Everyone has heard of the popular Nintendo game, Pokémon. Pokémon is a multimedia franchise that features mythical creatures ranging from adorable and cute fluffs to legendary and menacing beasts, called Pocket Monsters, or Pokémon for short. These creatures have powerful abilities that harness the elements like fire or water, or using psychic or ghostly energies that help them survive.
When you play the game you become your own trainer who can capture, train, battle and befriend your own Pokémon to become the ultimate Pokémon master. To help start you off, at the beginning of each game a professor will give you the basic run down of the game and its world and he will let you choose your starter Pokémon. Which brings me to tell you about the new game, Pokémon Go, which is totally different from your average handheld video game console.
Pokémon Go is the latest and greatest app to hit the app store in a long time. And here is the reason why. It's a simple, yet innovative way to get everyone off of their couch from playing a regular app game to go outside and get some exercise in their day (and get my mom to walk around with me). The app is different from most regular game apps because this is one of the first to be an augmented reality game that connects with Google Maps and your location and puts them onto the phone's screen.
Users of the game get to make their Pokémon dream a reality, and they get to be a real-as-it-gets Pokémon trainer. Since the game came out almost a week ago, people of all ages have been trekking the streets to catch 'em all (as the catchy Pokémon slogan goes). With a smartphone in-hand connected to a GPS, anyone can play this game, even if you are new to the Pokémon world. I, myself, get a kick out of this game because it gives me an excuse to get outside of my house to kick summer boredom.
Not only does this game offer good exercise opportunities, but it also has some downsides and danger to it. So far, since being released last Wednesday, it helped find and prevent crimes, caused many injuries and helped solve mysterious situations (well not really, but you'll see why I say "mysterious").
The mysterious situation went as follows: the game had just come out, and already in its first hours, a 19 year old girl from Wyoming went out to search for Pokémon and found a dead body floating in the river nearby her house. Of course she called 9-1-1, and the police were able to rule out that no foul-play was involved and the man most likely died due to drowning or other natural cause.
On a more serious note, however, the game has been aid to crimes and stopping hoodlums. Four teens were arrested in Missouri because they were trying to catch potential robbers (USA Today). Police stations are also being extra cautious (and may I add annoyed) because of people trespassing on properties.
Players do not need to go onto properties during after hours or before even opening. The Pokemon are in the vicinity, too.
In today's news, the Holocaust Museum and the Arlington National Cemetery have been popular Pokéstops in the game, where players can go to get special items. However, the employees to these special landmarks have deemed it disrespectful to those buried in the Arlington Cemetery (NPR) and dishonorable to Holocaust victims and that the stops should be removed from the game (USA Today), which I think is true.
Yes, the game is fun to play, but I don't think someone would like it if another person would walk over their relatives graves (this goes for all the other cemeteries that are local pokéstops as well).
Players have been tripping over anything and everything because they can't stop staring at their phone screens (Seventeen). Not only are they tripping, but they are also getting into car accidents from playing while driving (yes it is an easy way to get Pokemon this way, but come on your life is more important) and hitting pedestrians (other lives are important too, people).
Another group of teens in San Diego were almost hit while crossing the street during a high speed police chase (600 KOGO News Radio). Gotta pay attention while you catch 'em all.
So if you see a Venonat or any other Pokemon on your steering wheel, or in the middle of a busy intersection at rush hour, don't chase it. It's easy to catch from the sidewalk too, trust me. Other than these things, just play smart and have fun! It's kind of a fun game.
