World Cyber Games has announced their new "Reality Competition Series" (these things don't count as game shows anymore, do they?) titled, imaginatively, WCG Ultimate Gamer to air on Sci-Fi this March in eight one-hour installments. Sci-Fi recently had a similar competition program in Cha$e, which designed itself to be a "real-life video game" (like childhood favorites manhunt or tag, only with iPhones and sidequests), but Ultimate Gamer looks to more closely follow previous Sci-Fi reality competition Who Wants To Be A Superhero?
Much like Superhero tested the costume characters' application of heroism and courage in real world scenarios, Ultimate Gamer will test participants proficiency at popular games as well as real-life simulations of those games. Play Rock Band 2, then play a real electric guitar. Halo 3, then real paintball. Project Gotham Racing 4, then real street-ready cars. Check out this trailer:
This has the potential to be fantastic entertainment. It could also suck. A lot. We all know that most people who rule at Guitar Hero and Rock Band couldn't play a real instrument to save their lives, so the potential of applying that level of embarassment to other games intrigues me, especially the Project Gotham Racing one. Other activities shown in the trailer include Virtua Fighter 5 and some sort of karate kid target challenge, Dance Dance Revolution, and something involving dunking a tricked-out slam dunk over a swimming pool (I'm going to guess NBA Street?). With eight episodes, that's only six games/challenges revealed, all of which are big studio sequels to established franchises. There's room for at least two more unrevealed games, and since it's always fun to speculate, let's do some of that:
Gears of War 2 - Destroy as many watermelon as you can in 45 seconds equipped only with a chainsaw and steel-toed boots!
Metal Gear Solid 4 - Sneak past security cameras, steal as many adult magazines as you can without being spotted.
Mega Man 9 - Punch yourself as hard as you possibly can, repeatedly.
Tomb Raider Underworld - Run an obstacle course whilst decrying Roman mythology (I'm just going with general Tomb Raider, I have no idea what Underworld is about)
God of War 3 - Tear down statues whilst decrying Greek mythology
Resident Evil 5 - Shoot africans. (What, too soon?)
The possibilities are endless! Will it be good? Absolutely no idea. We'll find out in March, I suppose.
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