My Pokémon Center London Experience

- Written by James Walters

Posing with the mon himself, Dapperchu!

This year marks a special occasion in the world of video games and Pokémon because a brand-new Pokémon Center has opened up right in this country (albeit a pop-up store). Yes, between the 18^th October and 15^th November, Pokémon fans across the country (and beyond) can go to Westfield shopping centre in Shepard’s Bush, London to buy exclusive merch and even sample the upcoming release, Pokémon Sword and Shield. This is all in aid of the new games as the generation 8 titles are set in the Galar region, which is heavily inspired by the UK. Lining up well in our schedules that my partner had a long weekend and it was my birthday (Happy birthday to me!), we took a trip down to the big smoke and pay the Pokémon Center a visit over opening weekend.

Now I know what you’re thinking, “Travelling to a pop-up store for the most popular media franchise ever on opening weekend? Are you mad??” And the answer to that is a resounding yes. Of course we didn’t go JUST for the shop, we used one of our days there to visit that (which I’ll get into more later) and the others were for general shopping around London. This was an area of the city I’d never been to before, so it was nice to see another side of our nation’s capital. The outline of our journey was travelling down by train on Friday, staying at a hotel in Hammersmith until Monday and returning on train back home. The journey itself wasn’t too bad, but I discovered two things about myself; 1) I can’t ride backwards on trains for long periods and 2) Don’t eat before a long train ride at high speeds.

So, Saturday morning came, 19^th October 2019. We woke up, had breakfast at the hotel and headed off to the shopping centre at around 9am, expecting the walk to be half an hour. I had read a few articles talking about the store already saying the queues were immense and that the average wait time was around 6 hours. 6 whole hours! But we were prepared none the less to be there for a while, bringing along food and drink as well as entertainment in the form of my Nintendo Switch.

As I mentioned, we had never been to this place before so the first obstacle was getting inside. It involved us walking through some residential areas nearby until we eventually found an entrance dubbed “The Village”. Clearly this end of the building was for the higher ups in terms of finances and disposable income. Quickly we moved on and found ourselves on the 1^st floor walking down the length of the centre when I could hear some commotion further up. Bearing in mind that this was about 9:35am and the shops weren’t due to open until 10am, we assumed rightfully that this was going to be people queueing for the Pokémon Center.

Turning the corner proved that we were right as a huge crowd of people were lined up against the railing stretching down to the opposite end of the area and around the corner. There was a guard stood at the end and we, I’d argue rightfully assumed, that this was where the queue ended.

It wasn’t.

He informed us that the queue was “downstairs and outside”. Okay, we thought, this queue is clearly going to be longer than we thought but let’s move on. Down the escalator we went and out the doors to find a whole crowd of people, lined up in three hefty lines in front of the building. Wow, we said to each other, this is gonna be a long day but still we were determined; the main reason for our journey was to visit the store for my birthday so we had nowhere else to be. Another guard at the end of that gaggle and we made our way toward them.

This wasn’t the end either.

Even further back, across two roads and past even more people lined up against flower beds and leading up next to a children’s playground outside a John Lewis store, we FINALLY found the end of the queue. We asked another nearby guard about the waiting time and he said, and I quote “About 5-6 hours from here”. So the reports were accurate at least. Good news was we had somewhere to sit with all the flower beds around the site. The bad news was we were situated in the shadows so the English breeze felt extra cold and we were both armed with only simple jackets.

The queue continued to form behind us. Before long it reached the other end of John Lewis and rounded the corner. Murmurs travelled up the line and we heard that they had eventually closed off the queue. The appointed hour came, 10am, and we had anticipated the queue to start moving along or even have a sudden move forward at least… but nothing happened. Sure, the queues did shuffle forward slightly in that area, but most if not all of that was from people who had given up and left already. And so we waited…

4 Hours Later…

Suddenly everyone stood to attention; something was happening further up in the next queue section. Various people cheering and shouting as they rose to their feet and moved towards the building! The guard heading up our section beckoned us to move toward and down to the next waiting section where we dutifully lined ourselves against the new walls and flower beds. Then it all moved again; across the courtyard and towards the road crossings, we now headed up the queue for our sections.

It was at this point that mother nature reared her ugly head and the heaven’s opened up on us all, with numerous people raising their already packed umbrellas high above the crowd. Suddenly people the general vicinity grew a lot closer to one another as they took shelter from the rain. It was at this point that we began to make friends with the people around us in the queue who we had great conversations with during the rest of our time queuing.

