NEW YORK -- For women like Aracelis Batista and Frances Roberts, there's nothing like a manicure and a facial to help you unwind after mercilessly reducing your opponent to a quivering pile of gore.
Good thing, too. Because that's just what's in store for these finalists of the Female Frag Fest '99 -- an all-estrogen tournament of the ultra-violent shoot-em-up game Quake II -- which comes to crescendo in the Cyberathlete Professional League's massive "Ground Zero" event Thursday.
Seventy women warriors from around the country began slugging it out 21 July on the Web gaming network Heat.net. Each contest is a 20-minute, one-on-one battle. The player with the most kills (or "frags") at the end wins.
From this initial group -- gaming veterans and newbies alike, ranging in age from 18 to 60 -- six regional finalists have emerged: a "low ping" (fast Net connection) and "high ping" (slower connection) champ in the East, Midwest, and West.
"Ooohh, I am so psyched. Its incredible. I can't wait," chirps Batista, aka Ms. Dead, the East's high ping winner.
"I'm on a mission to kill."
That mission began most painfully for Batista, a Dominican-born, 25-year-old art school graduate now living in the Bronx. She began seriously gaming after a 1993 car accident put her in near-perpetual discomfort.
"I was in a lot of chronic pain," she said. "The game was a release. All my anger, all my frustration goes into the game. I get away from things by kicking ass."
Batista's been doing a fair amount of ass-kicking lately: seven hours of Quake per day since the tournament began, she estimates. Much of that time is spent with her "clan," or gaming group, Quake Girlz.
"We practice twice a week as a team. And play individually every day. We talk strategy, find out everything that's in a map: the weapons, the ammo, the health," Batista said. "After the games, we review what happened, what we could do different."
The workouts have paid off, apparently. Three of the six FFF finalists - Batista, Amy "Shakes" Fong, and Ann "Lilith" Chang -- are Quake Girlz.
Despite playing together for more than four years, this will be only their second face-to-face meeting. The first came just a month ago, as the Girlz and the Abuse clan got together for a weekend of gaming in Portland, Oregon.
The high ping winner in the West, Frances Roberts, known in the tournament as "Lucidity," isn't quite as hard core. The mother and cake decorator from Fairbanks, Alaska only clocks in about four hours of daily Quake time. She's been playing for about a year and a half, since she was 19 or so. Her husband, who's in the military, introduced her to it.
"The kids come first, of course. But if they're down watching a movie or doing something calm, I go upstairs and play," Roberts says. "I like the competition in it. It takes a lot of hand-eye coordination."
In an age where women's sports are on the rise, the athletic elements of so-called twitch games like Quake are drawing ladies in.
"Women are starting to realize that they have the same abilities in sports - and things like sports - as men," said Leann Pomaville, the 38-year-old former school teacher who runs the girl gaming sites Da Valkyries and Quake Women's Forum. "Quake is a game where your own personal skill makes all the difference, like in a sport."
Female players are putting their own stamp on the traditionally male bastion of Rambo-violent tests of skill. "Guys act in the game more verbally aggressive," Pomaville said. "Taunts and aggressive verbal attacks, that's something a lot of women aren't comfortable with."
But fear not, pimply-faced boys. There'll still be room for you, too, on the local Quake server. Even when the splatter games are taunt-free, many women are still uninterested. Despite rich financing, heavy sponsorship, and big promotion, the Female Frag Fest has had relatively few -- 70 this year -- contestants. By contrast, over 180 people are on the waiting list to participate in the general tournament being held as part of the Ground Zero game-a-thon.
"There's not that many people in my division," Roberts confesses.
But the women who are in the tournament, especially those in the finals, are having a blast. And that's before the free trip to the spa.
Says Batista: "I just love the rush!"
