Everyday Gamer

I recently had a chance to talk with members of the professional all female team, Girls of Destruction. The participating members are Tunesha “Chickamungus” Davis, Yvonna (formerly “Coochie Dimes”) “CharismaPlus2″ Lynn, Therese “Trito” Andersson, and Ana “aNouC” Oliveras. We chatted a little about their team, the challenges they faced, tournaments, and what exactly a “Coochie Dime” is? They are all cool and a lively bunch of women who are well respected in their arenas. Here’s what they had to say about it all.

EDG: What’s the history of the team?

TD: The girlz 0f destruction team was established in 2001 by Alana “Ms.X” Reid. They are a competitive all female computer gaming squad and since the team was established, they’ve been competing at events as well as doing exhibition shootouts in countries such as Russia, Germany, Singapore, France, USA, China, South Africa, Japan, and many more all under corporate sponsorship.

In addition, they are also known for creating the first gaming house in Stockholm, Sweden from Feb 2006 - Feb 2007 which was used as a training facility for professional gamers worldwide.

While specializing in first person shooters on PC such as the Quake series, Unreal Tournament series and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, the girlz are also very drawn to console gaming and will be competing in games on the Xbox such as Halo 3 and Dead or Alive 4, among others.

Our team consists of 10 members located all over the world. We are known to be among the top female gamers in the world. Our specialty? One versus one baby!

EDG: Who are your members?

YL: My name is Yvonna. I have been “Coochie Dimes” forever even when I got the name locked in at the xbox360 launch in the Mojave Dessert… but RIP, MS revoked my gamer tag after a video hosted on the Xbox 360 with Major Nelson’s coverage of GDC put my tag & achievement points (over 11k) on the video! So now I am CharismaPlus2. Very E rated, wouldn’t ya say? I could never replace Coochie Dimes, but this is after my new company of True Gamer Booth Babes (promotional models to be PC about it). Tunesha is one of my hawttie girls. I just love her to pieces. Our complete Roster is as follows:

Active Members:

• Rocket Queen
• Missy

EDG: What games and leagues are the team competing in?

TA: The last years I’ve been competing in Quake 3 and Quake 4. I’ve been competing in QuakeCon, CPL, ESWC, WSVG among other leagues.

YL: May I say thank you so much for the interest in g0d! I met the leader Alana years ago when I interviewed her and fellow g0d winners of the Miss Quake Con event. She is an incredible player. I just met Tunesha in December at CPL. We haven’t all met each otehr at one time becase we are spread out all over the world! But they are are great girls

TD: Right now I’m only practicing for Halo 3 tourneys!

YL: To be perfectly honest I am not as good as the other girls, though I did love playing Halo3 at CPL. Of course the first bracket I was in was with 2 pro MLG guys.. one of whom was in the winners circle! teehee.. so it made me feel not so bad. I also have this insatiable need to play every new game that comes out. Most of the girls… the ones who really rock hard on this team (like everyone but me) plays 1-3 games in the same genre several hours a day normally FPS. I play everyday but can’t help it- I gotta play what just was released… March will be very exciting! So turns out in order to play and be competitive with the big boys- ya gotta play the same game or at least genre just about everyday. But I cheer others on quite well!

AO: During the last months I’ve been playing Q3 and Q4 for fun at small online leagues because I’ve been focused on playing Counter-Strike at bigger LAN and Online events, such as the ESWC which I visit representing Spain every year.



EDG: What games are the team looking forward to?

AO: I’m looking forward to Quake and CS for now.

TD: Competitive wise, I’m looking forward to UT3 for the 360, RSV2, and Soul Calibur IV!
Also I’m looking forward to Silent Hill 5, Final Fantasy 13, and Gears of War 2 for fun!

TA: I’m looking forward to Quake Live.



EDG: What does it take to be a pro gamer?

AO: It takes time and discipline. Of course you have to enjoy what you do, otherwise you cannot improve with time.

TD: Lots and lots of time, dedication, and practice practice practice! Once I start slacking off, I feel like such a noob, and my headshots are just awful, so that keeps me going

TA: First of all you need to like the game you are playing, you can’t be good if you don’t enjoy what you are doing. Then you need to dedicate quite a lot of time to practicing the game. Last of all, not many pro gamer would be where they are today if they didn’t have good sponsors to back them up.



EDG: How long does the team practice?

TA: It depends how much work I have at the moment and if I have a tournament coming up. Before a tournament I can practice eight hours a day to get in shape.

AO: Quake is something you can pracc on your own so it depends on your time. These days I’m taking all my time to improve my Counter-Strike skill even though Im going to format and install Quake3 again because I miss to play faster and more agro!

TD: When a tournament is coming up, I play at least 8 hours a day. That’s what I did when I went to the CPL in December, and once that was over, I took 2 weeks off! But I normally play about 2-3 hours daily.



