Nintendo has always been one to take risks and bring forth new innovative ways to play games. They songle-handedly saved gaming as we know it from dying with the NES, made it more popular with the SNES, and then revolutionized everything with the Game Boy. The original Game Boy was an NES on the go, ready for you to play whenever you wanted. Soon enough, the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Pocket were introduced, furthering the exploration of portable gaming. Nothing truly lived up to the original Game Boy, though, until the Game Boy Advance.

The GBA was an SNES in your hands with excellent polished graphics and a sleek look. It could also play your old original GB games as well as GBC. Nintendo has been and still is the king of portable gaming, and with two handheld systems right now, it doesn't seem like that will end any time soon.

What makes the GBA so great is that you can play redone versions of some of the classic GBA games such as Super Mario World along with some excellent new additions such as Metroid Fusion. Almost every hardcore gamer has a Game Boy Advance, whether they like Nintendo or not.

The GBA SP was introduced not too long ago, and only added a newer pocketed cell phone look to get us ready for the Nintendo DS. A brighter light was an addition with the SP, which made reading much easier.

Overall, the Game Boy Advance is every gamers need. It keeps the classics alive and gives you a reason to get some bigger pockets. It's easy to handle, easy to play, and pretty cheap now. So, any gamer that is without one, get one. Or save a little more and buy a DS.

Nintendo has been known as a legend seeing as if Nintendo never existed, great games today would have probably never came to be. But once Nintendo's current generation console came out, people started to wonder whether it could live up to the Nintedo name. Well, I, along with most people I would hope, can say that some of the best current-generation games have been on the GameCube. However, with all the mess clogging up the Cube's engines, it never really got the recognition is rightly deserved for games such as Super Smash Bros Melee, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and, of course, Metroid Prime. But with games such as Pokemon Channel and the fact the Cube supports Internet for only one game and that it can not play DVDs or CDs, it is very difficult to recommend as the best console.

Lately Nintendo has been seen as the company for kids and families, whereas Sony was aimed more towards teens and adults. With a few game on the ol' Cube, though, Nintendo has shown that it can dish out some awesome Mature content. Who can forget the critically-acclaimed Resident Evil 4? I surely don't. But even with one of the best horror games around, the console was always in dead last behind the top-selling Xbox and the ever-popular PS2. How can you compete with Halo or Grand Theft Auto? Very tough, but the Cube did have many games that were in the ranks of such games. Mteroid Prime was just as good, if not better to most Cube-lovers, than Halo. Animal Crossing was an excellent addition to the simulation genre, Smash Bros Melee was a great fighter, and Wind Waker was a fantastic and whimsical adventure. The only reason why these games never got to be the next-best thing since Halo is because they were judged to be too kiddie from the beginning. With the exception of Metroid Prime, the other great games were often disclosed as immature, childish or stupid. 'Smash Bros is a gimmick in disguise!' 'Animal Crossing looks like a Nintendo 64 game!' 'Wind Waker is a disgrace because it looks like a cartoon!' We have already heard it multiple times.

Though all these games were called 'highly addictive,' 'great installments,' and 'must-have for gamers' by even GameSpot, because they were already judged by their appearances, they did not go over well around the entire gaming market. They are all top-selling GamCybe games, but how many gamers own a GameCube? That basically like asking 'How many Xbox owners don't have Halo?' There are a lot fewer GameCubes being played right now than there are Xboxes or Playstation 2's.

Overall, the GameCube was a console where superb games were born, but never rose to what they should have been known for. On top of that, no Internet except for Phantasy Star Online, and that wasn't all too good, and no CD or DVD support, which all makes GameCube seem more of a mess than a gaming console. You have to look at some of the games, though, as some are a few of the greatest games ever created.

Sequel to the great Playstation and the second of the current generation consoles, the Playstation 2 can probably be seen as the most successful console of these days. It has a healthy library of games, excellent controller an you could play you original Playstation games on it. What else do you need? Aside from these attributes, the Sony Playstation 2 has some of the most memorable game franchises. Ratchet and Clank, Jak, Metal Gear Solid, and of course, Grand Theft Auto.

The PS2 brought online gaming to the table and also drew in a lot of the gamers that are here today. Mostly because it could be used as a CD player or DVD player, the PS2 sold fantasticly. You hardly ever see a gamer that has a GameCube or Xbox and no Playstation 2.

Sony played its cards exactly right with this console, releasing it before the expecting Nintendo and Microsoft consoles and releasing it when the Dreamcast was going downhill. With a dying console on the market and plenty of praise from the previous Playstation, when better to release the PS2? It still holds up strong against the higher-graphics of the GC and Xbox and still has efery reason to be bought now as it did when it came out.

