I have also read  that I neeed to get a lucky egg and let the Gible/Garchomp hold it.

The biggest obstacle that I have yet to determine how to overcome is the time it takes to level up a pokemon.   I spent all weekend on that Garchomp only to realize that he didn't have the personality that I should be looking for.   So I'm hunting Jolly's now -- but then after that I'll have to go through the process of leveling him up.

Here is the process i use to level them:

1.  Give the Ex Share to Gible
2.  Make Gible the first party member
3.  Switch Gible out real fast and battle with my other Pokemon.

The problem is that even with this process, it takes a LONG time to level a single pokemon.    I've been repeatedly battling the Elite 4 (haven't beaten them yet to finish the game).   Usually the 4th guy knocks me out and I start the process again.

Ok I guess I have it bad now.   I spent the weekend leveling up a Garchomp to 49.  I then noticed on a site that the best temperament for Garchomp is Jolly.  So I spent a good amount of time in Wayward cave running back and forth catching all the Gibles I could.   I'd then run back to town to check their temperaments in my PC and release them.  Haven't found a jolly yet, but found an Adament.    There seems to be a big debate online about whether Jolly or Adament is best.

Thanks for the tips!   Diamond Elite 4 are currently kicking my @ss.   In backing up and strengthening my Pokemon for this battle, I went and picked up a Gible and started leveling him towards becoming a Garchomp.   I have also learned that Quagsire can be incredibly frustrating and has the ability to drain all of my PP while I try to beat him.   He doesn't really do much damage but man does he have staying power.

Wonderpug?   Inquiring minds want to know! 

Ok so I'm at the final Gym before Victory Road in Pokemon Diamond.    I can then either go back to Pokemon White post-final  boss, play post-Elite 4 on Diamond, buy a used DS and find Pokemon Emerald, or even buy Pokemon SoulSilver to play.

And there's Mystery Dungeon too, but I'm unsure of how much I'd like it.    Do you collect Pokemon in that game too?   If so, can you transfer them to your other Pokemon games?

Several bits of good news based on your reply above:

1.  I haven't used the master ball.   Saved it.    Also saved it in Diamond too so far, and I'm close to the end of that one too.
2.  I have beaten White and am close to beating Diamond. So I guess I'm ready for the more advanced stuff.

Couple more questions:

1.  I hear that you can increase your chance for a shiney by breeding a Japanese Pokemon to a North American one.    Although the chances are still 1-1000 something.   Is this factual?
2.  Clearly the Legendaries aren't breedable, so I'm guessing there isn't a lot of use out of going back and catching them in previous versions?     I mean the shiney pokemon are a lot more rare than the legendaries since the legendaries are a sure-catch and not random, correct?
3.  Is there a faster way to level up low level pokemon?   They go fast in early levels but man do they turn into a grind after a while after you've beaten most of the trainers around the different areas.    Surely there is a faster way than walking around in grass and fighting while your low level holds the Exp. Share?   Are there trainers that recycle after you've fought them to gain larger chunks of XP for a fight?

I do like the Pokemons. 

duncan, if you want to learn more about the complex side of the game mechanics, serebii.net is the place to go.  Be warned.  That rabbit hole goes very deep.  I actually had to force myself to step away from the math equations and play more casually because I was starting to go overboard with min/maxxing just for min/maxxing's sake. 

For example, this makes perfect sense to me:


Just look at how important it is to breed for high IVs and to ensure you don't screw up your EV training!

Holy crap I think my head just exploded.   I haven't even explored breeding.   Should I also assume the following:

-- people trade for breeding based on whatever that IV is?
-- there is some way to look at whatever IV is on each pokemon?

Is there a reason to purchase previous versions of Pokemon?    I'm playing White and I own Diamond and am playing it some as well.   I kinda got Diamond because I wanted to get to the end of the game and get the Legendaries.

I'm aware of the Shiney Pokemon, but have yet to see one after many many hours of play.    If I did encounter one, it was before I realized what they were and thus it sailed past me without recognition.

What else should I be aware of?   Seribii is a bit overwhelming.   Just point me to things I need to research so I can narrow down the list.

