Believe it or not, this title actually serves as a dual-meaning. Firstly, I've been playing a lot of Pokemon the last two nights, once again eager to sink my teeth into some pokeymanz catching goodness, and secondly, I've been trying to 'catch 'em all' and buy all of the games that still sound interesting to me on the 360.

In Pokemon, or more specifically LeafGreen Version for GBA, I've been in competition/co-op with my one friend to catch all the monsters and battle it out. The original deal was, we would defeat Brock and challenge eachother sometime after Mt. Moon, keeping the pokemon level capacity under 21, but this has since changed. Things started off slow for me at first because I hadn't named my character and rival in all caps, making all conversations sound kinda like this: "MOM: Be careful, Ovi!" So I got a few minutes into the game and promptly restarted, while my friend made a ton of progress. Then I got hung up in Viridian Forest, all because I accidently killed the first male Pikachu that showed up with my Pidgey, and I ran into three female ones and no other male ones over the course of a couple hours. Finally I got him, but by this time my friend had already beaten Brock, passed through Mt. Moon and cleared the Rocket Gang on Nugget Bridge in Cerulean City.

So far today has gone better, with me just about through Mt. Moon. I was close to the exit and faced the last Team Rocket member there, and all of my pokemon had died except for my tough little Squirtle. By the time I barely passed that match, he had 3 HP left and I had no potions or revives left. Luckily, I used my escape rope to get back to safety and restore my brave team to full health - I would have never gotten out of the cave alive because a scientist nerd guards the rare fossils and there might be another trainer on down...not to mention all of those wildpokemon encounters. Before I went into the cave I had an even harder time finding a male Nidoran than I did finding a male Pikachu. I looked it up on and Internet and discovered the encounter rate for a male Nidoran on Route 3 in LeafGreen Version is 1%. Yes, you heard that correctly - 1%. But with enough patience I caught one, which makes me feel pretty good since my buddy missed out on getting the female one in FireRed.

We talked a bit about the types of pokemon we had caught so far, and what kinds of strategies we wanted to employ while we played. I discovered that he started with a Charmander and used his Mankey, Beedrill and Pikachu a lot, and got the Dome Fossil. I started with Squirtle, and I usually got the Dome Fossil but have been thinking Omyanite is pretty cool, so I'll have no qualm with getting the Helix Fossil. It sounds like he might be thinking about not evolving his Charmander, which would be pretty awesome since I'm not planning on evolving my Squirtle - I sense a battle of small epic proportions. It's also interesting because now his friend is thinking about getting in on the fight, and he prefers to start with Bulbasaur. So, hopefully we can gather round for some trading and battling goodness.

On the 360 front, I ended up seeing Crackdown available on Amazon again and bought it, and also saw Phantasy Star Universe and decided to buy it. The prices seemed reasonable enough, so why not eh? I'm not even really thinking about new games now - they will be around for a long time after they come out, and will probably be cheaper. There's really too many good sequels coming out now to be thinking about them, nobody has that kinda money to throw around. Really, after next year, I think most of the big games of this console gen will be out. I predict that about two years from now we will be talking about the next console gen. Maybe I am partly anxious for the next gen because I want to finish buying up games for my 360, but I just feel like most of the big games will be out by then. Maybe I am way off base.

I also ordered the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Christmas DVD. Looks funny, sounds funny, it's gonna be funny. It is on pre-order, like my FFXI disc.

I also tried playing Command & Conquer 3 a little bit the other day, to see what it was like. It was okay, but I didn't really feel impressed enough to want to buy it. I mean, I already have Halo Wars, and you can only have so many RTS games unless you are a die-hard RTS-er. Thought about getting Gears of War a little bit, but then I dunno if I would like the games or not. They probably aren't bad...but I dunno. Might as well save the money for games I know I want.

While I still very much enjoy console gaming and plan on buying some more games for my XBox 360, I think I am beginning to reach a level-off period for my game-buying habits. The thing is, there just isn't enough Ovi to go around to all of these games, and that has been the same problem since my PS2 days. Before that, when I originally had a Gamecube, I didn't have this problem - I had less of a problem deciding what game I wanted to play then. But with my PS2 came my craving to collect a wide variety of RPGs, and while many of them were enjoyable there were also a ton that weren't worth my time and money and were just a waste of space. Nowadays, I don't know what to put into my console, because I don't know if somebody on my friend's list will want to play something particular that they also have, and I find it easier to play arcade games because they are stored digitally on the system. Discs just seem so....5 years ago to me. I hope we do away with physical media for games altogether. Except maybe like points cards.

The thing is, I like MMOs as well, and playing an MMO requires as much of your free time as playing console games. You can own both, but this means you will have to split up your gaming time between multiple mediums, and the MMO usually wins this battle because they are big game worlds with a character that grows as you play the game - and you put your money into the game every month. Okay, okay, so I have to pay a monthly fee for XBOX LIVE too...but for the price of a new game you can get like 13 months of LIVE, and mine doesnt even run out until April...so I don't consider that to be something that requires monthly upkeep like an MMO.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that...console gaming these days is too expensive - all of these arcade games and DLC and the games themselves...and the LIVE fee. The thing is, I'm getting sick of turning around every few months and seeing new 'episodes' added to Fable 2, a game I bought because I thought at some point it would end. I don't have time for these needless, time-consuming add-ons for games, and I'm going to be cutting back on my console gaming, and only buying stuff I've really been looking forward to. I will continue to contribute my money to MMOs, because I feel that I get more entertainment out of them and they are much more convenient. Simple as that. You need to pay extra for a TV and console and all of these little peripherals, and overpriced harddrives for the console. With a PC, you already have all of this **** figured out - you have a harddrive and Internet and a monitor and mouse and keyboard already.

