So I know a LOT of you purchased a Wii this year…and I also know many of you have become aware of the unfortunate Wii strap issue that’s been discussed over the past few weeks. Needless to say, Nintendo hasn’t looked the other way and have proactively taken steps to offer consumers FREE replacement straps. The new straps as noted by Endgadget are much thicker and in effect will eliminate the potentially hazardous situation to a user’s television screen or worse — another gamer getting whacked by a Wii Remote.

If you haven’t done so already, visit the following site to order your straps:
http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/strapreplace.jsp

You should then receive the following message:

Thank you for your request. Once your replacement wrist strap order has shipped, you will receive a confirmation email from Nintendo. We expect to begin shipping replacement straps around December 21st. It will take 5 to 9 days for delivery depending on your location. Please do not contact Nintendo regarding your replacement wrist strap until after that time period has passed.

Again, we apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your interest in our products.

I feel as though I should post something profound for what might be (can’t remember…) my first ever post here on the Got-Next blog, but I’m a big fan of whims; often times I live my life on ‘em. So in the spirit of that, I’m going to tell you something: Gears of War makes me feel like a bad-ass. Not your average bad-ass, but a Steroid-injected hardened bad-ass with a pocket full of shells and a handful of grenades. I knew the game was good, but I had no clue just how good until last night.

My first session (of many) playing Gears involved me and my best friend trying out the two-player co-op campaign. From my initial kill to watching my friend use his gun-mounted chainsaw to carve a Locust like a turkey, everything about it impressed me. Dare I say a game hasn’t impressed me in the malevolent way that Gears does since God of War. Everything about this game just exudes awesomeness, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a douchebag or a PS3 fanboy; though I suppose the latter has a touch of douchebag in ‘em by default. While some will argue that the 360 has had several killer apps that warrant buying a console — Oblivion and Call of Duty 2 are both candidates — Gears of War doesn’t just suggest that you should get a 360. It compels you to buy one, because, well, it just kicks ass.

And PS3 fan bashing aside, did I mention how awesome the game is? I love it, and at this very moment while I wait for five o’clock to roll around and the work day to end, I’m already contemplating the joy to be derived in my next round of Gears. It’s almost like waiting for Christmas day.

Not to be outdone, my Wii also got some evening playtime last night as I continued my quest in the Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess. I’d rather not have people cry “spoilers!” and point the finger at me, so I will just say that I’m at the part in the game where I’ve finally gotten the Master Sword; that carries its own air of bad-ass, in and of itself. As someone who didn’t care for The Ocarina of Time — I would say hated but I can’t hate a Zelda game — I’m pleasantly surprised at TP in general and the direction of its narration and story. I was almost certain I was going to hate the non-human segments (hey, we all know about the wolf angle by now), but I actually found that I enjoy those. Color me surprised.

A friend of mine likes to say that Nintendo copied Okami with the whole wolf angle, but you know what, he’s one of those friends who’s notorious for being an opinionated dick, so I pay him no mind.

Well anyway, I’ve been ranting and rambling and totally lost track of the time. Looks like the ol’ lunch break is winding down, so I should get back to work. It’s what they pay me for, after all. So until then, I bid you all adieu.

…just a little peace and quiet. After all, this is the last Christmas I’ll have for a long time (God willing) without a new member of the family running around, screaming, knocking things over, and doing whatever it is that little kids do these days.

Some might say that last part of the comment would indicate that I am not yet prepared to be a father. You’re probably right.

Anyhow, I’ve gotten precious little time to play anything at all since I AM NEVER HOME ANYMORE, and when I am, well, it’s been spent cleaning out garages and upstairs bedrooms all so that we can prepare a new room for our new arrival next summer.

At least I’ve had my laptop in tow and have been able to pepper Chris with reviews culled from the remnants of pages of notes, smatterings of memory, and the occasional turning on of a PSP here.

Man, the holidays are busy. Too busy if you ask me.

Oh yeah, the one day this week that I would have open to do anything would be this coming Sunday, but I am heading to Philly to watch the Eagles play for the NFC East Division title.

Some things are more important than others!

Or at least, my amazing return to making blog posts. I got swamped with stuff (and am still one assignment behind) and just fell out of the habit. It’s amazing how, when you’ve got a lot of work-writing to do, fun-writing just plain stops.

So yeah, today was Christmas and I got… not much of anything, really. But everyone liked what I gave them, so that’s fine. I get enough stuff throughout the year that Christmas presents are nice, but hardly necessary. I don’t have the opportunity/resources to give people stuff they like very often, though, so it’s really satisfying to see it pay off.