It started as a casual hobby because my kids were playing. Now I can't get enough Pokemon. I beat Pokemon White and have gathered several of the legendary Pokemon that you can get after the Elite 4 and the end bosses. I then picked up a used copy of Pokemon Diamond on a whim and am close to beating that one.

I went to the Pokemon site and started to try to get my hands around all the different things you can do in the game that are not readily apparent when you just play though. The Shiny versions of Pokemon that are very rare. The types that are available in previous games but not Pokemon White. The multiplayer battles. There are even clans for competitive play apparently.

Anyway, I think I might have a Pokemon problem. Are there any other addicts out there? I'll probably cross post this on GT due to their console focus.

You know, I was looking at the release list on Gamestop, and there's a big problem for Vita (whether you're in Pittsburgh or not).

Some people may want Disgaea 3 mid-April or Mortal Kombat at the beginning of May, but for me, the next release of any interest is Resistance on 5/29.  Then Gravity Rush 6/12.  LBP 6/26.  And that's it until maybe Warrior's Lair at the end of freaking September.

That's 3 game's between now and the end of the summer.

E3 better have a lot of imminent release announcements, but even if it does, that's in June.  I've only got one release of interest between now and then.

This actually doesn't sound bad at all to me.   It was a LONG time between when the 3DS launched and there were any new games that interested me.    You just named 3 coming up in about a month and a half that all interest me...coming on the heels of a pretty decent launch line up.

I'm not sure how or why you think this is bad?

So from what I'm reading, this game is amazing, haunting, beautiful, entrancing....   for about 1 hour.      Does that about sum it up?    Developers should be throat punched that think 1 hour of gameplay is worth 15 bucks.

2 hours. Maybe you can get it when it's on the vita.

Heck... the Vita games are full blown consoles.   I know we are stuck in the iOS forum, so you may be confusing the Vita with the iphone games.  
Burn!

Your message is stuck inside your own quotation - I'm not sure you can speak with any authority on organizational skills.

Actually, I'm such an authority that I can quote myself when I originally make a statement.

So from what I'm reading, this game is amazing, haunting, beautiful, entrancing....   for about 1 hour.      Does that about sum it up?    Developers should be throat punched that think 1 hour of gameplay is worth 15 bucks.

2 hours. Maybe you can get it when it's on the vita.

Heck... the Vita games are full blown consoles.   I know we are stuck in the iOS forum, so you may be confusing the Vita with the iphone games.   
Burn!

So from what I'm reading, this game is amazing, haunting, beautiful, entrancing....   for about 1 hour.      Does that about sum it up?    Developers should be throat punched that think 1 hour of gameplay is worth 15 bucks.

Yeah, I think you need to go to the computer at the Pokemon centers and withdraw him.

Before you take him out, make sure you have less than 6 that you're carrying too.

This should be on the iPhone forum!!

Damnit you are right.   It should be on the iPhone forum.

And btw --  I did go to the Pokecenter and try to get him from the computer.   Though on the pokedex it has a ball icon indicating he has been caught, he is nowhere to be found in the computer.    Very confusing.

My son had a Legendary Pokemon traded to him.   In his pokedex it has a pokeball symbol indicating that he has it.    However, he can't withdraw him from the Pokedex for some reason to use him?

Anyone have any ideas?

He's on Pokemon White version.

I agree with the others.  I've been averaging at least an hour per day on it...sometimes several hours.

I've kind of hit a wall.   There's a course I just can't get past with a gold star.    Frustrating... maybe I need to take a break and play Rayman for a while.

Blizzard is pulling in, what, somewhere in the neighborhood of $149,900,000 per MONTH on the 10 million subscriptions to World of Warcraft.

That's a huge layoff for a company that is making that kind of cash.

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/10/17/ken-levine-gives-us-an-update-on-bioshocks-playstation-vita-ver/

I have to say I did not initially pick this game up as a launch title because I didn't think it would appeal to me and it was getting rather bland reviews.   About 5 days after lanch I read a lot of posts about people having a great time with the game.   Specifically one user review talked about the number of unlockables that you can purchase and work towards, which is something that really appeals to me.

I have to say that I am having a blast with this one.    Rayman came in the mail to me after I purchased Hot Shots, and I haven't even installed it yet.    The actual mechanics of the golf game are extremely well done, but what really gets you hooked is the constant stream of unlockables and available to purchase items in the game.   I'll occasionally get frustrated with a hole, but you can usually score high enough to move to the next one and come back to it.   

