Love and consoles: can they live together? Glazed eyes, frantic thumbs and a flashing screen don't exactly spell passion. Marathon Halo until 4am tends to cut into your social life. Leisure reading entirely comprised of PC Gamer, EGM and Gamespot does not a well-rounded person make. Yet despite my various lifestyle choices I've managed to find love in this wacky world of ours' - or should I say, this darkly lit room of mine.

It's been two years now that my girlfriend and I have been together. And quite a great two years too, I might add. But we both came into this relationship with a decidedly different set of interests and hobbies. She was majoring in Theatre Performance at a university near my home and I was majoring in, well, nothing. My job at a nearby Blockbuster afforded me enough video game and beer money that I didn't really worry about going back to school anytime soon. But enough about that.

So, like two alien species meeting for the first time, we began a cultural exchange. I was brought to numerous plays - and even liked some of them. I found myself arguing the merits of playwrights like Dario Fo, Sam Shepard and Anton Chekhov. My mind was opening up a little as she was showing me around her world. Things were good. But then things got a lot better. She brought me back to her apartment one Sunday afternoon, and by her bed I saw something both shocking and beautiful: a Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Oh yes. I was in love. It turned out that my end of the cultural exchange wasn't necessary. We sat down that day and played a few hours of Mario Kart. And lo and behold, I got whooped, thumped and trounced.

Fast forward to the present. The woman I love is a market researcher's wet dream: the allusive female gamer. But it turns out her love of games is a little more picky than I initially thought. Amazingly enough, it's not all peaches and cream, chocolate boxes and roses. She ain't nothing like the male gamer, lemme tell you. Halo? She could care less. Splinter Cell? I don't think so. Metroid Prime? Not even a nibble. You know what she loves to play? Animal Crossing. Snood. The Sims. Rollercoaster Tycoon. And her latest game of choice? WarioWare Inc.: Mega MicroGame$. No doubt many of you have now figured out girl gamers everywhere: they like simulation and puzzle games. Well bravo for that brave leap but I'd like to dig a little bit deeper.

Nowadays, whenever I hear about a new game I immediately think of the Girlfriend-Factor. I've nailed down four questions that ultimately effect how she'll respond. How hard is it? How violent is it? What's it about? What's the multiplayer like? Ultimately, the answers to these questions help me make informed decisions with the G-Factor in mind.

First off, how hard is it? Dying a dozen times in a row at the same spot in a level isn't what people mean when they talk about replayability anymore. My girlfriend likes to be good at a game right away. I'm talking about instant gratification here. She's had a go at multiplayer Halo a handful of times but apparently getting mowed down before she can even figure out what button does what isn't her idea of fun. Go figure. A good example of a game we both had a lot of fun with was the over-the-top snowboarding romp SSX Tricky. It's easy to pick up and start doing crazy flips and grabs immediately. And it's usually pretty funny to see your snowboarder boff his trick and roll head first into a tree. The point here is, if it takes longer than 5 minutes to figure out, she probably doesn't want to play it.

Next. How violent is it? The rule here isn't necessarily that violence is bad. True, she wouldn't watch me play GTA3 - apparently: she doesn't like seeing old ladies getting bludgeoned with a baseball bat. But get a group of friends around a fighting game and she'll be giggling like a 6-year old at a birthday party. It doesn't follow, does it? Well, here's my take: realistic gore isn't her thing. It's too serious. Fighting games are good fun though, because it's a group activity; lots of laughing and smack talking. And the rounds are short, so even if someone is a master who is totally taking it to someone else's face, it'll be over soon enough. And when that newbie does get the occasional combo in it's that much more satisfying.

What's it about? This matters only sometimes. The Mario Party games are about absolutely nothing, but with the right company can be oodles of fun. But she actually watched me play Metal Gear Solid 2 and Final Fantasy X simply because she enjoyed the story. So, genres she normally cares little about (stealthy action and RPGs) can hold her attention with the right story.

What's the multiplayer like? As mentioned above, she doesn't like Halo. At all. If you haven't played a console FPS before and aren't convinced that putting in 10 hours of practice will yield any valuable skill, then it's easy to see why it doesn't hold much appeal. But another quality multiplayer title, Super Monkey Ball, held her attention for quite some time. Why? Well, like SSX Tricky, it's pretty simple to pick up and play. The single player mode is challenging enough, with an excellent difficulty to reward ratio for her playing tastes. But the most fun was had getting a couple friends together for some Monkey Bowling. Fast, fun, goofy gaming makes for quite a bit of laughing.

My girlfriend and I, we have the greatest times together in front of the TV, each with a controller in hand. Who would have thought that lying motionless on the couch with someone could actually bring the two of them together? I certainly didn't. But these days, the G-Factor plays heavily whenever I'm buying a new game. Sure, I still buy "serious" titles for when I feel the urge to conquer other nations or spill a little blood. But in the end, it's the games that can make us laugh or cry that I like the best. I have a suspicion that it isn't even the games themselves that I like so much, but the fact that we can play them together. My girlfriend is a "girl gamer" - though she'd probably be better described as a casual gamer. Someone with an open mind who can have fun doing just about anything, someone who happens to be dating me.