Pokemon Go

Hello. Today I'm blogging about a new iOS game.

Pokemon Go was recently released in the U.S. and a few other countries on smartphones. It's already the most popular app on the App Store and top grossing app on the App Store. I did a blog a while back in anticipation for Pokemon Go, and now that I actually have it, I'm writing a review. I love this game. In Pokemon Go the game tracks your location by giving you an a avatar on a GPS type map. If your phone buzzes while you have the app open, you know that a Pokemon has spawned right near you. The game contains the first 133 Pokemon, the first generation of Pokemon that Nintendo released. Each Pokemon corresponds to an elemental type, of which there are 18, such as water, fire, or grass. The type, CP, and rarity of the Pokemon determine how often and where it's going to spawn the most often. For instance, water Pokemon are most often going to spawn around lakes and rivers, whereas a small town would have a lot of bug and normal Pokemon. When a Pokemon spawns on your map you can tap it to try and capture it. Doing so utilizes your camera, showing you a 3D image of the Pokemon displayed onto real world surroundings, as if it was actually there. You can use pokeballs to try and capture it, and your success rate depends on whether or not you hit the Pokemon, it's rarity, and your timing. You can also turn off the camera which does make it a little easier to aim, but makes it less fun. If you ever see grass rustle on your map, you should make an effort to go to that place because that means there's a Pokemon in that area.

You can also tell what kinds of Pokemon are in your area using the lower right tab. The tab shows the shape of Pokemon near you. If you've seen it before it will be colored in and you know what it is, if you haven't, it's greyed out. Under the shape will be 3 or less footsteps. 3 footsteps means that it is 150 meters or less away. 2 footsteps means less than 100 meters, and 1 footstep means it's 50 meters or less from you. If it doesn't have any, it will probably appear on your map any second. Across the map are small blue towers. These towers indicate a pokestop. A pokestop is a public place such as a gym, church, fire station, restaurant, or monument, that you can stop at to get items. Items include pokeballs, incense to lure Pokemon to you, lures that lure Pokemon to a specific pokestop, and eggs. You can put an egg into an item called an incubator and once you've walked a certain distance the egg will hatch. Every five minutes or so you can use the same pokestop again.

There are also larger towers called gyms. Once you've reached level five you pick one of three teams, Instinct (yellow), mystic (blue), or valor (red). If a gym is the color of your team it means your team has captured that gym and you can fight your Pokemon against the other team of Pokemon controlling the gym, in order to train and level up. If the gym was the color of an opposing team, if you beat all six of the controlling Pokemon, you've claimed that gym for your team until a different team takes it again.

Pokemon Go is an amazing game. It's ridiculously fun, constantly updating, social game with more features and Pokemon on the way. It's also addictive in a way that's actually healthy because the game requires you to get up and walk and some players have walked miles in one day just to play the game and have fun and meet new people. I highly recommend downloading Pokemon Go.


- By Ashton