I grew up playing "Pokémon," and my older sister grew up with the originals. I'm talking about Nintendo Game Boy Color — the "Pokémon" games they got to play were "Pokémon Red" "Blue" and "Yellow." I grew up with "Pokémon Emerald," "Ruby" and "Sapphire." To this day I still have those games, and I even brought my games and Game Boy to college. If that isn't dedication, I don't know what is. In all honestly, as with most '90s kids, becoming a Pokemon master was my life goal and now it may be a reality. It may be childish but:
You've been living under a rock if you haven't known The Pokémon Company has released a new video game called "Pokémon Go." Users download it on their cellular devices (tablets are optional but not recommended) and walk around to catch Pokemon. So to start off you either need a Google account or register with the Pokémon Club. (The latter is at this point having issues, so I'd go with the Google account.)
Now here comes one of the biggest decisions in your life that you've already chosen when you were a kid. Which Pokémon to start off with: Charmander, Bulbasaur or Squirtle. I've read you can start off with a Pikachu if you'd like but it's a bit tricky. If you want to, here's how.
The cool aspect of this new Pokémon game is that you actually have to walk around (or drive if you want to cheat) to look for Pokémon, gyms or Poké-stops. Poké-stops are pretty much Poké-marts where you can get items like Poké-balls, eggs and more. You can't technically participate in gyms until your trainer is level 5. At that point you can choose to join three gyms: blue, red, or yellow. It's more of a gang type of feel. You pick a team and attack other gyms to steal it.
The bad thing about it being so popular is the services keep going down, which may be the amount of people playing or some other technical difficulty. If you do decide to get the game, be patient.
My experience playing it so far has been dream-fulfilling because living by a college campus makes the game awesome. There are a huge amount of Poké-stops around me, a ton of Pokémon and fellow trainers in my area. It's pretty great to see people randomly standing in the post office parking lot trying to get some items. Since the game was first released there has been more people on the streets trying to "catch em' all." This game even motivates me to actually do something this summer, like exercise. So if I've somehow convinced you to download the app, good luck! You'll be finding yourself in new places, meeting new people and living your childhood dream.
