Feb 04, 10:00 am
The new season of 1 vs 100 started again on the holidays, amping up for one of my favorite online games. If your buried under a rock, 1 vs 100 is an onine game show where players answer trivia questions to win real prizes online, so if you are a game show fan or a trivia buff, this is the game for you. Since its launch I have been taking the night off to play with friends and family every Tuesday and Thursday night. I cook some dinner and we all settle in for two hours of awesome gameplay where we fight and pray we are picked to be in the mob or “the One”. But soon it will all be over as the season will end February 12th, so if you haven’t been playing this game you are really missing it out.
For those of you that haven’t heard or figured it out yet, they have new criteria for being selected to be in the Mob. Now players can qualify to be The One or in The Mob based solely on score: Season Score, Weekly Score, or Previous Round Score. It selects based on these things randomly, so if you are one of those that like to instant answer wrong questions to try and get picked by time stop now! It is also noteworthy to let you know that you now have some achievements you can earn.
Last week my husband was selected to be in the Mob making it the third person I know to be chosen. In my quest to be chosen I know I have come close, but close doesn’t cut it when you’re playing with 20-40k people.
Since there is new criteria to be chosen I had to change my tips I wrote before are no longer key. After playing for quite some time, I have to say correct “instant answers” are the way to go. My biggest suggestion for being picked is that if you don’t know the answer it is best to guess an instant answer and pray you are right. There have been many times I have gotten all the questions right but my score was still too low to get picked due to lack of points granted for instant answers.
I also suggest players continue to play the extended play to try and beef up the season score. I am not sure if the first 20 questions are still the easiest, but it still appears that way. It is also best that you invite your friends of various backgrounds and interests as you all should be able to help each other with the correct answers.
Upcoming 1 vs 100 episodes you should look out for:
February 7th is 1 vs 100 “The Big Game” featuring Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Rich Eisen, and John Carlson as special guests. Football fans will have a fun party-friendly way to spend a few hours before the big game.
February 9th Magda Apanowicz of SyFy’s new show Caprica will make an appearance, as she’ll be on-hand playing the game and interacting with fans. As a special bonus, the live game is followed immediately by an exclusive first: an Extended Play episode of Halo-themed video game trivia!
February 12th is the season finale of 1 vs 100 Live and will feature special guests from the world of Halo; Marty O’Donnell (Bungie) and Frank O’Connor (343 Industries) will be there. They’ll be providing live commentary, answering questions and posing a little bonus Halo trivia for all to answer.
I have to say I love Frankie. He is the one that let us first play Halo 2 at our very first PAX when he shoved us up at the head of the line right before closing. I even made a movie about the Frag Dolls and PMS fighting over him in a gang type war on the game “The Movies” so he would take us to the secret Bungie facility to play real life Halo. This may be something I need to dig up…
Anyway, if you think your smart or just like trivia in general, come check out 1 vs100 before it’s over!
Jan 28, 10:00 am
So, one of my PMS team mates directed me to a wonderful site recently, where teams can build their strategies on multiple games, including Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. The site is called Tactics Board and I thought I would share with those interested in perfecting their strategies with their teams, as I find it extremely useful.
Essentially, you are given the maps and useful tools to tweek it to show spawn points, bomb sites, running paths, etc. and you can share these with your team mates online. They simply log into the site and can view all the preplanned strategies and save a screenshot on their computer for printing. Here is an example of some of the things you can do with the software:
The Frag Dolls have a long history of having an actual “playbook” of strategies, but normally this is something we have done with photoshop. For a site to create the software for you with images and icons already preloaded is a windfall to the hard core teams who take it seriously. Just like with sports, I recommend written strategies for everyone.
So, if you have a dedicated competition team, I would advise you to check out the site and play around with the software and see the benefits this site provides. A tip of my hat to Tactics Board for creating such an amazing tool! It is so good, I almost didn’t want to share it....
Jan 21, 10:00 am
It’s been a while to say the least since I was in first-person shooter competitive mode, and I am loving being back to my roots. While I was hesitant about Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 (and I still have some beefs about it) I am once again doing matches and mostly drama free- see ya World of Warcraft!
CoD will never live up to my Rainbow Six as I can’t handle the excessive camping, whining, and being forced to play with fourteen year olds that act two. But, this game still manages to pull me in and makes me want to learn more about how to perfect my game play. Even though I play every day, I still manage to learn some new spot or trick each day, and that is something I truly enjoy.
I am still concerned about this game and the ability to compete on it on LAN. I don’t know how they would be able to set it up effectively for tournament play and truthfully the only reason I am playing it is that I expect it to be picked up by some circuit.