EDG: What do members do other than play games if anything

TA: I work as a video photographer, video editor and I run my own production company. When I’m not working or playing games I like to do different sports, like soccer.

TD: We all are so different in what we do in our daily lives! Right now, I’m working on my new website called ChiXamungUS.com. It’s dedicated to girls who are not into the typical things girls are supposed to be into, like video games (of course), anime, skateboarding, snowboarding, car racing. It also has a balance of girly topics as well like fashion, and tv shows, and cosplay, etc. We kicked off a week ago, and we’re still in beta stages, but I know that this website is going to be amazing when it’s fully complete!

AO: Im working as a teacher on two primary schools and two language schools. I’m also working as personal agent at ING Nationale Nederlanden and of course I still study because I want to finish my third deegree (German Philology). I also like going to the gym and spend some hours a week doing bodycombat and bodypump :p

YL: I used to be able to play more when I was just acting & modeling even though that was a full time job, it was flexible. Right now I am Client Relations for an Economic Consulting firm, as well as starting my own gamer promotional modeling company. So I usually play all weekend. No really- all weekend. My current projects in acting is to do some Voice Over on a new video Game called Borderlands for Gearbox. I was at GDC last week and do other various things in the gaming industry throughout the month.


EDG: How can people get a chance to play with yall?

TD: I’ve played with people I’ve met on myspace, and some gaming websites I’m a member of. Although now my friend’s list is full and I have to constantly apologize to everyone who wants me to add them. A lot of the people on my friends list are from Halo 2! But if anyone wants to play, you can still send me a message on XBL, my gt is xCHICKAMUNGUSx and if I’m not practicing or doing anything too serious, then I’m open to joining up with anyone for some social slayer

AO: I’m usually avalaible on iRC (Quakenet) most of the time. I have a bouncer so even if I’m not online everyone can leave a message!

TA: You can find me on Swedish servers, but the best way to get in contact with me is joining our irc channel #g0d on Quakenet and ask me for a game.

YL: Anyone can play with me anytime they want. I am aprticularly good if someone needs an ego boost or if they enjoy the role of a coach. blahahaha. But no really. My gamertag is Charismaplus2 I am also on TitanStrike.com which launched when I was a Miss Video Game finalist last year in Montreal. But tbh, I have slowly gravitated to 360 playing from PC just for the mere ease of it & my dimished time to hassle with updates, patches, & server issues. Though I am playing Hellgate London at the moment. Too many games, Too Little Time!


EDG: Does the team compete on other platforms or X360 only?

TD: Most of the team actually are PC gamers! I only compete on the 360, though.

AO: I don’t have consoles so I just play Quake and Counter-Strike on my computer. But I would love to have a Playstation 3 or a Xbox 360

TA: So far I’ve only been competing in PC games like Quake 3 and Quake 4. I also have consoles at home, Nintendo Wii and Playstation 2, but those I just play for fun.



EDG: Do you have any teams that you consider a major rival?

TD: I’m new to the whole pro gaming thing, so I look up to major teams, rather than consider them as rivals

TA: At each tournament there are different players that are your major rivals. I would say the players that are about equally skilled as me are the major rivals at each tournament.

AO: You always have to consider everyone a major rival because you never know!


EDG: Any “shout outs” or last words?


YL: Thank you so much EDG for the opportunity I do not speak on behalf of all the girls… just myself. But I do hope I have been able to give you a little insight into at least one of the g0d members. Please feel free to contact me anytime. In fact, if you myspace- go to myspace.com/CharismaPlus2 or mine is myspace.com/yvonnalynn My real site www.yvonnalynn.com has all my acting & gaming stuff on it like acting resume, demo reels, interviews with everyone from Cliffy B to Vegeta from DBZ.

TD: Well, I’m just hoping to see more ladies getting into competitive gaming! Last competition I went to, the women were scarce! I know that there’s thousands of girls out there that have the skills to compete. I think that if there were some conventions that coaxed the female gamers to come out and share experiences together with other females already competing, then that can make a difference in the numbers you see today at events and competitions!

Thank you for the interview! It was fun

TA: Thank you for taking interest in our team.

AO: Thanks and feel always free to contact us for anything needed!



EDG: I have to ask this. What exactly is a Coochie Dime? We really want to know!!!

YL: Hahhahaha! Unfortunately Microsoft revoked my Coochie Dimes gamertag when I did an xbox live inisde show with Major Nelson at GDC and got too many complaints. Oddly, I can receive photos of male appendages on my xbox but can’t have a relatively harmless name like coochie dimes. I am now the family rated CharismaPlus2 but I will still answer to what was originally a spin off of an Upright Citizen’s Brigade skit about confidence.