I recently bought a GameBoy, a teal Color GameBoy, in fact. Yes, I may be thirty-eight, but I decided to get in on the Pokémon thing, if only in a small way. At least, that is the plan...
Way back when Magic: The Gathering was only in the third edition, Allison and I got hooked on it. For those who are not familiar with it, Magic: The Gathering is a card game played by two people using a special deck of cards, where each card represents various monsters, energy, or spells that can be used to defeat the other player. Simplistically, it is sort of a souped-up version of War. The contents of a player's deck are not constant, and each player can compose a deck from a very large set of available cards, all of which have advantages and disadvantages.
At first, we just bought a deck apiece and actually played the game. Then we bought a few booster packs, to add a little variety to our decks. Then the sickness set in. We started making special trips to the mall just to buy cards. Eventually, we started buying them by the box. Any question of actually playing the game was moot - we just wanted to see all of the neat cards we'd be using if we were playing the game.
Then it got to the point where we were only 10 or 15 cards away from having the complete set. At this point I wised up and started buying only the cards we needed from a dealer. Sure, they were expensive, but less expensive than buying a whole box of cards in the hopes of getting - maybe - one new card.
When we completed the set, I vowed: "Never again."
In time, a surprisingly good version of Magic: The Gathering for the PC appeared. Now I could play the game against the computer whenever I wanted without the fear of bending mint cards or the tedium of composing and tuning a winning deck. The game (actually, three games) cost maybe a tenth of what I had spent on cards, and included all of the cards from all of the editions to date. And it kept track of the rules for you.
That was before the Pokémon cards appeared. At first I was able to look the other way. Then I found out that the Pokémon cards were published by Wizards of the Coast, the same people who designed Magic: The Gathering. And the son of a friend (hi, Matt) explained some of the game aspect to me, which got me intrigued.
So I figure that buying the GameBoy version of the game (I got the Yellow edition) instead of the actual cards is going to save me money. Plus, on those winter days when the power goes out, I'll have some vestige of technology to keep me happy while waiting for the heat to kick back on.
Now if you'll excuse me, I've only caught eight Pokémon so far, and I have quite a few to go...
You can respond to my ranting here.
METAPOD rants. METAPOD's DEFENSE increases!