[The video game thread]

[ganon578]

Ha hahahaha, almost all I do when we're out on hot sunny days during the summer is worry about this kid's skin, so this is super-funny to me. I've only been able to head out a handful of times myself so we're probably in the same boat.

This game is turning out to be strangely divisive, isn't it?

Yes it is. Just the other day one of my close friends from college posted something along the lines of '**** Pokemon Go!'. Had to reply that I just don't understand all the hate. If you don't want to play, don't. It's that simple. No need to rage about it on Facebook. Let people do their thing; it's not harming you that other people play it.

[Brendocon 2.0]

Yeah, there's a lot of social media snobbery flying around on it, but **** em. They can sit in and stare at the tv, getting SERIOUS UPSET about the state of the world. Kids are out actually engaging with the world (albeit though a virtual overlay) and socialising in the process. Escapism is healthy.

You get a second incubator aaaat... I want to say level 7 but I don't remember now... But its only 3 uses.

Level 6! I now have two eggs on the go - a 5km and a 2km. Which would be great if the servers stayed up long enough for me to walk the buggers. Also would be useful if the data connection around here wasn't absolute dogshit.

Town is literally heaving with Pokestops, Gyms and monsterz, but unless I'm within range of a friendly wifi router it's not worth a damn thing.

My favourite bit is when I encounter a new Pokemon, tap on it, all the onscreen gubbins drops away as it prepares to engage and then... oh, no internet connectivity. Entire game freezes. Need a restart. Aaaand of course by the time I'm back on the bugger's done a runner.

[Hound]

That happened to me a lot at first but it's gotten better over time. Today was great I only had to restart the game once and there were no server issues for me.

If only the game didn't kill my phone battery...

[Sades]

A stationary bike or treadmill will hatch eggs as well as walking will.

You could also strap your phone to the nearest pet or toddler (may or may not gave considered that last one when I was done on the bike).

No Pokémon for me today, just booming ****ing Thunderstorms waking me up. (Insert Pikachu joke of choice here)

[Brendocon 2.0]

Hear you on the battery munching. I tried playing with my phone plugged into my laptop (just skimming off whatever came within range of my Pokestop), but I swear it's eating power quicker than it charges.

Treadmill? Really? I assumed it worked off actual physical movement across the map. Weird. Anyhow, I don't own either bit of exercise kit, so it's a moo point for me.

Aaaanyway, I finally managed to get out a couple of times yesterday and do some proper play. Not sure if it's because I've levelled up a bunch of times or whatever but I've been on a nice little run of catching stuff I hadn't seen before.

Though the Weedles, Ratattas and Pidgeys I'm encountering have suddenly become absolute bastards, needing about three tries to actually get them to stay in the ball - surely this should be easier the more XP you've got? I could cope with wasting all my Pokeballs today trying to catch a Pidgeot, if not for the fact I'd lost about six this morning on ****ing Weedles. And I know you can pick them up again but that doesn't always work...

What am I even meant to do with all these Ratattas anyway? The ****ers only evolve once and trading them in just gets me more candy to turn them into something I've already got five of. Okay I could go and train one and let it get savaged by a Golbat but I'm just enjoying the hunt aspect of the game at the moment.

My first egg hatched. It was a Magikarp. Which would have been a surreal novelty (reminder that I have no prior first-hand knowledge of this universe at all) had I not caught one of them about twenty minutes before. I know some of these creatures are meant to be weird, but that one just takes the ****ing piss.

[Sades]

Treadmill? Really? I assumed it worked off actual physical movement across the map.

That's what I thought, and I'd read articles that said that they did and they didn't so I decided to try it out myself. It's not fast and kms don't measure right (cycled for an hour last night, registered just under a km) but it works. I'm not even sure how it works, because my phone doesn't have an internal pedometer, but whatev.

I'd say skip the Weedles that start evading right away, they usually cost more than they're worth. The Ratattas don't really have much use but you can "farm" Pidgeys and Weedles to get some major xp using a Lucky Egg when you get to level 9 (basically, collect a bunch, use egg, evolve a bunch of them, turn evolved forms into candy to continue cycle for as long as possible). You get 500 xp per evolved form and the lucky egg doubles that.

Magikarp evolves into Gyarados, and Gyarados is awesome. The easiest way to get one is to get lucky and hatch one though, because 500 candies to evolve is (purposefully, Magikarp is supposed to be a pain in the ass) ridiculous.

[Brendocon 2.0]

That's what I thought, and I'd read articles that said that they did and they didn't so I decided to try it out myself. It's not fast and kms don't measure right (cycled for an hour last night, registered just under a km) but it works. I'm not even sure how it works, because my phone doesn't have an internal pedometer, but whatev.

