So as some of you might know due to the TV Guide description, tonight will start the “gauntlet” competition of the show in which us gamers will compete by playing the games we have played, but in ways we have never played them before. What does that mean? Essentially, you will be viewing a hodgepodge of us six remaining contestants doing some crazy things you can’t even imagine.

While the show incorporates a formula of real life and game challenges, most gamers think the gaming portion alone is the most important factor when deciding who is the “best gamer” in the house. Please keep in mind the overall ranking ARE what the show is about and the physical competitions simply changed the game as we might know it (I will be doing a blog on the overall scores next week!), but I decided to crunch the numbers for all the people out there that who were wanting to know rankings on the GAMES alone before heading into the gauntlet.

As all the genres have now been played, the averages of performance can actually be utilized to get an idea of who performed the best so far on the games played. I got the numbers from the isolation challenges from the WCG Ultimate Gamer Wiki. I am told these numbers are not maintained by the show, Sci-Fi, or WCG and I am uncertain as to who is updating them; however, I went over them closely and and they appear accurate to me. I also rechecked my math repeatedly but invite anyone to recheck again!

Before we get into the numbers I would like to point out some of the factors which should be taken into account when considering them in relation to who is the “best”.

1.) The first and MOST important factor to consider is the five eliminated contestants who did not get to compete on all the 6 games and therefore have no accurate rank to determine where they should place.  I feel the only accurate numbers to consider is the contestants that were able to compete on ALL six games, so I bold the names of those that indeed participated in all the games up until the gauntlet. (Note: According to numbers alone, Dante should certainly still be in the competition).

2.) At some point in the competition, individuals were limited on the rank they could obtain by team performance. Examples of this are evident in the Rock Band and Halo Competitions where individuals on losing teams actually scored better than others ranked higher, but received a lower placement due to team overall team performances. This has somewhat of an impact in their cumulative isolation scores and should be considered.

3.) Another factor to look at is the use of two games of the same genre (Rock Band & DDR) and how that impacts the overall isolation results (think if they had two FPS Games). This basically provides an advantage to anyone with a specialty in this genre.

4.) The switching up peripherals to non standard controls used in games while others are played as they normally should also be taken into consideration.  Out of the 5 genres played so far, three were played like they would be normally be: the Music Sync’s, First Person Shooter, and the Sports game.  This means any of the gamers that were more specialized in these genre’s had a potential greater advantage over the other players, while ones that had more experience in the other genre’s (Fighting & Racing) did not receive this leg up in return.

5.) The final factor I could think of that should be considered is if players did not play to their full ability. If this happened with a certainty it would impact theirs, and others, game rankings.

As with any competition there are always factors and issues to take into consideration, and while the gaming portion had a few, it must be said the show and it’s producers did everything in their power to try to even the playing field for everyone while maintaining their reality show format. What does this mean? They created their OWN game and this IS the game you see in the house. While these might be issues some gamers would bring up to argue placements in the gaming competitions, lets not forget the show itself is part of the game and you can’t look it the same way you would look at a professional tournament or really argue it’s validity.

Anyway, these rankings should not be viewed at face value- but are a good general indicator. It should be noted, everyone in that house has weaker showing at one game or another (by weaker I mean not in the top 3).  I would also like to point out that ANYONE that has been eliminated so far has come in last in a game or overall score; where as the only one left in the house that HAS come in last overall or in game is Robert, and that was a fluke.  As widely known, Robert is most certainly at least 1st or 2nd in actual skill on that game, but due to team rankings in both the physical and game challenge he came in last based on his teams performance.

Ok, so with all THAT being said and out of the way, and without further ado HERE are your averaged overall scores for the Isolation Challenges (ONLY the video game playing!). This is for those all those people tossing ideas out with out any numerical basis and demonstrates what I can carefully and legitimately phrase as: Who is the best scoring player on all the games played so far on WCG Ultimate Gamer?

(Please note this is ONLY the actual game playing average and the players in bold are the only ones that had an opportunity to compete on all the games played due to others being eliminated)

Name----------Isolation average:-------Weighted Isolation Average*:
Adande---------------3.00-----------------------------------0.35
Jamal------------------3.33-----------------------------------0.35
Robert-----------------4.00-----------------------------------0.39
Dante------------------4.00-----------------------------------0.47
Mark-------------------5.50-----------------------------------0.54
Amy--------------------6.00-----------------------------------0.65
Ciji----------------------6.17-----------------------------------0.68
Chelsea---------------6.33-----------------------------------0.68
Alyson-----------------7.00-----------------------------------0.78
Geoff -------------------8.00-----------------------------------0.87
Kelly-------------------9.17------------------------------------0.97
JD-----------------------9.50-----------------------------------1.00

*The weighted average is found by dividing the contestant’s placement with the ACTUAL amount of people competing instead of using the default 12 contestant, who did not continue to play as they were eliminated each week.  This eliminates the random factor of what games were played first, as you have more possibilities of attaining certain ranks on the earlier games over later ones (This provides a more accurate average score in that, for example, a 4h place placement out of 12 is a decent placement at .33%, where as 4th place placement out of 8 would actually only be half at .50%).

So, going into the Gauntlet tonight, will these over all scores match with what has happened in the game challenges so far? As of now, statistically speaking we only see a VERY small variance between the top 3, then a larger gap, then another small variance between the bottom three of the people that were able to perform on all the games. The question is: will these scores play out into the gauntlet as well or will the random things occurring tie in the physical part of the competition as well?

I sat down to try and figure this out with my inside take on the contestants abilities and I came up with this answer based on my own personal opinion: Everyone left in the house has the POTENTIAL to come in 1st or 2nd on at least 2 of the 6 games that have been played. What do I mean by Potential? Simply that anyone left in the loft has the ability to come in the top two in a head to head battle on multiple of the games and there are not TWO people exceptionally better than all the others in every game. There might be one person that has a leg up over the rest in some of the genres, but certainly not two. As it is two people that will make it to the finals; I can safely say everyone has a shot depending on what the gauntlet entails.

Now I can narrow it down more and say: is there anyone I feel that potentially takes 1st or 2nd in at least 3 of the games? Yep, I do. That being said, this really depends on the games TITLES used and how MANY of the games are played in the gauntlet.  Everyone in the house has a shot due to individual strengths and weaknesses on certain games and anything can certainly happen, however the MORE titles that are played will narrow down the playing field.

You can try to play battleship and keep throwing ideas out there till something hits (which you will never know until the show anyway) or you can try to do the detective work and try to figure out from the commercials what games are coming, if not all, and make an educated guess- although I warn you: it may be educated but it is still simply a guess!  In fact, I decided to create a poll to participate in: Who do you think will be the final two to battle it out to become the WCG Ultimate Gamer? Please vote in the forum poll (hit the comment button below) and take the opportunity to justify your pick! But don’t miss WCG Ultimate gamer tonight where you can find out for yourself only on Sci-Fi 10est/9cst/7pst!