The Dread Pirate Preface

Whenever anyone says to me, "Let me preface this by saying" I tend to think I'm about to get bad news. Other stomach dropping gems include, "that being said", "be that as it may" and "I need to talk to you about something but can't right now, we'll talk later".

All that to say I'm about to use all three of them right now.

Let me preface this by saying that when WCG Ultimate Gamer was first announced, I was excited. I love seeing other gamers play and I'm on board with anything that shows gaming in a positive light. I started talking about it on the original "ICandee, You Game" and was met with quite a few naysayers and people assuming it was going to tank.

Be that as it may, I was still looking forward to it and tried to encourage people to watch it whenever I could. I was really impressed once the show started because even with SciFi's bumbling attempt to foster drama and Jimmy Fallon's worthless attempts to explain game mechanics in layman's terms for what I'm assuming they think is their huge crowd of non-gaming viewers, it has a good premise, good games and interesting (for the most part) cast members. I've never subscribed to the whole "fat guy in mom's basement" gamer profile and this show did a good job picking a varied group of gamers.

So I looked forward to Tuesday and decided to blog about each episode. Anyone that has followed my blog for a while knows that I never "report news" or straight up "review games". I've always felt that you can get news and reviews anywhere and that those people enjoy doing it, get paid doing it or want to get paid doing it so I say leave them to it. ICandee, You Game is just about a gamer. So in discussing Ultimate Gamer, I didn't want to do a minute by minute rundown of what they were doing. I tried to write about the good stuff, include my opinions and put a humorous spin on the show.

Once I found out that Halo 3 would be making an appearance, I knew that would be a major episode to watch. Let's face it, there's not much to an "ultimate" gamer if you don't know your way around a FPS and that's just the way it is which brings me to my first point: It's becoming more and more obvious that the "ultimate gamer" doesn't exist. No one gamer is good at all game genres. I think a better way to put it would be "Ultimate Racing Gamer", "Ultimate FPS Gamer", "Ultimate Fighting Gamer" etc. But the name, "Really Good All-Around Gamer" isn't quite as catchy is it? But I still have enjoyed the show and always look forward to watching and putting my own chaotic "know-nothing-know-it-all" opinion on it the next day.

I'm smart enough to know that with "reality" TV, comes editing and the producers are always looking for ways to make something out of nothing. But all the "you don't know unless you're in this situation" and "I'm not like that in real life" and "What you didn't see was..." lose their meaning after a while. Let's face it, a douche is a douche is a douche and no amount of editing can make you look more douchy if you weren't just a little douchy to begin with.

That being said, last night's episode was so disappointing to me on so many levels that I've decided to post this preface and think about it some more before writing my thoughts. Last night, I just wanted to rip everyone on the show a new one but didn't write it in the hopes that once I woke up I would be in a better frame of mind and could find the humor in it because I hate posting serious crap here.

But this morning I feel no different so we'll see...

So if you come here every Tuesday because you enjoy reading my humorous slant on the show, I really appreciate it and when I come back to it, hopefully I can figure out how to make last night's moronic display of idiocy funny.

In conclusion, I need to talk to you about something but can't right now, we'll talk later.