Game Review: Pokémon GO

Game: Pokemon Go
Started Playing: August 2016
Current Level: 21

Synopsis:
Venusaur, Charizard, Blastoise, Pikachu, and many other Pokémon have been discovered on planet Earth! 
Now’s your chance to discover and capture the Pokémon all around you—so get your shoes on, step outside, and explore the world. You’ll join one of three teams and battle for the prestige and ownership of Gyms with your Pokémon at your side.

Review: 
Haha... I had wondered if it was even necessary to put up a review on the game, cuz seriously, there are so many people playing this in Singapore, that it would seem like a redundant move on my end. 

But ah well, my work is done (for now) and it's still raining... and I don't need to be amy appointment till 7.. so... here we go!

It is a super smart game. Whoever thought of merging the idea of reality with these little pocket monsters really ought to win a Noble prize. Cuz seriously, considering that there are so many games out there, that you can think out of the box and come up with a game like this, that is pure genius. I firmly believe that this is just the first step. Moving forward, a lot of other game companies will be coming up with other games.. hopefully that are even more fun!

Anyhow, on to the game: 

The good: It is really an awesome tool for socalising. I am even considering becoming a matchmaker, pulling together different groups of friends to go hunting for pokemons. Haha... but alas, I have more female than male friends, so the gender mix of my social network doesn't seem to allow for me to be cupid!

Haha.. still it is really fun and it's good for me to go around catching pokemons while I am watiing for someone or just bored somewhere. The idea of walking to hatch eggs is also awesome, god knows the number of singaporeans who have bought fitbits, only to NOT WALK (yes, we need data to back up a fact that we already know, which is that we are a super sedentary bunch who don't walk, anything more than 5 minutes to a bus/mrt is a long walk)... where fitbit failed in the encouragement portion, pokemon go has succeeded. I have never seen such a record number of Singaporeans who are out walking!!

I for one, have always walked my dog hahaha (excuses I know), but now he/they (depends on whether Xena is bunking over), gets.. TWO walks a day. Actually, no, I am trying to toilet train them, but the pokemon gives me something else to play with while walking them. Haha. So they get two walks, and they have learned to sit on command, cuz I have to catch pokemons and their tugging at the leash keeps causing me to miss (and waste pokeballs).

Discussion topics which are fun, are about how to calculate CP, IV, and use of the different things. e.g. how to fully utlise your lucky egg? Ensure that you have at least 60-65 pokemons to evolve, it takes about 30 seconds each pokemon, then each evolution will give you 500 XP. So when you activate your lucky egg (which lasts 30 minutes) you will double your XP. So that gives you 1000XP. If you just keep evolving your pokemons, that would give you 60,000 XP. Errr.. my calculations are not the most trustwothy... but really... that would be best use of your Lucky Egg. 

So stuff like that makes lunch fun (and we start plotting different location for lunch), where the nesting grounds are supposed to be. 

The Not So Good: Well, there isn't many. If anything, it is the fact that there don't allow the use of IV calculators, so that you know which of your pokemons have higher potential, so you dump those that are not strong, and build on the strong ones, so you can go to the gyms and "hoot the shit" out of the others.

So for people like me, who can't calulate, it's very tiring le. Then I have to keep going online to check which are the powerful pokemons, and which of their attacks is better.. so many things... to the point where I hit Paralysis of Analysis. Analyse until I can't decide which of my pokemons to dump. But I need to dump, else I can't catch more. HAHAHAHA... 

So I am still upset that they are banning IV calculators that sync up with the app (yah, I get that the servers are struggling with all these 3rd party apps that are pulling/pushing data)... cuz that means I have to make decisions. And I have to think. And when I game, I don't want to think so much! Hahaha... so there... 

In Summary, still an awesome game. Definitely great as a time waster (although I shouldn't waste so much of my time!) ... go download it and play. Can't go wrong. At most you will get bored and delete it. But still, you can entertain kids to at least go walk around, instead of just huddling over their phones in a fixed location. :)