This has been my suprise title so far -- taking all of my time away from Virtua Tennis and Rayman.     Very pleasantly suprised.

Way to shit on the 3DS, Nintendo 

Yeah the more I think about this, the more it pisses me off.   My kids, who are both getting 3DS systems for their birthdays, are dying for Pokemon.    Hell, *I* am dying for pokemon for the 3DS.

Two news bits:

1.  Sony just announced that an update is coming for Vita that upgrades the browser and some other things.   Also adds Skype.    It's coming 'very soon'.   Hopefully within days.

2.  Bioshock Inifinite is coming to the Vita.   YEAH baby!

I won't mind paying $300 for the Vita but the launch games don't grab me at all.  I'm not even sure what I'm looking for in a killer game for the system, certainly not Madden or Fifa nor even Call of Duty.  I suppose a RPG of some sort would be the ticket in but at the moment I stand on the sidelines and see what the future holds and I don't feel like I'm missing much.

How about resistance?   Or Gravity Daze?

The question that concerns me with the market rejecting the original price point of the 3DS and seemingly rejecting (or at least resisting) the price point of the Vita, is what is the market willing to pay for then? I'm not sure how much Sony is profiting off each system sold, my guess is not much or they are breaking even, but there's no way we could have gotten something as powerful and feature-rich as the Vita at under $200.

What irks me is the idea that, if people don't want to pay more than $150-200 for a portable gaming device, the message hardware makers will take from this is to make shittier hardware. I can't imagine Sony putting out anything less than what the Vita is in 2012.

Maybe the software is the problem. If Super Mario 3D Land came out at launch, and Mario Kart 7 came out 6 months later, Nintendo could have held on to the original price point. The Vita is also lacking a killer app; Uncharted doesn't fit the bill, especially in Japan.

Rumors are that each system costs around $160 to manufacture.

Total of 1.2 million doesn't sound all that exciting. And an attach rate of less than two doesn't either.

Clearly you are misguided.

The worst review I've read recently was about Hot Shots Golf.   IGN actually knocked the game in his summary and scoring because you can apparently play an entire 9 holes of golf and screw it all up in 1 hole.

I laughed out loud when I read it.    This person had apparently reviewed this game without having any exposure to the game of golf at ALL.    I mean... I don't really play golf in real life, but even I know that what he just knocked the game about is *EXACTLY* what the game of golf is all about.

Should we think about getting a game trading club set up?   When you beat or get tired of a game, you can trade it for one you wanted to play to someone else?

Just a thought

Um...

Thank you for posting this. I was thinking the same thing and I have honestly never utilized the trader section. I'm not a big fan of Capcom VS. Marvel and want to trade it off. It was my buy 2 pick 1 freebie and it just doesn't float my boat. Great graphics, though.

So SUCK it Gratch!  

Should we think about getting a game trading club set up?   When you beat or get tired of a game, you can trade it for one you wanted to play to someone else?

Just a thought

Seems to be pretty hit and miss, from what I'm reading.  I'm apparently just one of the unlucky ones.  Seems ridiculous to have this issue on a 2012 handheld, but I doubt there's going to be much I can do about it.

The more I think about it, the more I don't think it'll end up being a deal-breaker.  It's still incredibly annoying, but I don't play any MP games, Netflix will be through my iPhone, I won't be using the Vita to surf the web, and if I need to DL anything I can just park the Vita right next to the router for a little while.  In all the years I had my PSP, I can count on one hand the number of times I got online with it.  Suppose I won't be able to submit any high scores to online leaderboards, but that sort of that has never really mattered to me anyways.

Swap it out?    Or do you think it's compatibility with your router?

I'm getting a pretty decent signal on my Vita, in fact I get a better signal on it than my iPad up in my bedroom.

Same with me.    I've had no trouble thus far.

I agree - The Wifi weakness is an issue.

My situation is not as bad, but I'm getting one bar in places in my house where other devices are full strength. Also connecting and disconnecting in some spots too.

Antennagate 2!

We're probably holding it wrong!

