Gotta catch ’em all!

Here’s how PokémonGo has changed the gaming scenario

It’s not often that a form of entertainment beyond sports brings together different generations and races but times are changing and Nintendo’s latest launch Pokémon GO has done the unthinkable.

Despite being launched only in three countries, people across the world have found ways to sideload the game and get in on the madness that is Pokémon GO. Within just a week of its launch people have pretty much dropped everything in their life to play Pokémon GO; from a would-be dad catching Pokémon while his wife gives birth, to a teenager discovering a dead body and people making new friends on the road at 3 am. The Pokémon GO hype train doesn’t look like it’s going to slow down and Nintendo couldn’t be happier as their stock has gone up by around $9 billion in under a week, thanks to Pokémon Go.

The game brings the world of Pokémon to you, wherever you go. The augmented reality/GPS based game shows you Pokémon and gyms in your surroundings and you can catch them with a flick of your screen. Once you have a bunch of Pokémon, you can level them up or evolve them into stronger Pokémon by catching duplicates and then look to gyms in the surrounding area. The gyms are where the meta game comes with players being asked to choose between three global teams: Mystic (blue), Valor (red) and Instinct (yellow). You can claim empty gyms for your team and leave Pokémons to guard them or engage in battles with defending Pokémons at an opposing teams gym to try and take it down and claim it.

I’ll admit as of now Pokémon GO is pretty bare bones with franchise staples like trading and head to head battles completely missing, but Nintendo said they are working on it and an upcoming update will add trading. But honestly, people don’t really care. The thrill of finally being able to walk around and catch Pokémon is something most of us have dreamed off since the ’90s when we first chose between Charmander, Bulbasaur and Squirtle.

Niantic, the developers behind the game have a great track record with their previous GPS-based game Ingress and they have done a great job with Pokémon GO. They just need to work on their server load issues because almost everyone wants to “catch ’em all”.