T.U.G.

TheUltimateGamer07, better known simply as The Ultimate Gamer or T.U.G., is a 27-year-old New Jersey-born American video gamer currently residing in Glendale, Arizona. He joined YouTube on January 9, 2007 and is known primarily for his long-running series "The Ultimate Gamer's Guide," a collection of video walkthroughs and strategy guides on many older-generation video games.

Online Persona
He creates videos about classic and current video games dating from the 8-bit era to today. His persona is that of an elder statesman of the video game community who has become proficient in all things video games. Unlike other narrators who show a lot of emotion, he is often calm and emotionless, though recently has become more animated and uses a lot of wordplay, puns and self-deprecating humor in his commentary. While not the most skilled gamer out there, he is one of the most knowledgeable, and tries to exhibit his knowledge whenever he can.

The Ultimate Gamer's Guide
His most prominent work is The Ultimate Gamer's Guide, which ran from February 25, 2007, to March 20, 2012. There are thirty editions of the series.

thumb|300px|right|The Ultimate Gamer's Guide: Mega Man 3; the debut of the series.

Editions:

1. Mega Man 3 (NES, 19 episodes, 2/25/2007)

2. Captain Skyhawk (NES, 1 episode, 3/11/2007)

3. StarTropics 2: Zoda's Revenge (NES, 10 episodes, 4/9/2007)

4. Kirby's Adventure (NES, 8 episodes, 4/30/2007)

5. Earthbound (SNES, 40 episodes, 6/9/2007)

6. StarTropics (NES, 10 episodes, 6/23/2007)

7. Advance Wars (GBA, 32 episodes, 7/21/2007)

8. Earthbound Zero (NES, 18 episodes, 8/15/2007)

9. Mega Man Battle Network (GBA, 13 episodes, 9/2/2007)

10. Chip N' Dale Rescue Rangers/Darkwing Duck/DuckTales/TaleSpin (NES, 4 episodes, 9/10/2007)

11. Super Dodge Ball (NES, 1 episode, 10/3/2007)

12. Mega Man V (GB, 14 episodes, 10/27/2007)

13. Skate Or Die 2: The Search For Double Trouble (NES, 5 episodes, 11/18/2007)

14. Bucky O'Hare (NES, 8 episodes, 12/14/2007)

15. Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES, 8 episodes, 1/9/2008)

16. Crystalis (NES, 24 episodes, 3/14/2008)

17. Goonies II (NES, 1 episode, 4/21/2008)

18. Metal Gear (NES, 9 episodes, 5/15/2008)

19. Super Mario RPG: The Legend Of The Seven Stars (SNES, 33 episodes, 8/1/2008)

20. Golden Sun/Golden Sun: The Lost Age (GBA, 75 episodes, 1/16/2009)

21. Punch-Out! (NES, 4 episodes, 8/25/2009)

22. River City Ransom (NES, 3 episodes, 12/30/2009)

23. Mega Man X (SNES, 14 episodes, 6/1/2010)

24. Adventures In The Magic Kingdom (NES, 1 episode, 7/6/2010)

25. Chrono Trigger (SNES, 33 episodes, 12/31/2010)

26. Zelda DX: Link's Awakening (GBC, 20 episodes, 6/21/2011)

27. Mega Man Battle Network 2 (GBA, 18 episodes, 9/2/2011)

28. Mother 3 (GBA, 36 episodes, 11/11/2011)

29. M.C. Kids (NES, 8 episodes, 12/17/2011)

30. Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga (GBA, 24 episodes, 2/25/2012)

Secrets Exposed
On July 5, 2007, he debuted Secrets Exposed. In this series, a single secret of an NES game is demonstrated within a one to two minute video.

This monthly series concluded on January 20, 2008 after eight episodes.

thumb|300px|right|Clip from Episode 6 of Secrets Exposed.Episodes:

1. StarTropics 2: Zoda's Revenge - getting the dagger early

2. Snake Rattle N' Roll - all the hidden warps

3. Track And Field II - hammer throw trick

4. Rad Racer II - time saver, stage select, night track

5. Tecmo Bowl - invisible team glitch

6. Super Mario Bros. 3 - the treasure ship

7. Nintendo World Cup - easy goals

8. Mega Man 5 - turning Mega Tank into extra lives

The Diary of a Pokemon Trainer
This series was a 96-episode fan-fiction playthrough of the GBA video game Pokemon Emerald, with narration in the form of first-person storytelling. It debuted on June 6, 2009 with its first season ending on July 23, 2009 after 23 episodes.

thumb|300px|right|The Accidental Trainer: the debut episode of The Diary of a Pokémon TrainerThe series' second season lasted 21 episodes and ran from September 10, 2009 to November 20, 2009.

The third season started on January 9, 2010, the three-year anniversary of The Ultimate Gamer's debut on YouTube, and ran 26 episodes, ending on April 19, 2010.

The fourth and final season started on August 6, 2010 and ended on October 21, 2010, running 26 episodes. It was the only season under YouTube's new fifteen-minute rule. It was scheduled to run an additional four episodes, but due to technical difficulties, the remaining four episodes were scrapped.