Since Fidget is the only other Frag Doll really playing this game much, when I am not playing with her I have been playing ladder matches with some of my PMS ladies. It is weird as I haven’t played ladder matches in 4 years as in Rainbow we only scrimmed against Pro Teams or played all together in private games. We have only been doing it for a couple of weeks now and I feel like I am building all over again to get that “don’t need to talk” teamwork and strategy down, but I am confident it will come.
I still remember the difference between the first and second season of the Original Rainbow, and how by the fourth we had taken 14th place- out of a couple thousand teams since Rainbow was the most popular multiplayer game on Xbox. And that’s what I want for this team as well.
That being said, we still need lots of practice and to nail down strategy. Since you can’t match make with four players, unfortunately the only way we can learn is through private matches and that sucks donkey doo.
Anyway, that’s my latest struggle in the world of online gaming. Anyone have a team they want to scrim with so you can pull me out of the hell that is random matchmaking so we can build our team better for the ladder?
Jan 14, 10:00 am
This past Christmas I finally received a gift that I had actually been wanting- the Amazon “Kindle” DX. Of course I asked for this, but that is besides the point. The Kindle is one of the many electronic readers you can buy to download and read books and after I had done a lot of research I knew this one was the one for me.
I have already read around 10 books on it, and I love it! No eye sore (there is no back light so it makes it the same as reading a book), no moving my hands to turn pages as you just lightly click the button as you hold it, a sleep screen that goes on automatically to save battery- there is just too much to this thing! The battery life is amazing as well. Even with the wireless enabled the book lasts for days. If you’re not downloading, you can take the extra step to disable the wireless and depending on how much your reading, it can last over a week.
I have to say, the biggest selling point for me was that you can connect wirelessly on the built in 3G Network to download books anywhere in the world. No having to connect to your PC, logging into wireless networks, or paying to connect. You simple make sure the wireless is enabled on the device and browse the largest selection of ebooks in the world. And they take about 2 minutes to download. As I tend to travel a lot and have to scrounge in Airport bookstores, this technology is amazing. I can actually get the book I WANT, and not have to settle for what is on the limited shelves.
Books are also much cheaper now, saving me a ton of money. The normal NY Times Bestsellers cost UP to a measly $9.99 compared to the $25-$30 you would pay at the bookstore. And the rest of the books average to $2.99-$5.99 That’s crazy savings to my wallet!
I could rave on and on about the Kindle and while I know a lot of readers (like myself) like to collect their archives and have that physical book to show, I will never buy a real book again. The Kindle certainly kindled a fire in me, and I recommend the rest of you readers give it a shot too!
Jan 07, 10:00 am
Today at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas it was officially announced the hit reality show, WCG Ultimate Gamer, would be gearing up for another season. Well, officially announced in that WCG had a banner with season 2 highlighted at their booth! While not many details are released yet, gamers were told to keep an eye out for the announcement of season 2 auditions this spring.
I can’t wait to see what gamers this new season will bring the spotlight to! As a prior contestant, I can tell you being on the show was one of the most exciting experiences in my life and I think any gamer should try out. As I am sure contestants will be fighting for spots among thousands of others trying out for this season, I thought I would put together some tips for those that want to auditions.
1. Figure out your casting “type”. All casting agents will look for special types of characteristics. This will be a wide variety of personalities but you do have to have some “niche” that they will place you in. Before you do any audition you will have to pinpoint your strongest characteristic and focus on it.
2. Bring that type out! Whatever your personality is multiple it times 10. With the wide mix they will look for, they will want the strongest personalities period. So whatever your biggest characteristic is, you want to play it up for the camera.
3. BE YOURSELF- Knowing how the casting goes, I can tell you while the casting agents look for strong personalities it will be those of all types. If you are not true to yourself it will be obvious after the extensive final interviews and they will want only genuine people.
4. Practice all genres of games! We all saw the verity of games on season 1, and we were tested extensively. So, practice up! I will tip you off in that we were given a huge list of games to focus on, so they don’t leave you blind but I suggest you pick the top three games from all genres and practice them. While I don’t know the games I can suggest you focus on the following:
FPS- CoD, Halo, & Left for Dead,
RACING- PGR, FORZA, & Need for Speed
Music Sync- Rockband or Guitar Hero, DJ Hero, DDR
Sports- Madden, FIFA, NBA Live
Fighting- Soul Calibur, Virtua Fighter, Street Fighter
5. Do your research! If you haven’t watched the entire season yet, you need to study up on how the game operates, the casting types that were on it, and the type of situations you might experience on the show. Bring ideas how YOU would have operated in situations to the interview itself- as long as they are interesting of course! The audition tapes are also on the site, so watch and see how others made it through this process of elimination!
Bad or Good, if you simply speak your mind, heart, soul, and put some color into the interview, you may just have a shot! Good Luck!
For those that didn’t watch season 1 episodes, you can still catch up on wcgultimategamer.com or hulu.com and root for your favorite contestant (me of course).
