![\"\"](\"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/3045687-3026698-poke\u0301mon+go+logo+copy-300x168.jpg\" "\\"3045687-3026698-poke\u0301mon+go+logo+copy\\"")
Everyone is suddenly catching Pok\u00e9mon fever again. Here\u2019s what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\nEveryone is suddenly catching Pok\u00e9mon fever again. Here\u2019s what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n
You may have heard stories of people hunting down Pok\u00e9mon\u00a0on their office desks<\/a>,\u00a0in hospital rooms<\/a>, and\u00a0even in bathrooms<\/a>. One teenage girl even\u00a0found a dead body<\/a> while looking for Pok\u00e9mon. And police in Missouri\u00a0claimed<\/a>\u00a0that four suspected robbers lured in victims with the possibility of Pok\u00e9mon.<\/p>\n What the hell is going on?<\/p>\n Well, after a few years lying relatively low,\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon\u00a0is making a bit of a comeback. The Nintendo-owned franchise, which exploded in popularity in the late 1990s, is again taking America by storm \u2014 this time through\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon Go, its biggest entry into the mobile space, now available for a free download on\u00a0Android<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0iOS<\/a>. It\u2019s so popular that it\u2019s\u00a0on the verge of overtaking<\/a>\u00a0Twitter in terms of daily active users on Android.<\/p>\n In simple terms,\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon Go\u00a0uses your phone\u2019s GPS and clock to detect where and when you are in the game and make Pok\u00e9mon “appear” around you (on your phone screen) so you can go and catch them. As you move around, different and more types of Pok\u00e9mon will appear depending on where you are and what time it is. The idea is to encourage you to travel around the real world to catch Pok\u00e9mon in the game. (This combination of a game and the real world interacting is known as “augmented reality.” More on that later.)<\/p>\n So why are people seeking out virtual creatures while at work and as they go to the bathroom? Part of the reason\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon Go\u00a0is popular is that it\u2019s free, so it\u2019s easy to download and play. But more importantly,\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon Go\u00a0fulfills a fantasy\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon\u00a0fans have had since the games first came out: What if Pok\u00e9mon were real and inhabited our world? But to understand why people are so enthusiastic about the idea, we first need to go back to the late 1990s \u2014 to the original\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon\u00a0games.<\/p>\n The\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon\u00a0games take place in a world populated by exotic, powerful monsters \u2014 they can look like rats, snakes, dragons, dinosaurs, birds, eggs, trees, and\u00a0even swords<\/a>. In this world, people called “trainers” travel around the globe to tame these creatures and, in an ethically questionable manner, use them to fight against each other.<\/p>\n Based on the premise of bug catching<\/a>\u00a0\u2014\u00a0a popular hobby in Japan<\/a>, where the games originated \u2014 the big goal in the\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon\u00a0games, from the original\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon Red and Blueto the upcoming\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon Sun and Moon, is to collect all of these virtual creatures.<\/p>\n The first generation of\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon\u00a0games began with 151 creatures, but the catalog has since expanded to\u00a0more than 720<\/a>. In\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon Go, only the original 151 are available.<\/p>\n The games took the world by storm in the late 1990s \u2014 a big fad widely known as“Pok\u00e9mania.”<\/a>\u00a0The original handheld games,\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon Red and Blue, came out in 1998 in America, followed by\u00a0Yellow\u00a0in 1999 and\u00a0Gold and Silver\u00a0in 2000. With the games came spinoffs like\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon Snap<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon Pinball<\/a>\u00a0in 1999,\u00a0a popular TV show<\/a>,\u00a0movies<\/a>,trading cards<\/a>, and\u00a0a lot of other merchandise<\/a>. For a few years,\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon\u00a0was on top of the world. (The franchise is still fairly big; it\u2019s just not the cultural phenomenon that it once was.)