Women, eh? As every man knows, they're confusing things. They don't watch football on TV. They enjoy doing things like cooking and washing up. And if they had to debate which was the more enjoyable experience, eating a bar of chocolate or going shopping, the argument would be so heated it'd likely cause a civil war.
OK, so that's a somewhat stereotypical approach, but haven't you ever wished there was a way of telling exactly what type of girl you / your girlfriend / your sister is?
Well, neither have we, but apparently German software house Ojom thinks different, as it's produced Girl Factor, an application for your mobile that it claims will categorise any female of the species and award them a 'girl factor' after they've answered a series of simple questions.
The questions are divided into three sections – Relationship, Personality, and Style – with 14 multiple-choice questions in each. As you may have guessed, they are typically girly and cover some incredibly pressing and sensitive subject matters such as "Which star is your idol?", "Who is your biggest crush?" and the rather bizarre "Which song title perfectly describes your friendships?"
Other ground-breaking features include the ability to input your name and choose an avatar (which is used only once during the 'game' when you're told your results). And that's literally all there is to it.
To try and make the whole experience last longer than it really should, each question slides oh-so-slowly onto the screen, followed by each one of the three answers, so you can sit staring at the pretty pink background for a bit longer. That is, assuming that you don't fall asleep or decide to do something a bit more interesting to pass the time, like trimming your toe nails with a hedge strimmer or experimenting with putting your fingers in a light socket.
When / if you manage to make it to the end, you're presented with a percentage score and a little bit of text about what sort of girl you are. Whether or not this Girl Factor rating is meant to represent how feminine you are, we've yet to work out; if it is, I'd be slightly worried by my impressive 64 per cent. (Even more so if any genuine girls managed to score lower.)
To be honest, I'm not the target audience for this; the fact I'm not a 10 or 11-year-old girl might come into play somewhere along the line. But even the Official Niece of Pocket Gamer decided that this shallow application has little to offer beyond giving you something to talk about with your girlfriends for five minutes between watching The O.C..
Granted, it does make an effort to bolster your self-image, something that's to be commended when it's looking to help girls through adolescence, and it also stresses how important you are to your friends and family. But it's too cloying and not cool enough – so we're told – to beat learning from TV or the numerous tweens magazines on the newsagent shelf.
It's just a quiz, after all, and one with only 42 questions, a score, and absolutely no replay value.
If you're an incredibly girly girl with cash to spare who's dying to know exactly how female you are, then you may want to give this a try. But for anyone else, no matter how young you are or how many X and Y-chromosomes you have, there's little point to Girl Factor.
Girl Factor
Its heart is in the right place, but there's not much else to recommend this simple, short quiz
