So I decided to do an “inside recap” of some of the episodes. For those of you that don’t want to read about the show, move on, for those that do, here is some inside info thoughts, and explanations as I saw it. I chose to cover the physical challenge on this episode as it involved a lot of strategy and specific rules you might not have understood completely and I wanted to give everyone more information on what was happening.

This week the Game chosen is Virtua Fighter 5, and we get split into random teams again for the physical competition. The way teams are chosen is a bag is filled with 11 balls of two colors, black and red and each teammate is assigned to the team of that color.

I think we were all a little scared that all the girls, except Chelsea, were on one team for multiple reasons. The first reason being how I am sure everyone thought, in that potentially in this physical challenge the girls are primarily disadvantaged as we are breaking boards with our fist without any experience, and naturally the males would be stronger and perform this better.

Secondly, one of my main personal reasons for concern at this point (one I had realized in Rock Band) is that with so many females on the same team, there is a much great odds of a girl going to the elimination chamber if our team lost- and it was something I didn’t like at all.

So, to better explain the physical completion with the board breaking here is a layout of the rules.  Basically one team gets to bid the time we think we can complete the course in, the other team can either bid a lower time or challenge us to complete the course in our set amount of time, if they don’t think they can do it lower or think we can’t do it period.  If a team completes the course in the amount of time they bid they receive 2 points. If they fail in the time limit to complete it the OTHER team receives 1 point. 

Also an important factor that has to be pointed out is that the teams get to decide who goes up for the challenge, but all teammates have to go once before being allowed to go again. This is crucial in that the red team had 5 players and the black team had 6, so essentially one of their teammates of their choice (who they thought best) can be rotated in faster. Not an excuse, simply a fact.

First to 7 points wins the challenge and each person on the losing team goes into the game challenge with 1 point and the winners with 7 points.
We won the random draw and were received the power position, as we don’t know how long the course will actually take, of bidding first.  It all started out easy enough but we soon find out that after a team successfully completes the course, a new apparatus is brought in that makes the time to clear very hard to guess.

COURSE BREAKDOWN:

we thought the males had an advantage in this competition, we chose to split the guys with a girl and one group of our teammates of course would be all females. We bid strong to keep the power position of not knowing how fast this would take and put the male and female we thought would do the best together to start.

1st COURSE Black Team Wins Bid, Kelly & Dante clear course- Score: Black Team 2/Red Team 0

I can’t really tell you what the red team was doing or thinking at this time, but assume they thought these two players would be their best and would try to get points early in the game. In hindsight as we now found out that new pieces were going to be added which we didn’t know, it would have been best to try and stick to weakest first. Anyway, we accept this bid and they clear it in 5 seconds.

2nd COURSE Red Team wins bid: Mark & Adante clear course- Score: Black Team 2/Red Team 2

Everyone was of course doubting my ability as I am not the youngest or most fit by any means, but on this but I had an idea on my head how long each of the two previous apparatuses took and a general estimation in my head on the time limit I thought Rob & I could do this in. My teammates were hesitate in accepting such a low time, but I pushed and they supported and Rob and I succeeded- but barely as left a board behind on the hanging ones and we were trying to find it as our team mates were directing us, but the other team was trying to screw us up and were screaming over them. Shameless trick but good strategy- luckily it didn’t work!

3nd COURSE Black Team wins Bid: Amy & Rob course cleared.- Score: Black Team 4/Red Team 2

Now here is where it starts getting tough. The last boards that were brought in are VERY difficult being about 10 feet high. We are told we can not in any way climb on top and must work with our team mate to break them. Up punching is very difficult and exhausting let alone having to stand on a team mate to support your weight to do this
Our strategy at this point was to keep the other team from getting two points and tying us, so we just kept underbidding them till they accepted our bid and went in knowing we would probably lose but we didn’t want them to catch us.

4th COURSE Black Team wins Bid: Ciji & Alyson fail course- Score: Score: Black Team 4/Red Team 3

We were in the power position as Rob and Dante would be up next . The other team had been passing a lot and we didn’t really know what they were capable of as we had only seen two people from them while all six of ours had gone through the course once.  Since we had already had seen Rob and Dante go through we were confident they could beat a time the other team could not.  Apparently, the opposing team knew this too or thought they could really do better and bid a time we didn’t think attainable, and it wasn’t. This put us in the position to win with the next one and was the opening we needed as that could win us the game now!

5th COURSE Red Team wins Bid: Chelsea & Jamal fail course- Score: Black Team 5/Red Team 3

Well, our strategy ALMOST paid off, but close doesn’t cut it and with only 2 boards left, we failed the course. We knew we were in trouble as they had only guys up for the next two rounds while we had all girls, and I am not kidding- there is no way us girls could provide stabilized support for those boards on the top well enough. We only had two way to win, keep underbidding no matter how low they went and potentially take two loses in a row- which would still allow us the power position of putting our two guys back in for the potential win- or accept the teams bid if we thought it was impossible

6th COURSE Black Team wins Bid: Robert & Dante fail course- Score: Black team 5/Red Team 4

Well this one we knew was going to be tough, but as with anytime when we were underbidding to keep them from getting multiple points we still gave it our best shot. We went to the hardest apparatus immediately as we knew that was going to take the most of our energy and if we could get through that fast enough we might have a chance. I completely failed as a base for Kelly and could not look up easily to see where to move or how she was doing and know when to move. I could barely support her, which was surprising to me as I was a cheerleader base in high school- of course that was many years ago lol. Anyway, we were still in it as all we needed to do was stick to the plan and not allow them a time that was attainable even if it meant giving them one more win by us failing the time.

7th COURSE Black Team wins Bid: Amy & Kelly fail course- Score: Black team 5/Red Team 5

Well, apparently the Red Team was able to rail through the entire course in a time we thought wouldn’t cut it. We definitely underestimated Geoff thinking he is such a big guy and would be slow even though we knew he would tear the boards themselves up. Also, we didn’t calculate what a good solid base he would be for the last apparatus- I mean the guy was a rock!  He most certainly deserved MVP simply because he DID win that game for them. Not saying any of the others couldn’t have, but he DID!
And there you have it, amazingly enough in such a physical competition the girl heavy team almost had it! And if that would have happened you might not have seen Kelly going home, me on the chopping block, or any other numerous changes that could have happened based on strategy alone.

9th COURSE Red Team wins Bid: Amy & Kelly fail course- Score: Black team 5/Red Team 7

RED TEAM WINS THE PHYSICAL CHALLENGE!

Just an illustration on how important these physical competitions and strategy were, how fairly the show tried to make everything (the bidding really changed the certain outcome of the mail heavy team winning if it wasn’t there), and how small little decisions effect the entire game. I think this as well as future episodes really show, that it doesn’t matter what sex you are in these challenges, there will always be some type of strategy and thought processes involved in these physical competitions that really level the playing field for everyone.

Anyway, there is my inside take on the physical competition for Virtua Fighter 5 and I hope that gives you more of an inside and detailed explanation of what was happening that you were watching!

Watch the third episode with Project Gotham Racing 4 as we race real race cars on Sci-Fi Tuesday 10EST/9CST/7PST! If you missed any episodes so far you can watch them on Hulu.com and for those out of the country, WCG has been adding episodes to their youtube.com page!