About a week ago, I had a conversation with two other men about lists and schedules...One man made lists, but said he felt they were pointless and came to us for advice, the other man told him not to make lists because they are a waste of time and things can change...but I have always found lists to be fairly useful, personally. And I think, here and now, I need to try to stick to my own gaming list better. The games on my wanted game list, those are the ones I have been looking forward to owning for months now, and those are the ones I will get. These other little games that don't mean much to me, I've got to cut them out of the will. Maybe I should start by selling some of the stuff I already own, that I probably won't ever play.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

For now, the plan is, I will play WOW, I will not buy anything except for what I have planned on buying for my 360, and I will only renew my WOW subscription whenever I have the extra money in my budget for it - my MMO money will be going to FFXI which I am giving one final shot on the PC. I am convinced after talking to another player that the reason it screwed up on my 360 is because I tried turning my PCtrial account into a pay account after it expired, short and simple. I have the new disc, the 'Ultimate Collection', on pre-order right now. It includes all of the expansions like the 2008 collection, as well as three new add-ons that came out for the game this past year.

The thing is, Final Fantasy has always been a favorite universe of mine, and I have been wanting to play this game since 2003 or 2004. I must really care about the game if I've bought it three times now. The whole idea of this hardcore team-oriented MMO with the ability to change my job class as I see fit and gain experience in the ones I like best, it's right down my path. So what if the game is a little hard to get used to at first, so what if the camera might be a little odd - it still seems pretty fun, and I'm willing to dedicate some time to it.

Some of these extra fees will have to go on the back-burner.

So for my first RPG Maker game, I don't want to get in over my head, but at the same time I want to utilize all of the tools at my disposal in the program. As I stated before, I really like the default graphics that come with the program, and I feel like they have their own little 'world' already. Since I like the artwork, and I want to focus mainly on making the game itself without having to worry aboutimagining it, I decided I will start by using the graphics that are already there at my disposal. I sat down and worked out which characters would be playable party members and which ones would be antagonists, and I really kind of worked out the flow of the story based on the order characters join your group in, and the locations you are visiting at that time. The backstories for the characters come pretty naturally as well for me - I just look at them, and I can come up with some interesting role for everyone, and kind of make the whole cast of playable characters feel important in some way. I think I'm doing a pretty good job with this.

I really want to get back to the roots of traditional RPGs with this game. I feel like, despite the fact that the role-playing genre has grown more popular over the last decade, there are less traditional turn-based RPGs out there nowadays. There are more western RPGs and action-RPGs and MMORPGs andRPG-hybrids out there now, becauseon the Sony Playstation&Playstation2 we kind of beat the genre to death over the years. While it's nice that they are doing new things with the genre, and I support that, I do think that we need to keep traditional RPGs alive, and hopefully this game will kind of breathe a breath of fresh air back into classic RPGs for me. As such, I've taken a lot of inspiration from some of my favorite RPGs, both old and more recent, in coming up with the story and world for this game. Of course the first game on the list would be Final Fantasy, and in particular I think this world will be most reminescent of FF4. If you are familiar with the Golden Sun series of games, you should find some inspiration in this game taken from that. Definately Dragon Warrior, this game will use the first-person perspective in battles, and it is probably the closest series in design to RPG Maker's. I think it's safe to say that this game won't feel like any of those games though. There is also the whole cliched-to-death crystal story in this game as you can tell from the game's title, so I wanted to pull out all of the stops to make this feel like a classic adventure in a fantasy land. That said, I also hope thatI will accomplish in injecting the game with its own Ovi-esque flavor as well.

To avoid giving too much away, and to keep from sticking my foot in my mouth in the case that I change a plot element, I'm not going to get into the specifics of the game...But it's story focuses on the war between a powerful imperial kingdom and four smaller kingdoms, and the quest to topple the invading kingdom. The story will have some twists and turns, unexpected plot developments, and of course expected ones. I hope that when a person plays this game, they will have 'aha' moments, where the game is so traditional, that the player will get to certain parts of the game and say to themselves, "This is exactly what I wanted to happen!", you know? I want this game to re-kindle those classic memories that haven't been stirred in ages.

I can't give you a window into how long it will take me to create this game - it could be a year or two, or maybe as short as 7 months. It really depends on when it all comes together and I'm pleased with the end result. In the meantime, I will be sure to keep everyone posted on the game's progress here.

But in the meantime I also have some other ideas in mind for RPG Maker. Another project I have in mind, which I may or may not begin before Crystal of Light, is a game set in a more modern time period with a smaller cast of characters. The game will draw inspiration from Earthbound, Final Fantasy 8 and 10, and Okage: Shadow King. This game might not even have an overworld map per-se, but a large town with various shops and areas you can access.