After what felt like another hour (but was probably only half that time), the queues shifted again and we cross the roads over to the aforementioned three-line queues. Finally, the end was in sight! Well, the end of the outside portion at least. Even after this long excursion, others in the queue gave up hope and left. It was most effective to tackle this level of queuing when you had someone with you or at least made a friend so you could take bathroom and food breaks. Honestly, I don’t know if I’d have actually survived if I didn’t have my partner there with me. Of course, she wasn’t best pleased with the whole situation but we made the best of it.

Going into the day, I had already laid out what I wanted from the store; I planned to get a couple items from the shop and sample the demo room upstairs. I thought that as this wasn’t the first pop-up store the Pokémon Company had done, they would learn from last time and ensure that enough people got what they wanted for their troubles. Suddenly cries rang around the queue; the stock had ran out. The premier item on everyone’s mind, the London Centre Pikachu plush, which had once in the day lined shelves inside was now barren. Any of the limited edition items had been given a ‘1 per customer’ buying limit. Members of the crowd were following events on Twitter and numerous tweets and photos went up showing that the store had been cleaned out. More people began to lose hope and left, claiming there was no point in waiting when the only thing they wanted was gone. But I held out hope; they won’t make the same mistake twice, there will be more stock somewhere and if not, they’d get more delivered soon.

Somewhere between 6pm and 7pm…

At last, we had moved from the cold drab outside queue inside of the building. Sitting down on the floor was now a viable option and we no longer needed our jackets to keep warm. Things were good. Some of our new group learned of a disability queue that got into the store faster and moved on to find it. They did actually have disabled needs by the way, they didn’t just fake it to get in faster! Had we known earlier on, they could have saved her some pain and gotten in much sooner.

Moving up, we came to the point that we had assumed earlier in the day was the queue’s end. It was here we’d made a second group of friends who would be the ones we’d make it to the store with in the end. Winding through the middle of Westfield, the queue moved at a nicer pace than before and before long, we rounded the corner and could see the store clear as day. Our excitement only grew more! My recurring desire to play the demo only grew but, as my new friends and partner were quick to remind me, the game releases very soon so there wasn’t any point. And, after the length of time we’d been waiting, neither Loz nor I wanted to spend even more time waiting around. Rounding the final corner and joining the queue leading straight to the door, finally we had made it.

Immediately we grabbed a basket and headed straight for the limited-edition London merch side. Pikachu’s (or Dapperchu as we called him) lined the shelves once again and I put it straight into my basket. Moving to the back end of the store, I found the smaller range of Galar Pokémon merchandise and got my hands on my fire starter, Scorbunny. American style jackets lined the walls, emblazoned with the new starters and adorned in their colours. Not even looking at price, only the size, I got my Scorbunny jacket and I had met my desires for items. To ensure all customers had an equal share of products, the store placed a 6 item per person limit on everyone. By the time we got in, that felt like more of a challenge than a limit.

All of a sudden, my heart broke. Loz only wanted 2 things from the store that day; the large Mimikyu and Mew plushes they had on sale. Both had been very popular it seems, as neither was on the shelf by the time we made it in. I felt powerless. She had spent the entire day with me, queueing for a store than I wanted to visit for my birthday, with the prospect of getting the only two items she really wanted and they were all gone. I pleaded with a staff member; “Please, if there is any way I can get back into the store tomorrow morning, only for a moment-“ but countless others before me had already asked hundreds of times over and ended up in the same position.

Wishing to not lose out entirely, we found other things she liked, making up the overflow of items per person between us. The grass starter, Grooky, caught her eye and she was hooked on him. Seeing the poor water type, Sobble, being the only one left behind was too much and he made his way into our basket too. A water bottle/flask combo by a company called Chilly’s that had been branded with the London Pikachu and a cup decorated with the Pokemon-ified London signs and signifiers also ended up in the bag. Finally, the ever loved and ever adorable Vulpix was grabbed alongside an original trio eeveelution, Vaporeon.

Purchases made, selfie taken with new friends and Dapperchu, our day at the Pokémon Center London drew to a close.

It was apparently customary to take a picture of the items you bought, so that’s what we did.

