pikachu

Ok, for those who aren’t aware, this is a Pokéwalker:

This little circular device is bundled with the latest Pokémon games HeartGold and SoulSilver, and serves as an interactive pedometer that rewards the player for taking walks. Older players will recognize this device as being extremely similar to the Pocket Pikachu device, which worked in a similar fashion, but without nearly as much as the current incarnation. In the Pocket Pikachu, you earned a currency when you walked, which could be swapped for gifts to make your Pikachu happier. The Pocket Pikachu 2 was able to sync with the original Pokémon Gold and Silver, giving you gifts to use in game.

The Pokéwalker works similarly to this. You select a Pokémon you’ve caught (it’s not confined to just Pikachu) to walk with, and a “route” to go walking along, such as Town Outskirts. From there, your Pokéwalker syncs with the game, and your Pokémon goes into the walker. When you walk you gather watts (one watt per ten steps), and those watts can be used for one of three things.

• Poké Radar – Through one of two mini games available, you are able to catch wild Pokémon. The game is split into two parts; a simple searching game where you look in tall grass for a Pokémon, and the second part is where your Pokémon battles it and allows you to throw a Pokéball in an attempt to capture it. The Pokémon encountered depends on the route selected and how many steps you’ve done, and you need to walk a lot to find certain Pokémon that you can’t even find in the normal game. You are able to capture three Pokémon, and you need to sync back with your game if you want to capture more.
• Dowsing – Another mini game, in which you find items for use in game. You’re presented with six options, and you’re given two chances to identify which option has the item under it. If your first choice is wrong, you’re given a hint (either “It’s near!” or “It’s far away…”) which gives you an indication of where it is. As with caught Pokémon, you can only find up to three items. However, you can get more through other means (which I’ll discuss shortly.)
• Unlocking further routes – Initially only two routes are available to catch Pokémon in. However, any watts you don’t use before you sync back with your game go towards unlocking further routes. When a certain amount of watts are gained, the new route is revealed. Simple.

   

  Of course, these aren’t the only abilities of the device. It is designed to make you go outside and socialize, with the ability to sync with other people’s Pokéwalkers. These meetings make your Pokémon happier (as they’re able to ‘play’ with others, however briefly), and reward you by gifting you with a bonus item for use in game.

  To me this is a stunning device, as it creates a great incentive to get players of the game more active (I know it’s worked for me), and works as a great piece of DRM¹. Since several Pokémon are only able to be captured through the Pokéwalker, it’s more difficult for players to finish the game (although I guess they could cheat). It’s a decent idea to get people to be more social and active.

  I need to touch on what finally inspired me to type this up after a couple of months of playing with the post in my head. Today, I followed a link to a gaming blog written by a 17 year old with a need to point out that anyone who disagrees with him is obviously a Nintendo Fan Boy². He has only written two posts on it, but both have made me disappointed. The one that fuelled this post though, was the one titled I have to walk to level up? Hell No!!!!!³. In this, he misses the purpose of the Pokéwalker entirely, and displays his displeasure of the idea. He then goes to list various stupid ways he attempted to cheat the system. He was apparently so determined that he taped it to his fingers, with the apparent idea that it will work when he hammers the buttons on his Xbox 360/when he masturbates⁴.
  The idea of cheating such systems isn’t new of course, and searching for “Pokéwalker cheats” on YouTube will reveal several contraptions and ideas to get watts and unlock routes without doing any actual walking. I’m not against finding problems and experimenting with them, but when someone does it simply because they feel that walking is something that they shouldn’t ever have to, I can’t help but wonder what sort of person isn’t willing to go for a 10 minute walk.

  This guy for one.

1. DRM = Digital rights management
2. I assume this is his way of calling someone a “faggot”.
3. Link removed, because the blog post was deleted.
4. As he reports, it doesn’t.

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