The UItimate Let's Play
On March 20, 2012, he announced the beginning of a new project entitled The Ultimate Let's Play, to take the place of the recently retired Ultimate Gamer's Guide. The project currently consists of four Nintendo DS games: Pokemon HeartGold, Dragon Quest IX, MySims and Mario Party DS. The project officially debuted on June 4, 2012. .

Unlike the Ultimate Gamer's Guide, audio commentary is not pre-written beforehand and is instead recorded on the fly, and no visual edits of any kind are made during the gameplay (unless noted), though some content is bleeped out for younger audiences. He does try to retain some aspect of his original project by talking about facts and strategies for different parts of games as he comes to them.

Season two has been announced, and the games covered during this season will be Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People, Mega Man X: Command Mission, and a series of NES games under the collective name "Ultimate Let's Play Quickies." Start date is to be announced.

Other Works
thumb|300px|right|The Ultimate Gamer Plays Skate Or Die; one of the Ultimate Gamer's most-watched videos.One of his most popular works was the Ultimate Mega Man Gauntlet Challenge, where he defeated all the robot masters of Mega Man 1-6 without taking damage. It also gained some infamy when he used the Select Button glitch to defeat Fire Man. He would follow that up with The Ultimate X-Buster Challenge, to modest, though lesser success.

He has also posted several gameplay videos, which either simply demo some aspects of a game or show off an amazing feat. On June 28, 2012, The Ultimate Gamer Plays Pac-Man became his first video to eclipse the 100,000-view mark.

He also created a project called Pokemon EV Training 101, a 12-minute instructional video on the EV training concept of the Pokemon series. It currently stands as his 26th most-watched video, gaining almost 6,000 hits since its debut.

He has directed one music video in 2008. It is a tribute to 20 years of Mega Man and uses footage from Mega Man 1 through 6. It is currently ranked in his top 50 most watched videos.

He also has one live-action video: The Ultimate Gamer Goes To Phoenix Comicon 2012, where he captured a day in the yearly event and featured well-known nerdcore musicians Snubby J, Mega Ran, and the Minibosses. A sequel is planned for 2013.

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Mega Man, he uploaded The Ultimate Mega Man Marathon, a complete gameplay of the original six Mega Man games, on December 17, 2012. It is, at five hours, 45 minutes, and five seconds, his longest single video to date. He uploaded his first unboxing video on April 22, 2013.

Top Ten Videos
As of April 23, 2013

1. The Ultimate Gamer Plays Pac-Man (116,533 hits)

2. The Ultimate Gamer Plays Skate or Die (61,455 hits)

3. The Ultimate Gamer Plays Worms Armageddon (39,101 hits)

4. The Ultimate Gamer's Guide - Advance Wars Ep. 10 (33,374 hits)

5. The Ultimate Gamer's Guide - Advance Wars Ep. 1 (30,170 hits)

6. The Ultimate Gamer Plays Colin McRae Rally 2.0 (15,438 hits)

7. The Ultimate Gamer's Guide - Mega Man 3 Ep. 1 (13,491 hits)

8. The Ultimate Gamer Plays Super Dodge Ball Advance (11,986 hits)

9. The Ultimate Gamer's Guide - Advance Wars Ep. 32 (11,185 hits)

10. The Ultimate Gamer's Guide - Advance Wars Ep. 29 (10,932 hits)

He currently has 12 videos with 10,000 hits or more.

He currently has 39 videos with 5,000 hits or more.

He currently has 105 videos with 2,500 hits or more.

Facts and Trivia

 * thumb|300px|right|The Ultimate Gamer's Tribute To Mega Man (music video)Was born July 24, 1985 in Summit, New Jersey, and currently resides in Glendale, Arizona.
 * Has a library of over 200 video games spanning several eras.
 * His favorite video game series is Mega Man.
 * He has been a gamer since 1990.
 * The first four NES games he owned were Super Mario Bros., Snake Rattle n Roll, 720 Degrees, and Mickey Mousecapade.
 * He owns the NES, SNES, N64, GBA, DS, 3DS, GameCube, PlayStation 1 and 2, and Wii consoles.
 * He uses the NES Advantage Joystick for NES games.
 * He has a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science from Elizabethtown College, Class of 2007.
 * He is partially fluent in Spanish.
 * Aside from video games, he enjoys playing guitar, pro wrestling, writing, gambling, and fishing.
 * He is a die-hard Arizona, New York and New Jersey sports fan.
 * He currently drives a white 2009 Ford Focus.
 * All Ultimate Gamer's Guides were made with Windows Movie Maker except for editions #16-20, which were made with Camtasia Studio.
 * He most-watched guide is his Advance Wars guide, with eight of the episodes ranked in his top 25 most watched videos. Episode 10 of this guide is currently his most watched Ultimate Gamer's Guide video of all time, with over 33,000 hits.
 * He has amassed a cult following of over 1,300 subscribers, and his 800+ video archive has reached over 1.07 million overall hits.
 * On May 2, 2012, his channel eclipsed 100,000 views.
 * On July 3, 2012, his videos reached a combined one million views.
 * He considers Ultimate Gamer's Guide #15: Super Mario Bros. 3 to be his personal favorite.
 * He uses the emulators include FCE Ultra, SNES9x, Visual Boy Advance, and DesMuMe.