all kinda looking at him disappointed. He had some dirty plans, and that really sucked, so…” Uh, right. I’m supposed to be disappointed because Caesar is back. Since, you know, he is a maniacal plotting jackoff. Caesar defeated Ryan in the Elimination Chamber™. Last episode, Ryan was sold as a maniacal plotting jackoff. What is this, StarCraft II? We choose between one plot tree or the other and it ultimately changes nothing?
3:07 – Yaz, on why he decided to break up the household alliance: “I didn’t like how things were so easy.” It’s about fucking time. I told you. This team of hyper-competitive uber-dorks was wilting under that phony alliance. Doesn’t matter what kind of competition it is. Quality gamers don’t back down from a challenge.
3:28 – Jake: “Joel comes into our room and surprises us yet again.” Emphasis on “yet again”. They’re tired of Joel. And shit. I’d be, too. I don’t want to play any crappy mobile phone games. Never again. That’s what he’s here for? Again? Aw, crap!
3:50 – “The second [perk]…I’m not gonna to tell you about. But trust me when I say it’s a huge bonus for tomorrow’s real-life challenge that you all would like.” The winner of the challenge gets to throw Joel into a trash compactor?
4:02 – THE SAMSUNG AD PLACEMENT DETECTION ROBOT HAS DETECTED SAMSUNG AD PLACEMENT.
4:03 – I’m not quite sure they get it. Your target audience honed their acumen so mobile phone games would not interest them. Especially not mobile phone games where the target audience thinks “pop-a-shot basketball” is a fresh and original idea for video games.
4:26 – Yaz: “I’m not the best basketball player, but when it comes to gaming, I can step it up.” Okay, new pro-gaming rule: I am the only gamer allowed to make comparisons between video games and sports. You have abused the privilege and now you lose it.
4:47 – Completely Made-Up Stat of the Day: Eighty-seven percent of all footage in World Cyber Games: Ultimate Gamer™ is occupied by dramatic pauses.
5:18 – Does this show feel familiar? Seasons one and two have a lot in common? They’re not only re-using concepts, they’re now re-using facilities.
5:42 – Damnit, Justin. You’re afraid of heights as well? Geez. Good thing they aren’t going to be playing any dating simulators.
5:52 – “The game…WWE Smackdown Versus Raw 2010.” Boring. I can explain this one: Ultimate Gamer™ is televised on SyFy. In the race to become popular television, the programming needs to be as boring and generic as possible. It takes about ten years for pop culture to inflict itself on corporate culture. So SyFy’s overlords are picking up professional wrestling. And since wrestling is coming to SyFy, we’re going to play a video game that has no right to be anywhere near a video game competition. Further explaining it: Smackdown! Versus Raw is the year-to-year game franchise based on a wrestling promotion that lives and dies by soap opera drama. If there were words to describe what World Wrestling Entertainment is not, it would be “two wrestlers enter the ring and the better wrestler wins”.
6:19 – Hannah: “In a ladder match, wrestling superstars–” Yup. The WWE has their hands all over this. Human beings calls them wrestlers. But in the WWE Universe™, wrestlers are WWE Superstars™. There is no part of the show that can’t become a marketing slogan. And when your product has fallen off a cliff in the last year, you need all the extra revenue you can get. Or did I just describe Bobby Kotick and Call of Duty?
6:52 – Title belts are awesome. The world could use more title belts. I would like to show up at my presidential inauguration with a title belt.
7:02 – Tell me where Caesar kills the sense of awesomeness in describing the title belt: “It’s a freakin’ official genuine leather, gold-plated, WCG Ultimate Gamer™ Championship.” Guess.
7:38 – “The rest of you have been seeded based on rankings from the mobile challenge.” Yeah. Crappy mobile phone games have a lot to do with rock climbing. Hell, rock climbing doesn’t have anything to do with wrestling. This episode is hurting my brain.
9:29 – Caesar, showcasing his brand of New Jersey logic: “I don’t care how short this girl is. For all I know, she could be fast as hell, and her name’s Kat, and what do cats do? They climb.”
[Fast-forwarding…]
11:17 – Okay, this is the most confusing playoff structure ever. Remember the movie Baseketball? Where Kenny Mayne explained that “With the first nine months of the Baseketball postseason out of the way, the playoff picture is starting to emerge”? That was supposed to be a joke. For comedic effect. A joke.
[More fast-forwarding…]
13:42-13:48 – Bitch! What!? What!? I beat six other gamers in an athletic competition! Can’t touch my additional pylons, bitches!
14:12 – Apparently, Caesar is the only person on the show with his own basketball shorts. Yup. It’s true. This is the sort of high-level blogging we hope becomes a mainstay of The Ghetto.
15:58 – Really? A trinket built around a universe of flatulence and overexaggerated characters meeting the shut-up-and-man-up culture of competitive gaming? Nobody saw the tension coming?
16:55 – Caesar: “My boys back home never pull shit like that.” Make up your own Jersey Shore joke. I got nothing.
