After my mother brought my uncle's Nintendo Wii to my house during a recent visit, I had to just go out and get one for myself (imagine the irony in that. Mom comes over encouraging me to play video games). Much to my surprise the reasonably-priced Wii is an incredible piece of gaming hardware! I am just going to go through all of the pros (and if I can think of any, the limited number of cons) and let all of you judge for yourself.

Pros

1. Interactive gameplay-When I first heard about this feature I thought that this feature was kind of gimmicky. I mean using a wireless remote sounded cool...for about three games. As it turns out, this is one of the best features of the system. Nintendo has thought of some kind of way to make every game interactive. I picked up NBA Live 08 when I purchased the hardware, and even the controls for that title were just like playing basketball for real.

2. Fun for the family-The selection of titles for the Wii is geared toward being fun for everyone (since that is supposed to be the mission of the Wii). The titles are designed to be used to by the youngest of childrenor the oldest of adults. Even my mother and wife gather around the living room for a game of Wii Sports golf. I also got a chance to rent Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games and all of the adults and children players in our house enjoyed it equally.

3. Internet-I love technology and already have a wireless router set up in my house so how cool is it to just be able to cut on my Wii and go online. To top that, there is no additional charge or equipment to buy (unless you want a USB keyboard or other accessories). In the last generation of systems I always played Xbox and I faithfully paid my $50yearly for Xbox Liveservice.Fifty dollars for a service that doesn't even allow you to access regular website browser functions is a little ridiculous.

4. Wii Shopping network-The Wii has its own shopping network. I went on it two days ago to buy Wii Points (Nintendo's online currency). As it turns out, you can use the Wii points to buy the internet channel (okay soI lied. Internet is not TOATALLY free. It cost 500Wii points which is worth about $5).Youcan also useWii points to buyold NES, SNES, Geneis, TurboGrafix 16, and N64games.I found the original Tecmo Bowl in the Wii store for 500 points.

5. Accessories-TheWii has an abundance of cool accessories butit doesn't make any of them a necessity. WiiSports (the title that comes with the console) has a remote attachment kit that includes a baseball bat, tennis racquet, golf club, etc. There are alsobonus packs that come with knives, swords, guns, shields and more. You don'tneed this stuff to play, but if you are into role-playing and want toreally feel like you are part of thegame, this stuff is foryou. Also theWii has the ability to usethe regularWii remote, Nunchuk,Classic controller, or Game Cube controller. If you decide youjust want to playthe regularold-fashioned way you can pop in you classic controller.When I was playing Tecmo Bowl for the NES, I just turned theWiiremote sideways andit took the same format as the old NES controller.

Cons

1. Fun for the family-I know, I said this was one of the pros right?While the Wii offers many family titles where are some of the titles for the oldercrowd? I have been to several game stores and haven't seen many games that have caught my interest because they are mostly geared towards children. I mean there will always be the expected titles like NBA Live or Madden, but thereneeds to be a little bit more to choose from if you are not just playing games with the kids.

2. DVD Playback-WhilePlaystation 3 has BlueRay and Xbox 360 has HD, what doesWii have? Nothing. The Wiiwas intentionally produced last year without DVD playback. Supposedly there will be systems that come out next year (or the end of this year) withDVD playback. Unfortunately, that doesn't help everyone thatalready has a system right now.I don't want to violate the rules of this site buy listing a site I found with a solution for this problem, however, I would suggest that you do a search for "Wii DVD playback" and see what you get.

Overall, the Wii is a solid system and even though some of the games are designed for the younger crowd, everyone will enjoy using this machine. I would suggest every gamer at least try it because once you do you will want one for yourself.

Ok, so by now many of you may realize just how highly addictive Freestyle Street Basketball for the PC is right? I mean I play it at least every couple of days (everyday on a good week). The problem is, sometimes I have to wonder what type of crowd is this game drawing in? Sometimes the players on the game seem kind of, how should I put this, noobish when it comes to the sport of basketball. Now I realize that some of these guys are just some fat, pimple-faced, 13-year-old kid that is just playing this MMO while they wait for the next expansion of World of Warcraft to come out becuase they have six characters at level 70 after the Burning Crusade came out but come on! I'm notsaying there aren't some young heads that don't know how to play some online sports games because most of them can, but it'sjust not theFreestyle community because these guys play mostlyMMO's. I have gotten mytail kicked on X BoxLive a few times byguyswhose voice sounds like an 8-year-old girl's so I know a lot of these kids are legitimate sport game players who probably play middle school orjunior varsity football in Idaho somewhere. I just have a problem with people trying to play asports game who have no idea howthe actually sport is played.I mean if I play the game for 2-3 hours I spend the first hour roaming from team to team as I explain to some player why their level 8 guard should not be playing defense against a level 15 C or PF. Umm...I don't know would it have anything to do with the fact that he is twice your weight and size. It really bothers the heck out of me when I have my forwards and centers on the floor and my rebounding goes dowwn because I have some noob guard standing in my way (or the opposing team guard is wide open becuase my players won't rotate on defesne). Don't get me wrong, I am not the best player in the Freestyle community but I do hold my own and I am getting good enough to hang with a lot of the big dogs now, but some of these guys I have to wonder if they have ever touched a basketball in real life. The only conclusion I have come up with is that these guys are really just overweight, teenage nerds that just play MMO RPG's all day. Nerds aside though, there a lots of other ways this game (and it's community can annoy a person to death). I feel like it is my responsibility as an athlete and gamer to name a few.