<\/p>\n But since the games came out for Nintendo\u2019s handheld consoles, fans all around the world have shared a dream: What if Pok\u00e9mon weren\u2019t limited to the games\u2019 world? What if they were real and inhabited our world? What if we could all be\u00a0Ash Ketchum<\/a>, the TV show\u2019s star trainer, who wanders the world in his quest to catch them all and earn his honors by defeating all the gym leaders? I want a Pikachu in real life, dammit!<\/p>\n Unfortunately, Pok\u00e9mon aren\u2019t real \u2014 at least not yet. But technology has evolved to be able to simulate a world in which Pok\u00e9mon are real. That\u2019s essentially what\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon Goattempts to do: By using your phone\u2019s ability to track the time and your location, the game imitates what it would be like if Pok\u00e9mon really were roaming around you at all times, ready to be caught and collected. And given that many original\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon\u00a0fans are now adults, this idea has the extra benefit of hitting a sweet spot of nostalgia, helping boost its popularity.<\/p>\n First, the similarities: There are Pok\u00e9mon, and you do catch them. There are also gym leaders and other trainers whom you can fight for fame, glory, and loot. You can also customize your in-game character\u2019s look and name. And there\u2019s also a (rather sexy<\/a>) professor who helps get you started, particularly by giving you your first Pok\u00e9mon.<\/p>\n Besides that, the game makes some big changes. For one, the way you navigate the world is obviously different. In the handheld games, you simply use a controller to move around the in-game world the developers have made. In\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon Go, you have to travel around the real word, and the game uses your GPS and clock to detect your location on the in-game map and decide which Pok\u00e9mon appear around you.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, the game does a lot to make you explore your real-world environment at different times. For example, if you go out to a park, you\u2019ll probably see more grass- or bug-type Pok\u00e9mon. If you go near a lake or ocean, you\u2019ll be able to pick up more water types. And if you go out at night, you’ll see more nocturnal fairy and ghost types.<\/p>\n This is further enhanced by Pok\u00e9Stops, which are essentially notable locations in the real world marked on your in-game map. You can go to these to nab items, including Pok\u00e9 Balls and eggs that can hatch into full Pok\u00e9mon.<\/p>\n This need to travel is the game\u2019s depth, essentially: To catch them all (and earn the medals attached to catching Pok\u00e9mon), you\u2019re going to have to explore far and wide, during the day and night \u2014 like Ash Ketchum does in the TV show. It\u2019s the only way to become the very best, like no one ever was.<\/p>\n The game monetizes on this, too: You can buy items in the store with real money that help you lure Pok\u00e9mon. Since\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon Go\u00a0is free to download and play, this is how the developers are making money off the game.<\/p>\n Another huge change is the combat. When catching Pok\u00e9mon, you don\u2019t fight them with your own team of Pok\u00e9mon. Instead, the battle is between you and the creature directly: You swipe to throw a Pok\u00e9 Ball \u2014 the device used to capture Pok\u00e9mon \u2014 in their direction, which then catches them.<\/p>\n In fact, there\u2019s no traditional\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon\u00a0battles in the game at all. When you fight gym leaders and other trainers, you don\u2019t set up your team of six with four moves each and select among those four moves to outsmart your opponent, as you do in the handheld games. Instead, battles are largely decided by your Pok\u00e9mon\u2019s combat power \u2014 a stat attached to each of your Pok\u00e9mon \u2014 and you tap the screen to make your Pok\u00e9mon attack the enemy while swiping to dodge enemy attacks. A lot of the strategy is gone.<\/p>\n Since the game lacks traditional battles, the only way to make your Pok\u00e9mon stronger and evolve them (Pok\u00e9mon can evolve into stronger forms) is with special items, which you can get by catching Pok\u00e9mon and fighting gym leaders. These activities also boost your trainer level, which opens up content like gyms and raises your chances of\u00a0finding rarer Pok\u00e9mon<\/a>.<\/p>\n The game currently has no significant multiplayer capability, meaning you can\u2019t battle your real-life friends or trade with them \u2014 two functionalities that are very big in the handheld games. (There are even\u00a0competitive Pok\u00e9mon tournaments<\/a>\u00a0with\u00a0cash prizes<\/a>.)