Interview With Meredith Molinari From The Tester

PlayStation Network's second season of "The Tester" premieres tonight, and if the contestants don't perform, Adrianne Curry is going to break their faces. Well, not quite, but Curry, a reality television veteran and winner of the first season of "America's Next Top Model," plans to be brutally honest as a judge on the show who happens to be a serious gamer herself (she's currently hooked on "Ratchet & Clank").

Following the success of the first season of "The Tester," which had over 2.5 million downloads on the PlayStation Network alone, 12 new contestants will compete in gaming, physical and teamwork challenges for prizes and a job as a video game tester at PlayStation's San Diego office (think "Grandma's Boy"). So how about the people vying for the gig?

"I was expecting the contestants to be a little bit more boring," Curry told Clutch. "When you're searching for people who devote their lives to video games, that's what you expect. But these are people, from a production standpoint, who could work on other reality shows. Their personalities are very engaging. One of them — I won't say who — deserves his own show."


The Tester Season 2 Preview Video [HD]

That might be "8-bit Mickey," who won the most votes on TheTester.com in a poll that determined who among 30,000 applicants made the show. That Mickey won the "popular vote" is no surprise, with his promotional spots that are a ridiculous mixture of cheesy local TV commercials, a circus and spandex. You should expect more of those antics and drama this season.

"One of the things our viewers wanted were longer episodes. Last year they were between 15-18 minutes, this year each episode is around 25-30 minutes," Susan Panico, head of PlayStation Network's original programming, told Clutch. "There's also more of a focus on the drama. People like alliances, romances, backstabbing and all the contestants did live together in a PlayStation loft, so we were able to capture more emotive aspects."

As anyone who has strapped on headphones and competed in an online game knows, the banter can go from friendly to offensive to outrageous pretty quickly. Apparently that dynamic doesn't change when seven male and five female gamers get face-to-face, which was a bit of a surprise for Curry.

"Unlike 'America's Next Top Model', there are men and women together here. Not only in gaming but in real life, men tend to be aggressive and talk a lot of sh*t," Curry said. "So that was a new component, especially with men picking on a chick. It was very much like the gaming world coming to life. People weren't really holding back, kind of like anonymous Internet bashing."

"The Tester" premieres tonight on The Playstation Network. After each episode's initial run there, they'll be available on PlayStation's YouTube channel and Crackle.

As you wait patiently for the show to premiere, we suggest you take a minute to peek through this gallery of Curry's hottest geeky Twitpics. Here's a little taste.