Ah, the joys of gaming. Spending hours detached from the worries of the world to indulge in some of the best entertainment on the planet. And this week has been particularly plentiful in terms of gaming bliss.

The Friday before last I was finally able to acquire a Wii, after scouring the area with numerous phone calls to any store that might have a Nintendo in stock, a friend of mine agreed to bring one back from a trip home. The local Wal-Mart in his small hometown is, by multiple accounts, never out of stock of the exceedingly popular system and as my luck would have it he managed to snag the last one they had available and even delivered it right to my door. Words cannot describe my relief and jubilation upon finally holding that white box in my hands. (The night before he dropped it off, he told me his dad dropped it and broke it. He had me on the verge of insanity for 20 minutes before I called him and heard him laughing at my gullibility.)

I'm a Zelda fanatic, I'll be the first to admit it. It is my favorite series of all time. And the chance to finally dig into the newest iteration in the series filled me with utter childish glee. Its a feeling I haven't felt in a while. That new console smell, the prospect of an epic adventure with brain busting puzzles and lots of Wii-mote flailing filled me with such joy that I was almost afraid to open the box.

Almost.

To add to an already spectacular week, I was finally able to finish Final Fantasy VII.

Yes, thats right. I finished Final Fantasy VII, for the first time. Yesterday. I Omnislashed the One-Winged angle to pieces and I am finally able to say, "Why yes, I've played Final Fantasy VII."

As most people accomplished the same thing TEN YEARS AGO, I'm a bit late to the post-meteor party. But I've arrived. I never had a PlayStation growing up, and two attempts at playing the PC version failed after crash glitches stymied me early in the game both times.

My failure to bring about the death of Sephiroth, or even to see the famous death of Aries, was a black mark on my gaming record. It was something I felt shame in admitting in proper gaming company. But now I've done it. It took me nearly a year of on-and-off playing to come to the conclusion, and I must say, it was worth it. Final Fantasy VII was indeed a great game. I've heard people debating the merits of FFVI vs. FFVII for years, and I (having completed FFVI multiple times on SNES) can finally weigh in on the debate. But that a story for another... paragraph.

Ok, I still feel like FFVI was better, but that could easily be nostalgia for the bygone era of 2D sprite RPGs which dominated my childhood. I'm gonna have to let FFVII sink in a bit before I make any final judgements. I will say this though: FFVII had an excellent story, but I did like Espers and magicite better than materia in terms of combat application.

Really, both are among my favorite games of all time. I like them both for separate reasons. Perhaps its possible to like them both equally at the same.

Either way, its been a good week in gaming. Now I have to try and finish Twilight Princess before BioShock, so I can finish that before Metroid Prime 3 and that before Halo 3 and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Assassins Creed, and maybe Final Fantasy XII...

Sigh.

The work of a gamer is never done.

And thank god for that.