A cable reality show about video gamers is an unlikely vehicle to lift New Jersey’s image, but Rachel Quirico seems up to the task.
The Branchburg native is one of the twelve finalists chosen to be on Ultimate Gamer 2, a reality show set to debut in August on the Syfy Channel. The show tests competitors’ gaming skills as they vie for a $100,000 prize while living together in a Los Angeles loft. The winner gets a chance to be the spokesperson for World Cyber Games, the ne plus ultra of competitive gaming.
Quirico talks the talk of a video gamer. At a recent competition in New York she offered this advice: “It only takes one head shot to bring your opponent down. It will take you, like, three or four body shots before they die.” But the Rutgers graduate (degree in psychology) is a fashionable presence at the game console, her dark-red, manicured fingernails deftly toggling the joysticks, a baby blue-and-tan Coach purse close at hand.
At 22, Quirico is a seasoned competitor. “It’s half the game if you can play in front of a crowd,” she explains.
Perhaps her poise comes from her former day job as a hostess at the Frog and the Peach restaurant in New Brunswick.
When Quirico was a student at Somerville High School, her mother, Joan, feared Rachel was wasting time playing video games. Now Joan has come around to the idea that gaming can lead to something good.
“If maybe three years pass by and I still see her floundering…” she says. “But I’m not really worried right now.”