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Trigger Happy
253
“Game Grrlz” movement in America that proves that
women can frag
37
with the best of them.
What we can infer so far is just that these Japanese
women simply have different aesthetic tastes: their
preferred videogames are in general more quirky or
brain-taxing than the straight-ahead genre preferences
(driving, fighting, dungeon games) of the men. But
notice also that, apart from abstract puzzle games such
as Tetris and IQ, all those nominated by women feature
good characters: Crash, Mario, Parappa the singing
dog, or personable imaginary beasts. These women’s
preferred games are also notable for having relatively
simple initial skill-set requirements: Tetris, especially,
can be picked up in a matter of seconds. But of course,
simple controls and rules do not preclude rich and
complex gameplay, regardless of the player’s gender.
Now, Tekken 3 and Gran Turismo are wonderful
games in their own right, and plenty of women like
them. One cannot denigrate their visceral fascination
just because it seems to appeal, in general, more to
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37 In multiplayer first-person shoot-’em-ups such as Quake III or Half-
Life: Team Fortress, a player does not “kill” an opponent but “frags” him.
The term derives from the Vietnam war practice of mutinous soldiers
“accidentally” killing their superior officers with fragmentation grenades.