Weird. I know if I leave the game open the little guy just sort of wanders about within a small radius every now and then, so maybe it's something to do with that. No clue.

But I've had two more eggs hatch on me. The 2km was a Caterpie, which would have been a letdown if I hadn't realised I could immediately evolve it into a Metapod. And the 5km was a Duodo.

Have started catching Krabby on a regular basis now, with an occasional Magikarp. Almost as if the game's suddenly registered that I live by a river.

In the last day or so I've also landed a Seel, a Shellder, a Koffing, a couple of Gastly, another Eevee and finally caught an Abra (had encountered one on my first day but the ****er broke free and BAMFd away from me).

I'd say skip the Weedles that start evading right away, they usually cost more than they're worth. The Ratattas don't really have much use but you can "farm" Pidgeys and Weedles to get some major xp using a Lucky Egg when you get to level 9 (basically, collect a bunch, use egg, evolve a bunch of them, turn evolved forms into candy to continue cycle for as long as possible). You get 500 xp per evolved form and the lucky egg doubles that.

This is good thinking.

Magikarp evolves into Gyarados, and Gyarados is awesome. The easiest way to get one is to get lucky and hatch one though, because 500 candies to evolve is (purposefully, Magikarp is supposed to be a pain in the ass) ridiculous.

I thought it might have been a troll move when I saw how much candy it needed. Nice to know there's a sense of humour inherent in the set-up.

Though the whole candy thing is confusing. I get some automatically when I catch a Pokemon, but then I can give the Pokemon to the Professor for another piece of candy, and all the candy is monster-specific... where does it come from? Who's making this? How does it work? Is the monster carrying the candy around with it when I catch it? If so where's it getting it from? Does the Professor give it to me as a reward for catching one? Who's making it? What's the Professor getting out of this and what's he doing with the monsters I give him? Is he grinding the Pokemon down and creating candy from their growth hormones and then distributing it as a reward for whoever collects them? What's the angle here? It's all very suspicious.

[Sades]

I can't take credit for the farming idea, I read an article that described the process.Was amazeballs genius awesome though, had to share.

the 5km was a Duodo.

Ahhhhh jelly. I haven't even seen a Doduo in the wild yet, much less hatched one.

with an occasional Magikarp.

Gonna play hard mode and try to evolve?

Every time I have time and am in a good location to play this game lately it seems the servers are borked or I have trouble logging on for whatever reason. So nothing new from me, except for a Ghastly I caught immediately before the game froze on me.

Found this in my travels, it's super-useful: http://pokevision.com

Is he grinding the Pokemon down and creating candy from their growth hormones and then distributing it as a reward for whoever collects them? What's the angle here? It's all very suspicious.

Pokémon Candy is Pokémon

There's too many Pidgeys, anyway. We're doing the rest a favour.

[Hound]

Pokémon Candy is Pokémon

There's too many Pidgeys, anyway. We're doing the rest a favour.

I've decided that night time is the best time to go hunting. Some work buddies and I went out walking from midnight to 3am a couple days ago and I got an amazing amount of Pokémon that I hadn't been finding a lot of on my walks to and from work. Plus that was when there were the most other players out hunting too. We managed to find a Dratini that night.

I hatched a 963cp Lapras from a 10km egg yesterday. That was pretty awesome. She'll be my lead battler at the gym fights... of which there will be many!

[Brendocon 2.0]

Gonna play hard mode and try to evolve?

Well I just hatched another ****ing Magikarp egg, which means I've got 40/400 candies required, so why the hell not.

The other egg that hatched on the walk I just got back from was a ****ing Ratatta, so you can imagine how I reacted to that. Was out for about half an hour, managed to hit all the near-local Pokéstops before all the adults got home and onto the interwebz, came back with 60 Pokéballs, a Horsea and a Poliwag.

[Sades]

Well I just hatched another ****ing Magikarp egg, which means I've got 40/400 candies required, so why the hell not.

Srs might end up with a stronger Gyarados that way though. I'm tempted to try (need gym killer) but I'd probably get halfway there, get bored and give up.

I've decided that night time is the best time to go hunting.

Yup, I've been checking out locations we will be near to/able to get to with the website linked above and all the awesome stuff seems to come out when I can't go anywhere. All the pidgeys I can catch though, so my farm will be in good shape.

