Pr3++yG33kyTh1ng

I don't play console games that much.
It isn't that they aren't awesome or anything, I'm just usually physically closer to a computer and (if I want) I can Alt-Tab to my web browser.
I've put off buying a next generation console for these reasons and for the lack of a compelling game. Until now.
Nintendo has announced a future lightsaber fighting game using the wiimote to its fullest duelling potential. This game, when released, will be a game worth making a stand over.
It helps that the Wii is much cheaper than the PlayStation 3 and XBox 360.
Even poorly executed, the novelty of the concept will make this game a must-have.
I've spent a long time being neutral.
I lost friends in the first console war, and the memories are still painful whenever I visit a Game Stop.
Another painful flashback is triggered by the simple mention of the Star Wars universe in table top role-playing games.
In high school, instead of working on my social skills and alcohol tolerance, I spent many hours with friends slogging through the old first edition rules, based around six-sided dice and a fixed set of personality types and character career paths. It was awful.
In fact, at one point following a Mountain Dew fueled frenzy and subsequent sugar crash, I purposely sent my mid-level "Laconic Scout" into a black hole, hoping he might end up in some Dungeons and Dragons universe where he might stand a shot at having a good time.
He died horribly -- split into his component molecules slowly over a million years -- but I've never regretted that.
In 2000, Wizards of the Coast released a new universal rule set called D20. They wrote it for Dungeons and Dragons and it works there. They also tried to illustrate how universal it was by setting their new Star Wars role-playing game in the same exact rule set.
They finally gave up on that in 2004, since the game books were always better to read than to play.
You don't generally want the rulebook to be more fun than the game.
The new edition specially created for the 30th anniversary is called the "Saga Edition", and it seems to fling a lot more Star Wars into the basic Dungeons and Dragons rules.
In the earlier books, a Jedi could beat anything. This is pretty true to the movies, but doesn't encourage a lot of people to play politicians or smugglers. Apparently, any character has the potential to do something awesome now.
The new edition pulls out a lot of the D&D overhead, too, which leaves room for player creativity.
As someone who frequently runs games, player creativity can be frustrating. It is also what makes a game fun for everyone.
I still need to get our Dungeons and Dragons game going again, but at least Star Wars is there as an option that isn't instantly discarded by hardcore geeks as a poor translation of life in the Star Wars universe.
Those discussions invariably lead to multi-hour discussions of Sarlacc (plural Sarlacci) biology, Imperial rank insignia continuity, what Taun Tauns eat, and ways George Lucas should have killed off Jar Jar Binks. I've been in enough of those debates.
For now.