While I was back home for Christmas, I got to put some real distance into Elite Beat Agents. I had to do something while hanging out in the church’s back room waiting for the service to end, after all, and it was handy. I’ve been playing it a bit at a time for almost two months now, and I’m finally up to the last song on what I assume is the highest difficulty level. Despite my initial misgivings, I’d give EBA a solid 5 out of 5 if I was reviewing it.

I really don’t like to give out 5s, but if I can play a game for two months straight and still look forward to more, noticing improved skills and feeling a strong desire to get even better to see if maybe there’s a 20th song to unlock beyond the 19 I’ve got already, I don’t have much of a choice. The stories are dopey and the songs would cause me to throw the radio out the window if I heard them away the game, but none of that’s really important once I start playing. If I need to re-do the first two sections of Ashley Simpson’s LaLa 10 times running to max out the combo, I don’t have a problem with that. I’d be ashamed to admit it if I was talking about any game other than EBA, but what can you do? It’s just that good.

I liked EBA’s prequel just as much, if not a bit better due to its style and setting, and still pop it out now and then in a vain attempt to clear Ready! Steady! Go! on expert. I got Osu! Tatake! Ouendan! this spring, played it through most of the summer, worried at it a bit through fall, and then went straight on to EBA. Including Gitaroo Man, that makes three all-time-great music games from iNiS. Whatever it is they do next, I’m paying very close attention.

In unrelated news, I took another crack at learning to do something in Photoshop tonight. I needed a nice change of pace, and looking at incomprehensible menus that use a familiar language in bizarre ways seemed just the thing. This is what I made-

I’ll admit it’s got its share of problems, like the resolution of the Wii, the curve on the flipper left over from where the bucket used to be, the font on “Wii” needing an outline to make it easier to read, and several other things, but I’m happy with it for the moment.

The worst thing about living in a college town and no longer being in school, is watching your friends leave year after year. I’m about to say goodbye to a friend I met at the now defunct Playland arcade, while playing low tier MvC2 and loving every minute of it. I’ve read a lot about technology changing our lives and making us the masters of our own futures (of course does this mean to say that we weren’t before buzzwords like Web 2.0 and the like!?) and the biggest thing technology has done for me is help me to meet some really great people.

If you read the Time magazine year in review, you may think their person of the year is crap — for those who didn’t know, it’s “you.” A copout maybe, or a simple declaration that there isn’t really anybody out there in famous-ville worth admiring. Of course that isn’t true, but we’ve had a year of really crap things happen. Among that we did find a voice thanks to a technology that is really blooming and giving us, the users, power we never had before to comment on life, and politics, and love, and videogames.

As I was saying (dang wandering mind!), the semester has ended here and yet another friend moves into the world. I’m happy for him, but sad that once again the crew grows smaller. We’ve spent that past 4 years getting together and playing fighters of all kind, with the occasional GC 4-player fest (Smash, Tennis, Kart, Mario Party, etc.) I often argue with co-workers about videogames and their place in society.

I argue that they are valid and worthy of as much attention as I give them. I can say that Nintendo has helped me on more than one occasion win my argument. At first it was the GC and how 4-player get-togethers were as social as any event I could think of. Thanks to their universal agenda with the NDS and taking interactivity to a whole new level with the Wii, I have even more fodder for my argument.

Recently, I’ve ended up talking with older, non-gamers who are seriously considering getting a Wii. I just recently had a relative get a NDS simply because of the many awesome puzzle games on it and how easy it is to use the thing.

So if I had to look back at the year, I would definitely give the nod to Nintendo for innovating the way games used to and a small nod to Microsoft for offering a really solid and ever-growing online community by way of the 360. The jury’s still out the PS3, largely because it is so out of reach right now, while the other two are much more tangible.

Let’s hope that 2007 continues to push gaming into the realm of further interactivity and community and that we still get to see lots of the small stuff (though Live arcade and NDS should keep the 2D torch alive for a while). I am curious to see that fate of the PS2’s niche publishers such as Atlus, NIS, etc. Will they have the means to support the PS3 and make a decent living doing it? I sure hope so, though I’d be perfectly happy playing the next Disgaea on Xbox Live in full HD glory and possible level expansions, hint hint.

I wish everyone out there a good holidays and may Santa or whomever brings those wonderful presents, drop-off plenty of videogame loot!