Pokéwalkin'

It’s about two and a half weeks until I finish the first year of my university computer games programming course and just as if I was working at a games studio there would be a crunch time at the end of the project, in my last few weeks I have to finish up multiple assignments and exams before deadlines hit. Okay, so maybe it’s not as much work as finishing up a video game but I still don’t have the free time I did while on my holidays, in fact I haven’t even touched my 360 this week. That’s not to say that I haven’t done any gaming though.

Most of my time gaming this week has been spent on Pokémon HeartGold which has been yet another very enjoyable trip back into the world of Pokémon. Journeying back through Johto in this remake has been a bit of strange experience for me as while some of the content of the game I remember fondly, other parts of it seem almost (I aplologise for the new paragraph here, there seems to be a bit of a glitch in the blog editor)

Now I can annoy people with Pokémon wherever I am.

completely foreign to me and there seems to be no particular pattern to what I do and don’t remember. This time round I’ve found myself less concerned with compiling my Pokédex and levelling up my Pokémon (although it does always feel satisfying to watch those numbers next to my Pokémon’s names gradually tick up) and more determined to get past each gym leader and earn my badges, perhaps this is just reflective of the fact I don’t have a ton of time to spend on the game.

One of the things that fascinated me most about the game going into it was the Pokéwalker. I’ve been a pretty big fan of the ideas of video games intersecting the real world and this Pokémon-themed pedometer seemed like a simple but fun way of allowing real-world actions to have consequences within the game. So far I’ve walked around 15,000 steps with my Pokéwalker but I haven’t really built up a good sense for how much experience my Pokémon are getting based on how many steps I do. I have noticed that one level seems to be the limit for the amount of experience a Pokémon can gain from a single walk but the Pokéwalker has provided me with the chance to catch Pokémon much more easily than if I had tried to catch them in the main game and given me some genuinely useful items for the main game. So far the Pokéwalker hasn’t come across as anything groundbreaking but it’s definitely a fun addition to the game and I think I’ll be taking it with me for my longer walks for some time to come.

I’ve managed to pocket a few hours on Audiosurf and Team Fortress 2 as well this week. Audiosurf has been as fun as ever and I’d still recommend it for anybody interested and the same goes for Team Fortress 2 where the new item drop system they’ve implemented has already gifted me with a couple of very nice weapons. I’d also like to thank NinjaDuckie for buying me the Deus Ex pack in the Steam sale this week.

The thing that has really got me excited though is the continuing flood of news from Bungie on the upcoming Halo: Reach beta. We’re only 9 days away now and I can’t wait for everything that the beta is going to bring. The limited and legendary editions of the final product also look phenomenal. I thought the limited edition looked good but the legendary edition may be one of the best special editions I’ve ever seen.

That’s enough video game talk for this week though, thank you for reading and I’ll leave you with the new trailer for Marvel vs. Capcom 3:

 

  

-Gamer_152