Pokémon GO

Image courtesy of www.pokemongo.com

When you see people with their phones swiping up or aimlessly tapping their screen, chances are they are playing Pokémon GO. Pokémon GO has been released in the UK for the best part of five months now and is really sweeping the nation but what is it all about?

Well if you are like me and played the original Pokémon games then this app is for you.

 It certainly brings back a lot of nostalgia when playing and the best thing of all it is free to play.

For me one of the most iconic parts that made me harp back to when I was playing Pokémon on my Gameboy was choosing your starting Pokémon and like the original games you can choose from Bulbasaur, Squirtle, or Charmander.

Once you have chosen and caught your starting Pokémon your aim then is to catch all 239 Pokémon; 150 from the original universe and then since the recent update an additional 100 from the re-vamped series 2 universe.

To catch them all you must be prepared to walk hundreds and hundreds of kilometres and from what I have worked out there is no quick way of doing this - trust me on this one, I have tried a lot of different methods of speeding this up and have now given up and resorted back to playing the game as it was meant to be played.

Pokémon eggs are a good way to hatch Pokémon that you haven't seen on your wanderings around, there are three types of eggs: 2km, 5km & 10km. The 10km being the rarer Pokémon. This is where the in-app purchases can help you in speeding up the hatches as you are able to buy more incubators to hatch multiple eggs.

Normally when a game or an app has in-app purchases it ruins it and it just feels like they are there to take your money but with this I feel different, maybe because the app is free to download I do not have a problem making the occasional purchase.

Pokémon GO does come with some cons which are that is has a few software bugs meaning it can limit and make the game frustrating at times. The other downfall is that it is very intensive on the battery but I guess this isn't really anything to do with the actual mechanics of the game and is ruled out if you have a external battery pack. Overall Pokémon GO is a app that I can see myself playing for some time or at least until I've caught them all. 

So, what are you waiting for go catch em' all.