1. Terminology

Every community has it's own language. Sure, I understand that, but bring all of your old terminology from WOW is not only incredibly fruity but it is just wrong. No matter how many times you say it during a basketball game "Woot Woot" is not cool. Also, I don't care how many jumpers you shoot on an opponent, you just lose cool point for saying "Face" whenever someone plays good defense on you and you still score. By the way, no one has "owned" anyonein this country since before the civil war, so take that in consideration when you play. Dorks.

2. Defense

How come no one understands that if the C/PF has to guard the opposing team's big man that the guards and other forwards need to hit 5th gear and get out to the opposing guards. Also, some players think that they know everything about the game and keep telling teammates to "D up" problem is, I almost always have a hand in the man's face. If he still hits the shot or he "faces" me as they call it I did "D up." Why are you telling me to play better D? Things happen just deal with it.

3. Ball Hogs

Okay, if you have ever played a real game of baketball knows that feeling of bitter disgust you feel when you have that player on your team that thinks he is the man-child but he really is garbage. Some how the whole community is filled with these guys. It is really annoying when you spend every second of every game saying "Pass!" and it is even worse when you actually get the ball and then don't give the ball to an open teammate. Meanwhile, all of the blocks your defender gets per game has left you with a .027439824483083 shooting average.

4. Kicking People Out

So, our friends at Sierra hook us up and split all of the servers into different levelsso that rookies can play on one server and pros can play on a different server. Why do people kick people out of their rooms without knowing anything about them. I mean it's one thing if you play with a guy and he's garbage and you kick him out. You can even kick out someone that is just annoying or uses a lot of profanity, etc. Why look at someone's stats and just decide to kick them out. I mean yeah, if you got a center that only averages 0.5 rebounds a game then ok, but otherwise...I mean I have a C that has 5.0 rebounds per game. Before I started getting good at rebounding I was pretty sad. Now I probably grab about 8.0 per game (average for most good C/PF) and I still get kicked sometimes because of the 5.0.

5. Crying About Lag

We all know by now that Sierra uses the sorriest servers known to man, right? Yet we continue to use lag as an excuse for everything. I mean sure there are times when you are 20 ft in front of a guy and he blocks your shot. You might be getting ready to dunk and an opponent steals the ball from the top of the key. Those are understandable reasons to be upset. What's not understandable is to be mad when you miss a shot with all three defenders standing in your face. That is not lag. That is just good old-fashioned stupidity. There are certain cases when lag totally destroys a game but not all of the time. My suggestion is to pick one of the courts that usually doesn't lag that bad (Big Flow, Ruckers, and I think the Cage). Also, the game is probably lagging for the other team also so chill out.

6. Trash Talk

Part of streetball is talking a little junk.Cool. The problem is the guys playing this game half of the time are middle school and JV basketball team rejects (and you wonder why you didn't make the team). If you missed the section on terminology (see #1) you will know that I am tired of hearing nerdy sayings like "owned" and "face." What makes things worse is if I use real basketball terminology, no one knows what I'm talking about. I have to explain to centers why it is a good idea to "yam on people" or tell a guard to "take someones cookies." The bothersome part about trash talk on this game is people will talk trash as soon as you get into the lobby. I'm mean how many times can you tell a guy "you garbage" especially after he beats you.

I had the misfortune of buying Transformers the Game for the PSP at Best Buy a few weeks ago. Now don't get me wrong, This game is horrible, but I have talked about that so much on the forums that I think I am going to give that a rest. What I am going to talk about is the other products that have come out as a result of the Transformers movie. Basically half of the items that have come outare an absolute embarassment to the Transformers name.

The first item that I found to be worthless actually came free with my Transformers the Game purchase. At Best Buy they were giving out free action figures with the purchase of the game on any console. I thought this was cool, but when I actually picked up the game I realized that the action figure was only about three inches tall. By now I bet you are thinking, "damn, thisdude is unappreciative." That would be true if this three inch action figure didn't normally have a $30 price tag attached. Best Buy probably gave the action figures away for about 3 days and then they went back to regular price. Now don't get me wrong, some toys are actually worth that much money but a 3 inch Transformer whose hands or feet don't move? I gotBumblebee and he has no elbows or knees and everytime you move his arm his shoulder is like right up in his face. Even that's not a big deal to me, I was just surprised that they would even charge that much for such a small toy when There is a box set of Bumblebee and Barricade at Wal-Mart for like 16 dollars (almost half theprice of the 3 inchBumblebee). By the way, in robot form Bumblebee looks like the 80's character but in vehicle form he doesn't resmble the VW Bug, Camaro, or Corvette (ok maybe he resembles the Camaro somewhat).

