FINAL WEEK TO WIN A NINTENDO Wii IN HONOR OF JUVENILE ARTHRITIS AWARENESS MONTH

AUTHOR KELLY ROUBA OFFERING FITNESS PRIZE PACK

(New Jersey): Kelly Rouba, author of Juvenile Arthritis: The Ultimate Teen Guide, is giving away a Nintendo Wii and a copy of the new EA Sports Active in honor of July as Juvenile Arthritis Awareness Month.

Rouba, who has suffered from the disease since the age of 2, found that the Wii gave her the only opportunity to play the sports she never could because of her arthritis. With the generous donation of the Wii from Ag Apparel, an adaptive clothing company, and the game from EA Sports, Rouba wants to give one lucky winner a chance to be fit and active regardless of his or her limitation.

Participants can visit Kelly’s blog, kellyrouba.blogspot.com, and share their stories of overcoming obstacles. A winner will be chose at random on August 8, 2009.

To learn more about Kelly Rouba and her book, visit kellyrouba.blogspot.com. Her book Juvenile Arthritis: The Ultimate Teen Guide is available at Amazon.com in hardcover and for the Kindle.

Hey – it’s a chance to win a free Wii. You might as well head over to Kelly’s website, check out her story, and sign-up for the promotion.

But, even though I want to, I do not believe that I am going to go out and buy a video game. There’s no one, single reason that I can put my finger on as to why I’m not going to get one, but here are a few thoughts that keep crossing through my mind…

Cost. Even though I have a Nintendo Wii, the cost of a video game is still expensive! Sure, it’s not $60 to buy a new game like it is on the other consoles, but games range in price from $30 to $50 which really isn’t that cheap, either. Of course, if the right game came along, I would be willing to spend the money on it.

Difficulty Level. This is an odd qualifier for me. When I was younger, I could play games at the hardest difficulty and beat them. Now that I don’t really play games as much as I used to, the easy-to-medium difficulty level becomes a challenge – and that’s fine with me. I never had a desire to be a hardcore gamer, so I’m glad to play a game on easy or medium. But some of these games are just too easy or too hard. I could never get into the current Madden games on Wii because there’s no way I’d be able to understand what’s going on. At the same time, I’d never be into a lot of the downloadable games that Wii offers because they’re all too easy. There’s no happy medium these days.

Genre. My favorite type of game is a role playing game. The old Final Fantasy games are the best series in my view. Give me Final Fantasy numbers 1 through 10 and all of the sub-games that have come out of that series and I’m a happy gamer. But you don’t get that any more. Today, you get companies that try to make games in the Final Fantasy mold and they fall short. And for their part, Square-Enix (developer of the Final Fantasy series) has too many breakaway scenes in the beginning of their games – so much so that you could start a game and only play for maybe ten minutes of the first hour. It’s overkill. Plus, the only games they put on the Wii are these Crystal Chronicles games, which I have very little interest in. I’m looking for a game like Final Fantasy 7 or Final Fantasy IX – games that take a while to get through. Which brings me to my next point…

Time. Yes, I want a game that takes some time to play, but one that also allows me to play it in intervals. I don’t want to sit in front of the screen for hours on end – I don’t have the time for that. I want to be able to play in 30 or possibly 60 minute intervals.

Fun Factor. Finally, I want a game that’s fun to play over and over again. My cousin and I used to play WCW/nWo video games because there were easy to control and a hell of a lot of fun (I would always whip his ass – isn’t that right, cousin?). I like the Final Fantasy games because they’re fun to play, same goes for the Mario Kart series.

So there are some of the problems that I’m facing as I try to figure out which video game, if any, I want to purchase. If you have any recommendations, let me know. If not, then no worries. I’m not that concerned, really!