As I was resting and re-evaluating the plan about playing DDR to get back into shape, I couldn't help but go through some of my games. I didn't play many of them; I just looked at what I had.

A good portion of my games are all RPGs for some reason. They are all good RPGs in my opinion... well, except for Tomba! which doesn't make much sense to me to begin with (Oooo, evil pigs are going to destroy the earth... Whatever.), but they are all really good RPGs to play. The thing is, I don't know where I left off in most of them! Some of them I have a general idea of, like all my Pokemon ones, and others I can pick back up just by looking at where I am in the status page if they have one, like in... in... well, the only one that comes to mind is Pokemon Staduim, but I know there are others. The rest, like Zelda: Ocarina of Time, I don't have the slightest idea where I am in that game! If worst comes to worst, I might as well just start over again from the begining. Hey, most of these RPGs are all story based anyway. It's like reading a book. If you can't remember what happened, look back at the begining. There are a few games where going back to the start would be benifitial for me, like Zelda and Pokemon, while others like LUNAR aren't really unless I want to go through all that trouble of leveling up and finding this item here and there and looking up walkthrus on GameFAQs and so on because I've practically memorized the story like it was a movie I've seen a million times!

Another thing that crossed my mind when I went through my games is that no one really plays these games or these systems anymore. Hell, I have the old and extremely rare Sega CDX which was Sega's attempt to make their Sega CD system more portible!! Who still plays games on that? I do have some good ones for it... if you consider Sonic CD and Mickey Mouse's game through time good ones. If not, then play Sewer Shark. But still, not even I play those anymore! I looked at my unopened and unwraped Pokemon Gold game and still wonder as I'm typing this if I'll ever get a chance to play it if even on a casual basis.

That's when it hit me. I've become a casual gamer! It's not my fault. I've just evolved into it. Yes, games are fun, but believe it or not, I used to make it my life! In fact, there should be hints of it in early blog entries here. So, as a casual gamer, what can I do with these old games and systems? Play them at my lesuire of course. When will that be? Who knows? The only game I have set up is DDR and it feels odd to be playing that again. If that's the case, imagin how odd it will feel for me to pick back up Pokemon Red. In any event, I know the time will come when I'll end up setting back up the N64 and playing Pokemon Stadium with Red and/or Blue in the little GB64 attachment thingy, learning the game again and mastering it by myself.

That's another thing I noticed. Most of these games that I used to be into were social games. In a way, I'm still interested in social video games. There's just one problem. No friends. Sure, DDR is a social video game in the arcade. People come up to you and start asking how to play, how long have you been playing, and soon you get into a conversation that results in selling the game to them (or is that last part strickly for Best Buy personel?). But games that I used to be into like Soul Blade and even now with Animal Crossing are social games that involve playing with a buddy. Yes, it's fun sometimes to beat the snot out of the computer in, oh, let's say, Star Wars Fighters, but isn't the real challenge in fighting another person that has spent the same if not more time on the game as you have?

While games are a good escape for me, it's starting to become rather a drag again. I finally remembered why I ended up not playing them for so long. First off, I never really had anything that was considered cool. And second, I had no one to play them with let alone someone who was interested in the same games I was.

Heh, Pokemon... What a power trip that game is.
Gotta catch 'em all!