<\/p>\n The original trailer suggests that these multiplayer features could come eventually, though, since they were originally advertised:<\/p>\n The lack of robust multiplayer features and traditional battles has disappointed some Pok\u00e9mon fans. As Allegra Frank\u00a0said at Polygon<\/a>\u00a0after a week of playing\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon Go, “I don\u2019t think I like it. Tell me if I\u2019m being too harsh on this game, but when I\u2019m pitched \u2018Pok\u00e9mon in the real world,\u2019 I have a certain expectation that I\u2019m going to be playing a classic Pok\u00e9mon game, with the added bonus of seeing Pikachu and Charmander within my actual surroundings.”<\/p>\n Another big downside is the battery usage. Having a game like this on at all times canreally drain<\/a>\u00a0your phone\u2019s battery \u2014 to the point that there are now\u00a0several<\/a>\u00a0guides<\/a>\u00a0out there on how to preserve your battery life. For the most part, this is really just an early technological hurdle that augmented reality games will have to overcome over time.<\/p>\n Beyond realizing childhood dreams,\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon Go\u00a0is many people\u2019s introduction into a new type of game that blends the real world with a virtual one \u2014 what\u2019s known as “augmented reality.”<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t like virtual reality, in which you put on glasses or a headset to fully immerse yourself in a virtual world. Instead, augmented reality games tap into technology to enhance the world around you \u2014 by, for example, putting an Abra on your toilet.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Why would somebody want this? Well, everyday living can get boring. So why not spice it up with some Pok\u00e9mon?<\/p>\n Pok\u00e9mon Go\u00a0is perhaps the biggest augmented reality game to date. But it wasn\u2019t the first and won\u2019t be the last: This is a concept that game developers are looking to tap into more, as they build on the concept established in existing games like\u00a0Ingress<\/a>,\u00a0Life\u00a0<\/a>I<\/a>s Crime<\/a>, and, yes,\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon Go.<\/p>\n Google even spoofed the idea for\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon Go\u00a0for April Fools\u2019 Day in 2014 (although it may have been a secret early preview, given that Niantic, which made\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon Go,began at Google<\/a>):<\/p>\n Ingress, however, exposes a potential problem with augmented reality games. In\u00a0Ingress, players can take over each other\u2019s “portals,” which require that players go to real-world locations to take. So players can potentially run into each other in the real world while they\u2019re competing for a portal in the game.<\/p>\n The problem: When people get competitive, they can get aggressive. And there have been\u00a0some<\/a>\u00a0reports<\/a>\u00a0of people getting into real-life arguments over the game. This is very tricky ground for future augmented reality game developers to tread, because they definitely don\u2019t want real-world violence attached to their products.<\/p>\n Pok\u00e9mon Go\u00a0has already revealed some issues, too. Not only did four robbery suspectsallegedly take advantage<\/a>\u00a0of the game to lure victims, but there are\u00a0reports of injuries<\/a>due to the game, and police\u00a0have had to warn<\/a>\u00a0players about going into places they\u2019re not supposed to. Chances are most players will be responsible and won\u2019t run into these issues, but these are notable risks with directly attaching a video game to the real world.<\/p>\n Still, if executed correctly, these games can tap into a sense of childhood imagination and wonder that most other games can\u2019t. Remember when you used to run around the playground imagining you\u2019re Luke Skywalker, Indiana Jones, James Bond, or, maybe, Ash Ketchum, Pok\u00e9mon master? I do! But I don\u2019t have time for that anymore. (And I would probably get the police called on me if I tried.) These games do the imagining for you \u2014 by augmenting the world around you, either with Pok\u00e9mon or portals you can hack.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also a bit of an escape. While that certainly applies more to virtual reality, which can immerse you entirely in another world,\u00a0Pok\u00e9mon Go\u00a0gives you the opportunity to for once forget about all the terrible shit happening out there, explore the beauty of the world, and catch some Pok\u00e9mon along the way.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Everyone is suddenly catching Pok\u00e9mon fever again. Here\u2019s what\u2019s going on. You may have heard stories of people hunting down Pok\u00e9mon\u00a0on their office desks,\u00a0in hospital rooms, and\u00a0even in bathrooms. One… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40487"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40487\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}