Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I’m Gemma and I’m from Derbyshire, England (not too cold at all here). I LOVE to travel to foreign countries (fifteen so far) and I love gaming! Video games dominate my life as a hobby in terms of collecting, playing, blogging, and vlogging. If I could do this full time, I’d be the happiest woman on Earth.

This made me smile. I used to jailbreak iPhones when they came out in 2007. I was part of a community called Zodttd and had a huge profile/personality on his forums. After a couple of years on there, I tried to log on to the site one day, and Zod had completely closed the site down. He’d created a new template which did not continue with the same theme of the previous forums. Naturally, I was devastated as I lost my profile, my threads, and all of my contacts on there. Right at this time, I had started to watch YouTube guides on how to get emulators onto iPhones. The closure of Zodttd.com led me to migrate to YouTube and become a Tuber. My collection literally grew from then. I’ve always been a passionate gamer/geek, so it seemed like the perfect time to grow my channel.

I recently returned to YouTube in March 2014 after having had a two and a half year hiatus. I love it more than ever.

Hmmm. Advice to other women wanting to become a YouTuber? It depends if you want a big channel or if you’re in it for fun. If you’re going big, then make sure you put loads of effort into editing. Sometimes, I film a video and watch the raw footage. I think if I put that raw footage on to YouTube, then it would be a load of crap. I bring it all together in the editing. Be yourself, smile, but don’t waffle on for too long. Most of all, have fun and interact with other channels!

My favourite retro game has to be The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, because I have fond memories of grabbing the most satisfaction from that game as a kid. I think I was sixteen when it came out. I’d work on a Saturday, then play all day on Sunday. Ocarina of Time took up most of my time on those lazy Sundays.

My favourite current generation game is Alien: Isolation. For me, it’s the best-sounding game of this generation. I sat in on a developer session at Eurogamer, and Creative Assembly used original sound files from the original movie. I was impressed by that. They captured the atmosphere incredibly well too. I like a game that can connect with you in a physiological way, ie. sweaty palms, increased heart rate, etc. Alien: Isolation does this for me.

I recently brought a boxed Super Famicom and a boxed Japanese Secret of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 2), which pleases me to no end! It’s an easy console to collect for, and the box art blows Western box art away! Overall, my collection is growing incredibly fast (large smile on my face!).

Alyssa, I loathe boredom because it leads to me feeling depressed. On June 2nd, 2014, I started Juicy Game Reviews because I needed to amplify my focus towards my hobby of gaming. My blogs help me to remain creative, and so does YouTube. Both allow me to talk about gaming in my own way, and the byproduct is that I get to meet people (even if it’s virtually) and chat about the latest RPGs and so forth.

Ooohhhhhhh, the best thing about being a woman in the gaming industry? I haven’t experienced any gender perks. Sometimes I’ve heard people say things like, “Wow, you know a lot for a woman!” I guess it’s pretty rad to leave my mark that way!

Come and join me on YouTube and check out “Games We Never Knew” [a popular video series on her channel- Alyssa]. I’ve been talking to a lot of developers about their cancelled games and slapping the results on my channel. You can also board my ship on Facebook by searching Thegebs24. Alternatively, I’m on Twitter @juicygamereview. Not that I’m monopolizing the Internet or anything, but you can also check out my blog, Juicy Game Reviews, for retro and current-gen gaming reviews.

Thank you so much for allowing me to interview you, Gemma! Make sure to check out her channel and website. I have a feeling you’ll fall in love with her personality as soon as you “meet” her.