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Video Gamers 'Sink or Swim' in WCG Ultimate Gamer
by Troy Rogers
 I can remember a long time ago in an east coast land far far away, where a young man loved to play video games, mainly for fun. But when he played games for hours on end, all of the menacing giants known as adults couldn’t help but point out that playing video games all day long would never, ever amount to anything productive whatsoever. Well, that was a long time ago (think Atari 2600 and first gen Nintendo) and today things are drastically different from those early pixilated days, as kids are now turning their quick thumbs and quick reflexes into cold hard cash and legitimate careers as reflected in Sy Fy's (aka SCI FI Channel) new series WCG Ultimate Gamer, which airs its "Sink or Swim" episode on April 14 at 10pm.
What is this video game geek speak that I'm referring to? The relatively new career path of the professional gamer. For the older crowd not in the gaming know, who have a hard time wrapping their minds around the concept of video games as a career, here’s an extremely simplified lowdown: Get yourself a gaming platform - be it X-Box 360 or Playstation 3 - grab a bunch of the hottest current games, and start practicing your ass off, because the future of video games has arrived and kids are competing in various video game tournaments for bragging rights and a way to pay the bills. It was only a matter of time, and has been in play for a number of years now. So for those out of the loop, yes, you can make a comfortable living doing what you love, especially if you're one of the many who play video games around the clock.
 One event that brings pro gamers out of the woodwork is the annual WCG - World Cyber Games tournament. This season the Scy Fy Channel came up with the brilliant plan of marrying the public’s love of reality TV and the massively popular world of video games to create WCG Ultimate Gamer. The video game reality competition is a suped up version of the Real Life with a bunch of young pro gamers living and competing against each other to win the title of Ultimate Gamer, $100,000 prize, an awesome Samsung electronics package, and a spot in this year’s WCG in Beijing, China.
With Scy Fy’s WCG Ultimate Gamer already in full swing, with five of the twelve original gamers already knocked out, we caught up with the series at the half-way point for the episode "Sink or Swim," airing Tuesday, April 14 at 10pm, with the remaining VG junkies battling it out over EA’s NBA Live 09. For viewers that have never checked out WCG Ultimate Gamer, the competition breaks down like this:
The gamers are told which game they’ll be focusing on before they play a reality based contest related to the game - ie: driving real race cars to see how good they are at Project Gotham Racing 4 - then grab the controls of the actual game alone, in isolation, before the top player gets to choose who the worst player goes head-to-head against in the elimination round.
 With the rundown on the weekly happenings in the gamer house behind us, the best part of WCG and the "Sink or Swim" episode is the reality based NBA Live 09 challenge. In this week's WCG Ultimate Gamer, the players get a visit from former NBA greats Spud Webb and Darryl Dawkins plus WNBA legend Lisa Leslie who rate the WCG gamers on their dunking skills. The high flying action soon goes over the top when everyone needs to show off their sick dunking skill from a diving board into a pool (hence the title, ‘Sink or Swim’).
So who is the best dunker of the WCG Ultimate bunch? Let's just say that despite the presence of Lisa Leslie, one of gaming girls needs to work on her real life game in a big way. But who is the best NBA Live ’09 player in the house? Again, the girls need to work on their fantasy game, too. Aside from the appearances of Webb, Dawkins, and Leslie, other highlights of the WCG Ultimate Gamer "Sink or Swim" include a massive dose of drama in the gamer house that centers around Mark and Ciji and a hilarious moment when Jamal challenges Lisa Leslie to some real life one-on-one after the WNBA great gives him a full court judging press for his pool dunks. It's crazy how some people get when they're packed into a house together and they lose focus. Like video games aren't enough to lose focus already, but ...
 When WCG Ultimate Gamer first came down the TV pike, I was afraid the series would be something simply slapped together to tap into the huge video game market. Well, it is, but after checking out a couple of episodes and speaking to the series creator and hosts, I have to hand it to Scy Fy for giving gamers and TV fans a well made show. Their decision to cast Joel Gourdin (Attack of the Show and XPlay) and Hanna Simone (Much Music) was a great move in setting the tone along with the quality production value that further helps to give gamers their own unique series. To understand what went into pulling WCG Ultimate Gamer off, think of how some of the challenges for Halo 3, Rock Band 2, Project Gotham Racing 4, Virtua Fighter 5, and Dance Dance Revolution Universe 3 could be recreated in the real world. Although the show isn't perfect in its recreations, and could use another season to get bigger and better, I don't see anyone else on TV doing a show like this.
The WCG Ultimate Gamer house is now down to the final six competitors and that much closer to crowning the Ultimate Gamer. Someone had to take the lead in creating a series like this, so hopefully Scy Fy is thinking forward to a second season already. Watching real life gamers dunk over a pool in "Sink or Swim" while getting NBA Live 09 crazy proves that earning the "Ultimate" title is a lot tougher in real life than sitting on the couch, gulping down power drinks by the hour, and pretending to earn cold hard gamer cash.
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