Released around that of the Nintendo GameCube, the Microsoft Xbox was the entrance of Microsoft into the world of console gaming. Though they had dominated the PC market, Microsoft had never dared into making their own console. Enter the Xbox. For a company just entering the console market, Xboxes sold like crazy. Then again, all three consoles were selling like crazy at that time.

It has been almost four years now since the Xbox came out and looking back at its lifetime, some games truly stick out. Hale: Combat Evolved, Conker: Live and Uncut, Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball, Ninja Gaiden, and, of course, Halo 2. Each of these games did something great forthe system and transformed new groups of non-gamers into gamers. Halo brought first-person shooting to a new level and brought in people who saw or read the hype about this new great game. Conker brough N64 lovers to like the console with the remake of one of the best 64 games and also brough about the trash-talking, beer-drinking people to play the Box. The Volleyball of Dead or Alive wasn't exactly a great game, nor a very good game in its own rights, but it did attract many of pervs to play games and also gave us tired gamers a piece of eye candy of some sexy girls in tiny swim suits. Ninja Gaiden brough old NES gamers back for a new spin on an old favorite and ended up bringing the best graphics ever seen anywhere along with greatr gameplay and plenty of ninja to kill. Last, and certainly not least, Halo 2 proved to all that games can beat out the silver screen when Halo 2, after being delayed many many many times, sold so much over its first night, it beat out some movies' weekend bring-ins such as Harry Potter and, I think, the first Spider-Man.

The Xbox truly brough some of the greatest games of all time to the fray, but it did have its wek spots. Though being the biggest console at the time, marginally beating out Sony's Playstation 2 and clearly beating the GameCube, many didn't appreciate Microsoft's sudden interest in console gaming. 'Stick to computers!' was on many of message boards telling Microsoft to beat it and stop making Nintendo and Sony look like fools. 'Nintendo has been here since the beginning, who are you to just come in and demolish a legend?' But, for the most part, the Xbox was a huge success, and with the Xbox 360 coming out, what can stop Microsoft from dominating the next-generation market?

Games: A simple way to kill some time or a way to express your wildest dreams in more so than mere words. As a poet, I know how fristrating it can be to try and find a way to show people how you feel or how you picture things, and poetry is my main way of doing so. However, by presenting a video game in front of you, you can see how the developers intended it to be and how a story slowly unfolds before your eyes and your hands gripped upon the controller. A lot of people see games as a way to have fun without having to really do anything, and they are, but I see games mostly for how they change the subject of gaming or how they tell a story or, some of the time, how muchentertainment you can get out of beating the crap out of a Pikachu.

Another great thing about video games is anything is possible. Anything at all. In one game you can have a swordsman questing for the one who mirdered his father, while in another game you can be playing as a blue hedgehog who runs faster than The Flash. While, in yet another game, you could be playing as a team of superpowered heroes sworn to save the day, and yet still, you could be playing a game about a foul-mouthed squirell who loves the ladies and has a thing for pissing on people. Games are so expression-driven, in the sense that every game has a different and unique feel to it, and while some games may be more action-oriented, another game could go the entire time without the use of a single button and only a touch screen.

But the thing that probably draws most people into gaming is the fact that there are different companies going for different objectives. And with that you may choose what you want in your gaming. The companies that make the gaming consoles are the most well-known, but even with the smaller companies, people can still get what they want. For example, if you loved role-playing games, what company would you go for? Square Enix, of course. And if you loved all action, where would you go? Probably Capcom. And if you wanted to just gun down some guys in a nearby ship, you would probably fire up Bungie's Halo 2.

The Big Three, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, along with the lesser known console maker Nokia, are the one who makes the consoles you play yur games on. And each of them has its own reputation and its own idea of what gaming should be. Microsoft's Xbox focuses mainly on those in their teens and 20's and has an array of great first-person shooters. Sony is more for the average gamer, while they belive in a system that is also a media center. Nintendo is more for overall people, which gives them a kinda kiddie company rep, but also delivers some of the best franchises ever created, such as Zelda or Metroid. And little ol' Nokia is big on cell phone gaming and loves to have gaming on the go, but in a more 'high tech' sort of way, which doesn't appeal to many.

With so many choices for what to play and who to go to, who wouldn't love gaming? Yes, we may all get some kind of thumb disease sooner or later, but for what it is, gaming is a great expression-driven, thought-provoking, blockbuster-action activity that it is hard to say 'no' to it. So for all you thinkers, poets and movie lovers out there, pick up an Xbox or Gamecube today and experience the magic of video games.