If you have made it this far down, first of all thank you for reading my story and secondly, you may have noticed a strange pattern about this piece. For although the title is “My Pokémon Center London Experience”, the part of this piece featuring the store itself was minute compared to the rest of what’s written. That is because as memorable as the store itself was, it took up the smallest amount of time that day. We arrived in that queue at 9:40am, got into the store at 9:10pm and left for home at 9:18pm. We queued for 11 and a half hours that day, for 8 minutes of time in the store. So clearly, we are indeed insane.While the store has been open for a little under a week at time of writing, each day since has had people queueing outside of the building. Never getting quite as far as we did, but outside none the less. Many people, including ourselves, have numerous frustrations with this and the store itself, while there are some on the social forums who have been adamantly defending the store despite its flaws. I wish to emphasize right now that I don’t think it was a bad shop or that the staff and security did a bad job; all the guards we met were incredibly kind and helpful and even though the staff were set on a 12 hour shift they were polite and friendly with us too. No my issue here is with how the store itself was poorly constructed and managed.

I’m reminded of one Twitter tirade I saw scrolling through where one person aptly pointed out “Does Pokémon not realise how big Pokémon is?” and I’m inclined to agree with them. Having only two physical stores in the entire world and online store catered to Japanese and American audiences, Pokémon Company has once again made the rather large mistake of underestimating how much of a fan base they have outside these regions. It happened back in 2014 with the pop-up store in Paris and unfortunately it is happening here in London 2019. Other Twitter users (who failed to cite any sources) have gone on to tell others that there is more stock coming in but once it’s gone that’s it. This next batch HAS to last them until the 15^th of November and they’re even going as far to limit sales per day. As of Monday 22^nd, an official Twitter account was created for the London Center that informed followers the store had altered its opening times. The Sunday hours remained the same (12pm – 6pm) but Monday to Saturday was now 10am to 6pm, meaning that queueing is cut off much earlier and anyone wanted to get in must be queuing from around 10am at the latest to even get a chance.

To sum up, this store was a great idea and an even better way to market the new games. Its construction and management have been less than great and I’d honestly be surprised if they lasted until their intended close date. If anything were to come out from this, hopefully it is that the Pokémon Company, Nintendo, whoever it is that runs these things will see that there is a very high demand for Pokémon merchandise in the UK alone, possibly more so across Europe. It would be wise for them, at the very least, to open an online store for UK customers so we aren’t charged international shipping. Or even go as far as to create a retail store somewhere in the country. Clearly Poké-mania is having another resurgence and the Pokémon Company need to stand up and take notice.

PS Plus November 2019 Games Revealed – High Quality Offerings!

- Written by James Walters

Players will be fighting for their lives in two very different styles this month! [PlayStation™, Sony™. Image Source: YouTube™]

It comes but once a month and this month is no exception. PlayStation has revealed the free PS Plus free game offerings for the month of November 2019. Players that have a PS Plus subscription can look forward to adding Nioh (Team Ninja, 2017) and Outlast 2 (Red Barrels, 2017) to their game libraries as of November 5^th.

Both games were well received upon their releases. At time of writing, Nioh has an 88 on Metacritic, whereas Outlast 2 has received a 68 for the console edition. It is an interesting choice that we are receiving a horror title in the November line-up instead of October, in keeping with the Halloween season. Never the less, the first Outlast game is considered something of a classic in the survival horror genre and Nioh, despite its comparisons to the Dark Souls (From Software) titles, has garnered enough of a fan base that a sequel is currently in development.

Nioh (Team Ninja, 2017)

Taking place in the Sengoku period of Japan, players take control of William (who is Irish by the way) as he battles his way across Japan in search of an evil sorcerer. Along the way he will encounter all manner of enemies ranging from humans, animals and mystical demon creatures known as Yōkai.

You can equip swords, staffs, bows and all other manner of weapons in his pursuit. The aforementioned comparisons to the Dark Soul titles are very apt, anyone going into this game with experience in the genre will undoubtedly feel right at home with the gameplay mechanics. However, there are tweaks to what players know and veterans and newcomers shall find something that will give them adequate challenge.

Outlast 2 (Red Barrel, 2017)

The anticipated sequel to the 2013 title, Outlast 2 follows another journalist (yikes!) named Blake Langermann as he and his wife, Lynn, travel to the Arizona desert in search of clues to the murder of a mysterious woman. Their helicopter crashes and Blake must search for his wife, but he’ll have to be careful as they’ve landed in the middle of a deranged sect who believe the end of days is upon us.

Run, hide and do whatever you have to do to survive. It’ll be dark, so players will have use of a video camera’s night vision in order to see, but watch out you don’t run out of batteries or you’ll be left without any sight and any hope!

