Review: Dragon Ball Z – Ultimate Tenkaichi (PS3)

We here at Aeropause take pride in subjecting ourselves to all sorts of torture such that you can avoid the humiliation, degradation, or just plain waste of time. Recently Sony decided to create their own reality TV equation by adding gaming, gamers, and a gaming-related job . The result is a first episode that was unable to disprove the theorem that gaming and television mixes like oil and water.

While the trailer didn’t show us that the basis for their mathematics wouldn’t be flawed, this initial 20-minute diversion was full of more holes then my attempts at proving Gauss wrong. The eleven individuals did manage to provide evidence for one thing: the gamer stereotypes are true. Each individual was practically selected from the possible schools of geekdom, nerdom, and dorkdom. Not to single anyone out, but one of the worst offenders was a contestant who went by the online name Barmy. Dressed in a tie and vest, his initial interaction with the camera consisting of him putting on airs and trying to assess the competitors to be able to best them all. So when he failed epically in the first test, and was kicked off the isl…. had his Sony badge revoked, I can say I was not sad to see him go.

Speaking of the first event, anyone who subjected themselves to the trailer in hopes to discern what Sony could do to set themselves apart will recall a lot of physical activities. Well I can tell you first hand, that this test of skill boiled down to a commonplace electronic game that can be played for one dollar at your favorite watering hole: Spot the difference. But wait for the twist! Each contestant was given a short time frame (90 seconds) and was answering to three judges. While admirable in their attempts at an actual work-skill evaluation, the final judging criteria proved to fall short and only exemplify why video game QA must be going down hill. I can’t wait to see developers start rating their QA departments in bugs-per-hour.

So where does this leave us? Oh, right it’s a ‘series’. Well thankfully they knocked off two participants in the first show. This whittles down the headcount to a finger-countable nine. At this rate, our lives may be shortened only by 100 minutes. Quite honestly, between the first episode and the ubiquitous “scenes from the next”, I can’t decide if its a train wreck that I can’t take my eyes from, or just a straight up wreck that I never want to visit again. Odds are I will continue to subject myself to this ‘entertainment’ so you won’t. As a glimmer of hope, maybe we can turn it into a Child’s Play charity event where we Aeropausians will watch the entire series back-to-back as a fundraiser.