One product I almost picked up is the remote controlled IR car for sale only at RadioShack. I was wondering if there was some kind of remote controlled Transformer toy and I came up with this product. It was advertised on radioshack.com for $15. These are very small cars that can sit on top of the remote for charging. It sounds wonderful at first sight, hell it even tells you that the car Transforms. Sounds to good to be true right? Well it is. As soon as I got in the store I noticed that all of the Transformers IR cars have these huge price signs on them. Thatcaught my attention so I decided to read the sign. To my dismay, there were a bunch of little asterisks that said the remote can not make the car transform. Another asterisk said that the remote can not make the Transformer move in robot mode. Okay, now I didn't honestly think the toy was going to start walking while in robot mode, but the way they described this toy on their website, Ididthink you could transform this car with the push of a button. This toy didn't bother me that much though,I just didn't purchase it. If it sounds like fun to you, the only characters available right now are Bumblebee, OptimusPrime, and Barricade.

Now let me tell you about theTransformers toy I did actually buy. Also, at RadioShack was a remote controlled F-22 Raptor that is supposed to be a replica of Starscream.This toy really did have promise because it is supposed to be able to fly in winds up to 7 mph. When I checked it out on the website and in the store it looked nice...until I oppened the box. I pulled the thing out of the box and it was made out of 100 percent, pure, gradeC styrofoam. I was like WTF. Now I know that some of the less expensive vehicles are made of styrofoam, but this thing is $40 and they made it look like it was well made. This thing almost fell apart while taking it out of the box. I have seen some styrofoam toys that were actually pretty sturdy, but this thing was about as thin as a styrofoam plate. I thought to myself that maybe this monstrousity would fly but much to my disarray, it wouldn't. Radio Shack was obviously trying to scam people because they gave me reason to believe that they sell this product all of the time but tried to capatlize on the movie's sucess and just changed one of there old products.For one thing, the Decepticon symbol is on Starscream's wing with some some sticker that really looks like someone just took some packaging tape and printed aDecepticon symbol on it. Then there was tape all over the nose of the aircraft. Everytme the plane crashed the propellers fell off and I had to look for them in the grass (they suggest you go to an open grassy area to prevent wrecking your plane). The landing gear is made out of what looks like paper clips with some wheels attached. I was mad for a second but then I really thought maybe this thing could fly. I decided to fly it and it crashed repeatedly. I would have been so upset if it didn't seem like Radio Shack was trying to cover up how crappy this item was. They had it painted up all nice so it didn't look like a cheap peice of foam. I also think this is a regular toy that they just stuck a Transformer label on because some of the pictures of the remote did not have the transformer logo on the bottom. When I took the remote out it had a the word Transformers on it and an Autobot symbol. Once again this was on some really cheap looking sticker that looked like someone had just slapped on the remote (by the way mine was crooked).

It's sad that there are probably millions of ruthless companies that will play on our childhood memories and make a bunch of B/S products that nobody should be stuck with. What's really sad is ther isn't really any choice for the consumer. Some of the remote controled toys are only available at Radio Shack and the PC game is only available at Target. When is society going to stop manipulating us and playing with the hearts of people who are trying to regain a piece of their childhood.

Unless, you are playing Transformers the game on PSP, stop crying. This goes especially for those people who have the luxury of owning the PC version. The PC and most of the console versions of this game are the very similar and from what I have seen, they are as good as the PC version.

Top Complaints I hear about the game:

1. No Character select: You can't choose characters because it is a movie-based video game and in order to follow the flow of the movie certain characters have to comply with certain tasks.

2. The controls are horrible: When I first started playing I agreed with you, however, you should get used to them with time. I game almost everyday but I wouldn't call myself a true gamer anymore because I only play a few select titles when they come out (ie. Madden, NBA Live, Transformers, City of Heroes, City of Villains). I don't play a lot of racing games but after about a week I learned how to control all of the vehicles on Transformers. All of you hardcore gamers should be able to do the same thing.

3. Graphics: With the exception of the Playstation Portable, all of the Transformer games I have seen looked good on their respective systems. What's the problem here?

4. Drones: Yes, the Decepticon drones are cars instead of planes and yes there are generic opponents that hassle you the entire way through the game. It wouldn't really be a game if all you did was fight other Autobots/Decepticons all game. That would actually make it a fighting game. For that purpose you have to fight drones. I think it is easier for the Decepticon drones to be cars because they would probably kick your butt if they could fly.