Video Game Feminist of the Decade

By  Jenn Frank

A games writer is telling me that he has narrowed the whole year down to just two characters, each of whom he admires. There is Faith Connors from Mirror’s Edge, and—he excitedly tells me this—”You!” from Fallout 3. And he cannot wait to pen this article, because Fallout 3’s “You!” has thrilled him so completely, you know, not only as a critic but as a gamer.

We are standing on a patio deck at a birthday party. I’d gone out to the patio to have a cigarette, and here is this writer, already at the balcony smoking, already telling somebody else about this piece he ought to be working on tonight. His article will be called “Video Game Character of the Year,” and once the writer leaves this party and gets to work on it, man, I tell you, it is going to write itself. The year—the year is 2008—is nearly over, and this is a Californian winter, so the nighttime air is hitting us in chilly, inconsistent gusts. Mirror’s Edge and Fallout 3 are only weeks old, and pretty soon I will wish I had worn a coat to the party.

I don’t remember which writer for what Website I was talking to, because I am telling you now, in the present tense, about something that happened a little while ago. The writer said he worked for a GameDot or GameSleuth or IDN or GamesEcholocation, one of those gigs that I always suspected paid a little better than mine ever did. It's true that the writer probably told me his name, too, but he didn't know my byline or work, and I didn't really know who he was or why he was at this party, and I still don't. Or maybe we never exchanged names at all; I don’t remember introducing myself.