Fusion is publishing a five-part miniseries about girl gamers, and so far, the content is amazing.

In episode two, Latoya Peterson, the Girl Gamers miniseries creator, introduces us to a handful of “girl gamers.” The game creators share how their games tell important stories. Thanks to Racialicious for posting.

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I’m a pretty sore loser at tennis, especially when my husband rockets those serves toward my face and I want to throw my racket at his head. But my arm never aches after as it does with the Wii tennis video game.

I notice I emulate the real motion of the swing with my remote while my daughters execute abbreviated swipes at the screen to place shots, serve and return. They’re so aggressive, if it were the real thing, I’d take them out of school and put them on the circuit to support our family. But truth be told, I fear too much time spent with this year’s holiday gift will result in those Wii-related sports injuries on the rise- everything from tennis elbow to sprained ankles and severe eyestrain.

This week on Good Morning America, GiGi Stone coined the phrase “Wii-habilitaion” in her piece featuring a woman whose shoulder injury from boxing sent her to an orthopedic surgeon. A doctor told ABC News he is seeing 10 to 12 new Wii injuries per month and attributed the epidemic to “exuberant overuse.”

In other words, both kids and adults get hooked fast and play for several hours at a time. Gone are the days of exercise in the great outdoors. Since the virtual sports aren’t as strenuous as playing for real, you don’t feel the fatigue that signals it’s time for a break. The strain results from repetition. (As with any exertion, doctors recommend stretching before and after playing.)

A condition called Wii-itis first surfaced in a report by the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007 when the Nintendo game was gaining popularity. This holiday season it sold out nationwide (reports of the Wii being bad for the environment have yet to score big points). Nintendo says it provides plenty of guidelines with the equipment to prevent injuries.

At a site called Wiiinjury.com, victims from unstrapped remote accidents share their sob stories: black eyes, bruised cheeks, shattered wine glasses. There was even a bogus class action lawsuit in 2006 in which the plaintiffs argued the remote straps were faulty and caused injuries. Nintendo says when used properly, the remotes stay affixed to the wrist and don’t go flying into faces. The company’s precautions also suggest how far to stand from your opponent and from the TV screen.

Apparently, Wii humans aren’t the only ones who can take a beating from ignoring guidelines. The most reported accidents involve smashed televisions.

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We got a Nintendo Wii for Christmas and it’s been in full use ever since. Tennis, golf, baseball – you name the game, we’ve played it. Of course, being energy conscious, I’ve been making sure that everyone unplugs it at the wall when not in use. I’ve also been patting myself on the back, because according to the U.S. Natural Resources Defense Council, the Nintendo Wii uses the least amount of energy of the three available game consoles. (The device uses an average of 16 watts in active mode compared with the energy sucker Sony Playstation that uses a whooping 150 watts in active mode.)

I was feeling pretty smug, really. Until I started reading Playing Dirty, a Greenpeace report published last year that examines what the game consoles are made of. Let me tell you – it sure ain’t pretty.

According to the report, all three game consoles – Xbox, Playstation, and Nintendo – contain hazardous chemicals and materials. And chief among them are bromines and phthalates, toxic chemicals that are bad not only for our health but the health of the planet. It made for depressing reading. And to make matters worse, it seems that Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are in no hurry to take any action to fix this.

But as usual, Greenpeace is on the job. They are laying out all the grime facts on their Clash of the Consoles website. They have created a form letter that you can email to the different companies telling them that it’s time they started making the world a greener place to live.

And they have even provided the manufacturers a blueprint (or in this case, a greenprint) on what they need to do to produce a true green console:

Produce energy-efficient products and inform the consumer on best practices to reduce energy consumption.
Take global responsibility for the full lifecycle of the products, especially when discarded.
Make upgradeable and recyclable products.
Design out toxins by removing hazardous chemicals and materials from products.

Now, if only the manufacturers would listen.

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