Troy Benedict, Senior Writer

The Tester - Trainwreck TV for the PS3

PlayStation Network released the first full-length episode of the PlayStation-themed reality show The Tester on February 18th. If you like video games, and you like disasterous television, then you're probably going to love to hate the PlayStation Network's exclusive original series The Tester.

The Tester features 11 gamers, who will compete in a series of physical and mental challenges to win a job as an official PlayStation game tester along with a $5,000 signing bonus.

The show is hosted by Meredith Molinari, who is probably better known for her modeling, because she doesn't seem to have much of a television or movie presence in her biography.

Evaluating the contestants is a panel of three judges: Hal Sparks (who you may remember from "Talk Soup" and his appearances on countless VH1 series), Brent Gocke (Release Manager for First Party Quality Assurance from Sony Computer Entertainment), and a weekly rotating Industry-related guest panelist like David Jaffe (the director and lead designer for God of War and Twisted Metal).

The cast of the show is a somewhat eclectic mix of gamers, from a wide mix of backgrounds and age groups. Thankfully, none of them feel too particularly staged or strategically planted. Instead of being called by their real names, each contestant goes by a nickname.

Some viewers may remember Star, who is certainly no novice when it comes to video game-themed reality television. Her real name is Ciji Thornton and she was featured last year as StarSlay3r in the WCG Ultimate Gamer reality series. Star is also a Guitar Hero tournament winner.

I watched the first episode with my wife last night. The episode clocked in at 22 minutes, which is the usual length of a 30-minute television show (minus the commercials). The show was interesting to watch, but it felt like it was over way too quickly. Most reality shows fill a 60-minute window during prime time, and 22 minutes just didn't feel like enough time to get to know the cast and build up the drama.

The biggest hit of the show, in both mine and my wife's eyes, was 34-year old "Barmy," who was the perfect uncomfortable cast member for a reality show like this one. Unfortunately, he was one of two people eliminated at the end of the show. The brilliance of Barmy was in his uber-nerdy creepiness. Think one-part Renaissance Festival super-geek mixed with the personality and smugness of Billy Mitchell, and you'll have Barmy.

While no video games were actually played in this premiere episode, I think it's safe to assume that most of the featured video games will be either first-party or exclusive Sony software and limited to the PlayStation 3. In other words, expect to see a healthy dose of Sony love and PlayStation-themed product placements.

I'm also a little confused as to the actual glamor and attractiveness of "winning" the position of a video game tester. From all of the industry chatter I've read and the conversations I've listened to on numerous podcasts, while quality assurance testing is essential to releasing a relatively bug-free game, it is not the most enjoyable video game-related job.

The signing bonus of $5,000 also seems like a very meager co-prize, especially when other reality series award the victor with prizes of $100,000 or $1 million. I guess the job as a quality assurance tester is the real golden ticket, right?

The Tester is an 8-episode series that is exclusively available on the PlayStation Network via the PlayStation 3. New episodes are scheduled for release every Thursday evening.

I highly recommend people checking it out, and here's to hoping that creepy Barmy and his robotic/forced-Shakespearean accent show up again before the series is over.