Hi. My name is James and I have been video game free for 4 months now. It’s no secret that I am a video game junkie. In fact I would consider myself a videogame-oholic. And just like any other person addicted to some substance, whether it be physical or virtual, once I start, I can’t stop.

Despite my one time, ten hour straight marathon of Dynasty Warriors 3 and my secret affection for Morgan Webb, friends still call me to find out what is the latest and greatest in the video game realm. With keeping my addiction under control, my gaming lately has been very scarce. I feed my hunger by watching reruns of X-Play and wearing Mario Kart: Double Dash t-shirts.

But with the 2005 Christmas season quickly approaching, we are coming into another video game counsel escapade. Here are my thoughts on the matter.

The new XBox 360° is quite impressive indeed. I give it bonus props for using my favorite beverage, Mountain Dew, to advertise for the counsel and give them away every hour. The only downside is I already have one sitting right in front of me. I also have an original XBox as well. Sorry to burst your Microsoft gaming bubbles, but XBoxes, no matter how many times they spin around, will always be just glorified gaming PCs. Call me crazy but if I’m going to play games like Halo and Quake I’d rather have my trusty mouse and keyboard in my grip.

Moving on, Nintendo is going just crazy these days. First up is the new Game Boy Micro. It’s pretty slick and tiny. It mimics the old style NES controller with the D-Pad and the A, B buttons, but with a tiny screen in between. A pretty neat concept, but may be just a bit to small to really get into. I’ve tried to play NES games on my PDA and the buttons are just too darn close and small. But without having ever tried to play a Micro, maybe it’s completely different. It can play any GBA game so it already has a ton of games you can play on it.

Finally the big story here is the upcoming Nintendo Revolution. Sounds pretty incredible really, plus as always, Nintendo came up with a pretty cool codename for it (remember the Dolphin? Yeah it should have stayed that). Anywho, right now I’m pretty nervous about its controller. It’s completely…well…revolutionary. It’s a remote control style controller device that you might use to slice, dice, spin and win. Along with a built-in D-Pad, buttons, and expansion analog stick, the Revolution controller will also know your body movements. Maybe it’s just me, but if I’m playing a game where I want Link to slash his sword, I don’t want to actually to the slashing myself. These are video games after all not exercise routines. Call me old fashion but I like my two-handed, thumb controller and I’m not quite sure I’m ready to give it up to jump around the room like a 5 year old just to knock open a question mark block or two.