Speaking of, managed to get out for awhile after supper. Went to the local pokestop to find three truck's worth of local law enforcement sitting at a lure, all playing Pokémon. They threw another down after that one was finished so we just hung out until it was done. Managed to level to 9, got my lucky egg and immediately began sending Pidgeys to their doom. Levelled to 11, almost 12. Notable catches: a ****ing adorable Horsea and a Nidorina. Saw a Golbat but only had 3 pokeballs at the time, all missed. (No, wait. The Golbat I let go, because I only had a handful of pokeballs. I lost my pokeballs on a bellsprout because I hadn't been paying attention to how many balls I had).

[burnitall]

I found a Snorlax at McDonalds. But I was out of Pokeballs. Dammit.

[Cyberstrike nTo]

I'm playing Mass Effect 1 on my Xbox 360. I started this play though on my Xbox One and switched back to the Xbox 360 because I want to play this Shepard in Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3.

[Sades]

One of my favourite Pokémon is Snorlax, so I'm really looking forward to getting one.

Today was an awesome Pokémon day. Made it onto the city without the connection being a dick for once so was actually able to look for Pokémon. There were lures set in one location that had three pokestops close to each other, so we sat for awhile and let them come to us till the toddler was bored. Then we went and did chores, then hunted in the 'burbs before returning to lures for awhile longer.

I caught an Abra, Bulbasaur, Parasect, Staryu and a Goldeen among 40ish assorted Ratatta, Pidgey, Weedles and Venonats. And one of my eggs hatched into a Kabuto.

Oh, forgot I evolved one of my Eevee into a Jolteon yesterday. He's not very good, currently at a little over 500 cp but I put him in a gym for awhile anyway and collected my gym bonus. I also put a Raticate into another gym. Both were back with me at 1 HP within an hour.

[Hound]

My second 10km egg hatched into a Scyther. A Mother****in' Scyther!!!

Also I caught a Kadabra, Jigglypuff, Kakuna, Oddish, Venonat, Shellder, and a Jynx. Also battled and won at 3 Gyms, one of which I was able to add a Hypno to and collect the bonus. The other two I didn't want to hang out at long enough to battle however many times it would take to actually conquer the gym.

[Heinrad]

So, showing how much I'm on the ball about these things, I've realized that you can get/download PS One games onto your PS3 to play on the PSP.

Strangely enough, it's all down to me suddenly having an urge to play Resident Evil 2 and 3(and the first one, but I've got that for the DS). And, a few years after I downloaded RE2 onto my PS3, it struck me that I could download stuff onto my PSP.

Yeah, I'm a bit behind the curve on some things. I haven't really used the PSP in a while, mainly because the wifi no longer connects. It works, but it won't talk to the DSL modem. So I've downloaded...

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis - A good, solid game. Lots of fun, some good jump scares..... And a rocket launcher toting Tyrant chasing you through the zombie infested wreck of Raccoon City.

And Tomb Raider 1 - 4, which I'd already downloaded a while ago.

[Hound]

I caught a Electabuzz in the break room at work as I was getting ready to leave. That is about it though...

[Brendocon 2.0]

Is it unreasonable of me to think that Pokémon who you catch and then break free twice before disappearing in a puff of smoke are taking the piss a little bit?

I mean what's the point of even showing them to me in the first place if it's not actually going to let me catch them? Had a Butterfree and Tentacool both do this to me this week. Oh, and a Squirtle. And a ****ing Magikarp, ffs. Today I wasted six regular and two great balls trying to contain a 324cp Paras, which eventually decided to stop arguing, but I don't feel was worth the effort.

Haven't been out with this as much as I'd have liked lately, but I'm getting a few more "non standard" Mons pop up with increasing frequency now. Gastly, Venonat and Drowsy are getting a lot more common for me, plus of course the coveted Magikarp. Plus Eevee (presumably you've seen the cheat for controlling its evolution?)

All I've managed to capture lately in terms of "new" stuff are a Goldeen and, this morning, a Jigglypuff. Pokedex is currently on 37 (seen 39) and I've literally just hit level 15.

[StoneCold Skywarp]

I caught Psyduck and now have no further reason to keep playing Pokemon Go

[Brendocon 2.0]

I've got two Psyducks so nyeah.

Evolved a Flareon yesterday. Fire cat/gerbil/rabbit/thing ftw! Finally caught enough Drowzees to evolve a Hypno and then immediately encountered one of the ****ers in the wild. Also spent 5km hatching a Paras that enabled me to evolve a Parasect. Just caught a Bellsprout too.

Also caught enough Gastly to evolve a second Haunter, so can now start building to turn one of those into whatever comes next.

Best accomplishment yesterday was taking down a gym in about five minutes. Though I left it unclaimed because apparently I've seen too many westerns and was happy to just walk away with the job done. Though it was reclaimed by the same team about an hour later, so I may have to go back and do the job again tomorrow just to **** with them.