Strange.   Well to be fair the 3DS has some very limited distance WIFI capabilities as well.    It struggles at the far corner of my house away from my router.     These devices have very small network antennae, so it makes sense they needd a decent signal.

I will say that mine worked on my phone company supplied router  wihtout problem.   My kids' Nintendo DS systems have trouble connecting to it (though my 3DS does not).

My non-existent willpower met my far larger than expected tax return, and I ended up coming home with a Vita tonight.  Grabbed it from Target, and since they were out of the free 4GB card, I got an 8GB instead.  Will probably upgrade down the road, but am fine to start out with this.  Also picked up Hot Shots Golf.

Am off to a rocky start already though.  4 screens into the initial set-up, I get a notice stating that a system software update is required before I can link my PSN account to this unit, but it gives absolutely no indication how to do said update (hitting "OK" just kicks me back to the "Do you have a PSN account?" screen).  Downloaded this on my PC, which is what I'm assuming will allow me to do the updates.  Will see how this goes...

I think what you needed to do is to let it give you a temporary PSN account, upgrade, and then link your Vita to your PSN account.

I have an unhealthy obsession with finding the right Vita wallpaper.    So many of them look awesome but leave no empty room for the App/Game bubbles.    The ideal kind have the subject of the wallpaper to the right or left with plenty of blank room for the bubbles out to their right or left.

/Sigh

I just got a chance to test the Party system on the Vita, and it seems to work flawlessly. It was easy to set up a Party and invite a friend to it. Once he joined we could continue chatting no matter what we were doing, as long as we didn't start a game that disables the network that is. This was actual voice chat. I have no idea where the mic is, but we could hear each other well enough. We then booted up Dungeon Hunter Alliance just to test multiplayer for a bit, and ended up playing for more than an hour. It was great fun, and quite amazing to be playing MP smoothly with voice chat on a tiny handheld console.

Awesome.   I wish I had more friends that bought game systems and stuff like this.    For some reason, most of my real life friends don't game much anymore.    They never were the type to run out and buy a new gadget either.

I think I need some new friends.

Banish this thread to portables with us Vita riff raff please.

Edit:  Oh, and I'm a bit disappointed that it's not a 3DS Pokemon.

Sony obviously wants me to download Virtua Tennis because I can't find it anywhere.  I really don't want to go digital download route because me being able to sel  them when I'm done is what helps me fund this hobby!

I had to order mine online to be shipped.    Best Buy didn't stock it.   Hell, I couldn't even find any reviews of it for a long time.

I still hate the proprietary memory cards, whatever their "reasoning" (seems like more money to me, but whatever).  However, what I really hate is the proprietary USB dongle.  I have a perfect cord that allows me to sit on the couch with my PSP or anything that would take USB.  The stupid Vita cord has me standing right in front of the set.

Also, I'm not a big fan of the Vita installing a bubble for each game I insert.  First of all, there's no way I've seen to tell what card is in the slot (it should glow or animate or something).  The bigger problem is that, though it's manageable now, the menus are going to get extremely crowded very quickly.  Is there no way to create organizing folders of some sort?

1.  agree with you on the memory card
2.  agree with you on the USB connection.   In fact... I'll see your gripe and raise you that the connection should be on TOP of the device instead of below.   I'm not going to use this thing in a dock and the cord coming out of the bottom gets in my way while trying to play when charging.
3.  There is in indictator about which game you have inserted.   The bubble bounces around.

Is there any kind of a file manager for this, some way to browse everything that's on the memory card like you could on the PSP?

Not that I know of, and I strongly suspect Sony won't ever release anything like that. Part of the reason why the memory cards are so expensive is because each one of them contains its own, unique security to prevent hacking and piracy. Sony wants to make sure that we know as little as possible about how things work behind the scenes, or so I suspect at least.

Go into menu and turn off USB Power source.   Plug USB cable into PC while it's plugged into the Vita.    Content Manager magic.

[has potential for]

It has a has potential for great software lineup.

FTFY.

Just my opinion, but outside of Uncharted, I don't see much in the Vita lineup that screams "OMG MUST HAVE".  YMMV, different strokes, and all that.

Maybe not for you, but so far these games are awesome:

Stardust
Uncharted
Virtua Tennis
Hot Shot Golf
Rayman

Every one of those are very high quality titles.