Apparently the first season of Sony’s PlayStation Network-only reality show,The Tester, was popular enough to warrant a follow up. Tomorrow, the second season of the show — which has contestants vying for the top prize of being a quality assurance tester for Sony — makes its premiere on PSN. Â
Sony was nice enough to give me a sneak peek at the upcoming season, but was tricky enough to remove the last few minutes so as I wouldn’t know which two of the 12 contestants get the boot first. Â
Who should we be rooting for? Is it the girl gamer who dressed up like Kratos? The basement-dwelling guy with the samurai swords? The guy who couldn’t identify the gameHeavy Raineven after being shown the game’s box art which prominently featured both the words “heavy†and “rainâ€? Keep reading as I preview the first episode ofThe Testerseason 2, and help you make up your mind ahead of time.Â
Apparently the first season of Sony’s PlayStation Network-only reality show,The Tester, was popular enough to warrant a follow up. Tomorrow, the second season of the show — which has contestants vying for the top prize of being a quality assurance tester for Sony — makes its premiere on PSN.
Sony was nice enough to give me a sneak peek at the upcoming season, but was tricky enough to remove the last few minutes so as I wouldn’t know which two of the 12 contestants get the boot first.
Who should we be rooting for? Is it the girl gamer who dressed up like Kratos? The basement-dwelling guy with the samurai swords? The guy who couldn’t identify the gameHeavy Raineven after being shown the game’s box art which prominently featured both the words “heavy” and “rain”? Keep reading as I preview the first episode ofThe Testerseason 2, and help you make up your mind ahead of time. {{page_break}}
First the bad news, and I don’t like to crush dreams, but let’s get it out of the way right here: judge Hal Sparks isn’t back for seconds. Sparks, best known for winning VH1’sCelebracadabra, claims he’s going on some nationwide stand-up comedy tour. That’s a tough field to get into, that stand up comedy, so I wish him the best of luck; if things get tough, Hal, just start pulling coins out of people’s ears or set a heckler on fire with a fireball.
With that said, Hal does kicks off the season by introducing us to the 12 contestants that make up the second season ofThe Tester. Basically, this means they cut to clips of the audition tapes and then Hal makes fun of them.
Your contestants:
With the introductions out of the way, the cast gets ushered into their home and they love it. It’s decorated with PlayStation crap, there are 3D televisions mounted on walls, and each contestant is given a bag of swag that Sony had left over from PAX Prime and gamescom. The wannabe testers are in heaven.
They start to mingle, drinking beers I can’t identify because the producers have covered them with black tape, and you start to see how things are going to pan out. Max1m calls himself the “Alpha male” and makes a bunch of loud, frat boy hooting noises; Gaymer thinks he’s a douche. Samurai tries to crush 8-Bit Mickey’s bones under the guise of a hug, and then reveals he’s a voice actor before doing a pretty decent Kratos impression. Big Fazeek complains that everyone is too young, they don’t deserve this, and reiterates that he’s spent one million dollars on videogames and doesn’t leave his house.
Soon, they’re ushered into the “Testing Lab,” a dingy warehouse where the show’s judges stand waiting to do what they do best — stand in judgement of these nuts. Brent Gocke, Senior Release Manager of Quality Insurance is back for another season, and Hal Sparks is replaced byAmerica’s Next Top Modelwinner Adrianne Curry. Each show will have a guest judge, andGod of War IIIdirector Stig Assmussen is in the house for the opening ceremonies. TrippleThreat nearly passes out when she sees him, and the editors cut cut between her flipping out in slow motion and Stig smiling uncomfortably.
We’re told over and over again that Curry is a big gamer herself, as she winks at the contestants. As Curry speaks, they cut between her and the women contestants, as if to form some kind of “girl gamer” kinship. At one point, we see a shot of Samurai, who is nonplussed, as if to say “I have stared at hours of Nariko wielding her heavenly sword; bring me a real woman.” Mo Chocolate, on the other hand, is star-struck, and he later mumbles something about the guy fromTheBrady Bunchbeing lucky.
Curry then answers the question on everyone’s mind.
“If you guys ever wondered what a model does when she retires and hangs up her stilettos,” Curry says, “[it’s] veg out in front of the television and play her PS3.”
The show’s host, Meredith Molinari, drops the bomb: two contestants will go home this episode. The winner of today’s challenge — identifying Sony-related images as they’re revealed piece-by-piece — will also win aGod of War IIIUltimate Edition signed by Stig. Big Fazeek, who has one million dollars worth of games comments that he doesn’t need it because he has already has one million dollars worth of games.
Who takes top honors this episode? Who gets sent home? We’ll have to tune in together, when the first episode hits PSN tomorrow, November 2. I don’t have any inside information, but my guess is that it won’t be Max1m, who couldn’t identify the gameHeavy Rainafter shown box art that said “Heavy Rain” on it.
