Tuesday, 04 August 2009

• Walk This Way: Pokéwalker/Pedométermon Details

  See Tim's post about HeartGold and SoulSilver here...

  
  

  The Pokéwalker- a pedometer that levels up a Pokémon as you walk. Walking in real life! Is this another one of Nintendo's sneaky tricks to promote a healthy lifestyle? Walking is so twothousandlate, amirite?

  I'm unsure of how *~brilliant* of an idea this is, and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense within the rules of the game: A Pokémon doesn't usually level up or gain experience by simply walking around, but I guess when brought into the "real world," walking is enough to boost stats. Hell, I guess it beats grinding.
  

  Not only does the Pokéwalker level up one Pokémon at a time, but you can even catch Pokémon on the fly. With the device in your pocket, you can run into wild Pokémon wherever you are, battle and catch them, all with the little pédométérmon. This is arguably the coolest feature.
  

  
  

  We'll see how useful the pédometer turns out to be, but I'm already predicting it will be a hassle, rendering it another dinky Pokétoy collecting dust in my room. Transferring the Pokémon from the game to the dévice means that if it's on the pédometérmon, it won't be in the game. So if you want to level up a favorite Pokémon, you'll have to go through the motions of transferring it back and forth every time you want to battle or train. Seems kind of annoying to me.

  What do you think Nintendo's intention is? Is the pokéripheral a covert way to get you off the couch? I can't exactly see kids wanting to go out for walks now that they have an actual "reason" to do so; that kind of ruins the point of going outside, anyway. And hasn't this been done already?

  • 8:00 PM
  • 820 Views
  • 22 eProps
  • 12 Comments