Lt. Ripley gets a + mostly because Sigourney is a great actress (whoops!) and because for having her first encounter with an xenomorph, she fucks its shit up then proceeds to give them a giant middle finger through the entire series.
Sarah Connor gets a + since she was the first
of what became the generic hollywood gun toting tough empowered action woman archetype cool heroine I saw even if Terminator 2 gave me nightmares when I was a kid.
Revy scores a + because fuck fucking fucked fuckers fuck.
The Major is a + for Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, holy shit that woman's voice is amazing.
Samus gets a - because I think she's an amazingly bland character.
Xena is a + because Lucy Lawless was my waifu when I was still barely a teenager
and got a lot of good characterization and beat up Ares by being too hot to trot.
Caska gets + because all things Berserk related are good (except for the lack of real ending in the anime).
Sasuka is a + for the aforementioned use of the bokken.
Chun-Li is a + since by
Word of God, she's still either the strongest female in Street Fighter or damn near it.
Claire Redfield earns my eternal hate and gets -- because I cannot hate her enough. In RE2, she spends a majority of the time chasing after a little girl, ignoring everything Leon says then turning around to ask him to do things for her. In Code Veronica, I could sum her up as BAWWWWWWWWWWW I NEED MY BIG BROTHER WHINE WHINE WHINE STEEEEEEEVE. If it was Jill, however, I would give her the ++.