Evy and the Envy: Part Two

Evy had just ordered an Envy and hit me up on Facebook to tell me all about it. After hearing a bit about her life I asked if I could interview her for the Next Bench blog.

..and uhh, she kills anyone at Guitar Hero AND she plays poker. This girl is crazy! Here is part two of the interview.

rs: What is your favorite game?
Evy: The best game ever has to be poker. There's so many different facets to it: you need to have card sense, math skills, game strategy, acting ability, and a psychological understanding of your opponents to be really good at it. It's the ultimate mind-game.

rs: Speaking of mind games, I saw you playing poker with Criss Angel. Did he psych you out or what?
Evy: Magicians kinda creep me out to begin with, so I was a little off my game. I would take a re-match though.

rs: What is your favorite videogame?
Evy: These days I play Rock Band the most, but if I had to pick my favorite game of all-time, it would be Tetris. I like simplicity in videogames. I don't like having to memorize what 10 different buttons and 3 joysticks are supposed to do. I've tried playing Halo, but I would always end up staring at the sky or at my feet. Shooters and RPG's just confuse the **bleep** out of me so much that I get anxiety trying to play them. I wish there were more games that you could play on a controller with 2 buttons and a D-pad. What's amazing about Tetris though is that so little has changed to the game play in more than 20 years, but it's still just as fun and challenging to me now then when I was a kid playing it in the arcade. Tetris doesn't need any fancy graphics to keep people interested; I could play it in black and white or even on a cell phone for hours on end. I've been playing Tetris for about half of my lifetime, yet I'm constantly learning new strategies and techniques and I'm still getting better at it too.

rs: What is your favorite console?
Evy: I have two Xbox 360 Elites. I bought the second one recently because I wanted the Falcon motherboard with the improved 65nm chipset and heatsink. I play on my Xbox so much that I lived in constant fear of getting the Red Ring of Death. I wanted a back-up in case I ever have to send mine in for repair. I keep the old one in my room and I take it on the road with me when I travel. I love the Xbox 360 mostly because of Xbox Live. Online multi-player on XBL is far superior its equivalents on Wii and PS3.

rs: Why the crazy obsession for rhythm games?
Evy: I really love music, and I've always wanted to be some kind of musician or singer, but I was too impatient and lacked the dedication to stick with lessons and practice scales and stuff. Guitar Hero and Rock Band gives you the feeling that you are really playing the music, and since it's a game, it makes practicing wayyyy more fun than it would be on real instruments. I'm also super awesome at rhythm games, so maybe that makes me love them even more.

rs: So, which is it: Guitar Hero or Rock Band?
Evy: I love both games, but they each have their pros and cons to them. For instance, GH is a bit easier because the timing window is more generous than on RB, but the songs on GH are also harder. RB has way more downloadable songs, but I think the notes are charted in a more fun and challenging way on GH. For multiplayer, Rock Band is definitely better, especially if you have friends over to play, but if I was to compare them by Guitar Solo Career alone, I think that GH3 is more fun. The reason I play RB so much more often is because you have a lot more options. The guitar, bass, vocal and drums can all be played as a separate career, as well as in a 2, 3 or 4-part band. Combined with the new download content that is released every week, RB has significantly higher replay value making it a much better game than GH in my opinion. That being said, there are a million annoyances that come with RB. It seems so unnecessary to have to sign in and out of each instrument, and if you're in a band you can't just swap out your guitar for a mic for your character, you have to add a whole new character. All these extra steps really takes away from enjoying the game and just rocking-out, which makes me wonder what the developers were thinking when they designed the multiplayer.

rs: How good are you at Guitar Hero exactly?
Evy: I have yet to finish GH3 on expert, and there are some songs which I doubt I will ever be able to pass, but I would still guess that I am better than 99% of the GH-playing population. I kinda suck at crazy metal and arpeggio-laden tracks, but I'm really good at songs that have strong or intricate rhythmic elements. I'm also a total score-monger, and I try to learn the paths for optimal star-power usage. I'm getting better at metal, but I still need to work on alt-strumming, arpeggios and trills. I've FC'ed (100% full-combo'ed) a dozen songs on GH3, and 25 songs on RB so far.

rs: Seriously? How do we know you’re telling the truth?
Evy: I have some game videos that I screen-captured up on my YouTube page, and I have an upcoming heads-up GH3 competition that PokerNews.com is going to shoot. A friend of mine wants to make a video of me playing Heart Shaped Box on expert without looking at the screen. I can get 97% usually, but I want to practice and see if I can FC it first.

rs: Solved the mystery of the CRTL key yet? What's your theory?
Evy: I've spent way too much time trying to figure out what it means. I've tried coming up with a million acronyms that don't make any sense, and none of them are better or cuter than the one that "ubiks" came up with, 'Cuts Right Through Layercake'. It's definitely not a typo, and I will be admittedly disappointed if it isn't something cool... but so far my experience with the CRTL key is 'Causes Redundant Thinking Lamely'. I can't wait to get my Envy to find out what it really means!

You can find Evelyn Ng playing online poker at Bodoglife.com and poker tournaments around the world.