17:17 – There’s a broken move that can be easily exploited? In my once-a-year production cycle? I’m shocked. This is why there hasn’t been a relevant WWE wrestling game since Here Comes the Pain.
17:57 – They couldn’t pick a picture of the girlfriend that doesn’t scream “Just because I have all of my clothes on doesn’t mean I don’t want your dick?”
19:56 – They get to play as John Cena. For those of you who don’t know, John Cena is like Hulk Hogan. It doesn’t matter that unstoppable good guys are a big no-no in modern wrestling. Nine-year-olds buy his merchandise. Therefore, he never loses. Period. There is a better chance the Xbox catches fire than any of the contestants get thrown over the top rope.
21:43 – …unless Triple H is doing it. For those of you who don’t know, Triple H is married to Stephanie McMahon, i.e. the boss’s daughter. So Triple H is like Bobby Kotick. In that if he doesn’t like you, he will get you fired.
22:28 – Faye? Up for elimination? That’s not kawaii! Though I must admit: We’ve gone six episodes and I haven’t had to crap on Faye. That’s impressive. I totally expected some gamer girl shit to go down.
22:54 – WORD!?
23:13 – “The Samsung Stadium”? Another new rule: I would like to ban the addition of “The” to any and all proper nouns. The abuse of that world is getting the-diculous. (rofl “the-diculous” 10/10 e-z)
25:13 – Kat used the R-word! Kat used the R-word! Ooooh! Palin gonna sue!
25:23 – “Train Faye just how to [take that briefcase] that right at the end?” I love it. The contestants have forfeited any pretense that this game is not a broken mess. Their body language just screams it. “Well, we have to play this game, so let’s just get it out of the way.”
27:50 – Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the WWE doesn’t have their hands all over this. Two women are going to be headlining the show’s main event.
28:38 – A ladder match. Seriously. Faye and Kat couldn’t just play mano-a-mano.
29:14 – Justin: “Caesar asked me to train Faye, and I was definitely totally against it.”
29:23 – Justin: “I did train Faye, but not in the right way.” Wow. Justin. That ain’t cool, bruh. That ain’t cool.
30:01 – Kat: “To have another female go home just doesn’t feel good, we’re already getting dominated by this male camraderie.” Heheheh. Heh. Dominated.
30:40 – Console shooter fanboys going at it! Cripple fight!
31:27 – Caesar: “I know [Jake] had a temper, but like, the kid really can’t control himself in an adult conversation.” “Adult conversation”? Ironically, I haven’t heard the term “adult conversation” since I was a kid.
32:03 – “You fucking suck at Modern Warfare. How about that? You fucking blow. It’s that simple. You’re fucking not good. Alright? You want me to raise my fucking voice? Stop being a fucking bitch! You pride yourself on letting a fucking helicopter get ninety percent of your fucking kills! Then you get a fucking nuke all you got those [unintelligible] switch, and you kill 25 fuckin’ people on the map. You pride yourself in that? Fuck that. That’s bullshit.”
Legendary. Thank you for saving this show from mediocrity, Caesar. That was awesome. Along with Jake, you just bitchslapped ninety-nine percent of the Call of Duty fan base. Also, you know how people think the internet would be much different if people were allowed to confront others face-to-face? Yeah. Not so much.
33:50 – THE SAMSUNG AD PLACEMENT DETECTION ROBOT HAS DETECTED SAMSUNG AD PLACEMENT.
34:20 – THE SAMSUNG AD PLACEMENT DETECTION ROBOT HAS DETECTED SAMSUNG AD PLACEMENT.
35:13 – Hannah, no. You’re not allowed to mock someone else’s fashion overindulgence.
36:28 – Imagine the look on all the wrestling purists’ faces when Hannah announced “Ted DiBiase” and ended up getting his less talented, less charismatic son. See, everybody has a price! Ha ha ha ha! And uh, yeah. DiBiase was one of the cheapest talents they could bring in for a guest appearance.
36:47 – Hannah: “The crowd loves you.” That’s a first.
This challenge is bunk. It exists on the premise that people are interested in watching sports. Therefore, people want to watch others play video games based on sports. It does not work that way. Even the realistic Madden can’t do it. Professional wrestling is about two people pretending to beat the crap out of each other while “telling a story”. WWE Smackdown! Versus RAW is about finding the cheapest move and abusing the hell out of it. All this Elimination Challenge™ has proven is that this was a terrible game to choose. And that Ted DiBiase can’t carry Joel Gourdin to passable commentary. Though I don’t know who that’s a reflection on. Wait, they’re playing the game? And they just finished? And Kat won?
42:00 – Joel: “The Edge wins!” His name is Edge. Not The Edge. God dammit so much.
Don’t worry, Faye. You’ve exposed your talents to a national audience. Your prize? A bunch of fat, overweight slobs will stalk you across the internet and expose themselves to you. Congratulations. Even when you lost, you…yeah, you lost.
Final Score:
Two Caesars out of five. I don’t know what that means. I just thought the picture was funny. Know what I’m sayin? WORD!?
Continue to Episode 7: The Gauntlet