The current PS Plus titles for October; The Last of Us Remastered (Naughty Dog, 2014) and MLB The Show 19 (SIE San Diego, 2019) are still available now for anyone who hasn’t yet claimed them. You can claim them through the PlayStation store’s PS Plus tab until November 4^th. But coming into November, players should look forward to the titles on offer. Sony have delivered a high quality offering this month and we can only hope this trend continues.

The Last of Us Part 2... Is delayed

- Written by James Walters

Fans will have to wait that bit longer to see what's next for Joel and Ellie [Naughty Dog ©, Sony ©, Image Source: WePC.com]

At the tail end of September 2019, PlayStation fans the world over were treated to another of Sony's State of Play live streams (their own version of a Nintendo Direct). This stream in particular was special however, as in the days leading up to it, we were teased by Naughty Dog themselves that we would be receiving more news and information surrounding the highly anticipated The Last of Us Part 2. What fans got was a decently lengthy new trailer and, most surprising of all, a release date of February 21st 2020! After showing off various physical and digital editions of the game, things have been relatively quiet over the month of October.

Fast forward to October 23rd and to one Twitter account of Daniel Ahmad, who has a reputation for leaking news and information before it's made officially public. The account posts the following:

"Looks like we might hear some unexpected news about a Sony first party title soon." - Daniel Ahmad

Naturally many fans thought that we may be getting some information about the remaining exclusive titles that are due out for the system; The Last of Us Part 2 or Ghosts of Tsushima, or perhaps a reveal of something new entirely! It turned out, however that the news was in deed regarding The Last of Us Part 2. The downside was that it seemed as though the game had been delayed into spring 2020, according to Kotaku's Jason Schreier (also known for inside information and leaks).

While we didn't wish for this to be true, Mr. Schreier has been a reliable source for information for many years when it comes to video games and the games industry, so his reliability speaks for itself. Then, as if on cue, an official PlayStation blog post was released on October 24th detailing how the game would now be releasing on May 29th 2020; just over 3 months from its original date.

Of course, I and others were somewhat disappointed by this news; after such a big reveal last month and giving members of the media chance to play 2 hours’ worth of the game, it was a shame to hear that we would now have to wait that bit longer for the full game to be in our hands. However game delays are usually only ever a good thing (with some exceptions). So while we won't get our hands on The Last of Us Part 2 in February, we can take some assurance in the fact that when it does release at the end of May 2020, it will have had that extra time to give it that level of quality we now look for in a Naughty Dog game.

Joker (2019) Review - Not your average comic book movie

- Written by James Walters

Even bad guys have to come from somewhere! [Warner Bros., DC Comics ©, Image Source: Looper, bosslogic]

Despite, or perhaps in spite, of the controversy surrounding this film, Joker is still a comic book movie but it is unlike any comic book movie that has some before it. Tackling one of the most iconic characters in pop culture, Joaquin Phoenix delivers a truly outstanding and memorable performance that will have you unsettled and invested for its 2 hour run time.

We’re introduced to our protagonist (or antagonist) Arthur Fleck while he’s working as a clown-for-hire in the infamous Gotham City. Before the opening title credits, we are witness to him being robbed and beaten up with nary a passer-by giving any kind of assistance. Already we get a sense of the kind of person he is and the environment that he comes from as this is just the start of Arthur’s troubles across the movies runtime. Obviously this review will remain as spoiler-free as possible. It’s become a common phrase in today’s movie industry, this truly is a film that you have to see unspoiled in order to get fully immersed into what you see.

Director Todd Phillips, who also directed the Hangover trilogy, really brings the viewers into the world of Joker right from the onset and keeps us there despite our unease in some of the later scenes. At certain points across the length of the film, the camera will stay with a shot just that bit longer than we are accustomed to and we truly feel a sense of unease every second we linger on moments through Arthur’s story. Everything has a gritty sense of realism to it and, for a film rated 15, they throw out their fair share of F bombs and violence throughout.

Telling a story about the Joker as a character would have felt alien without any violence really. But what’s on show isn’t excessive in the way many have been lead to believe in the run up to the film’s release. I couldn’t say how long it took into the film for Arthur’s first kill to take place but after that point it’s very spaced out. It isn’t a case where people are dropping left, right and centre. Those going into the film expecting this level of violence or intense action sequences will be left unfulfilled by what they’ve been accustomed to with comic book movies, but as mentioned before this isn’t like other comic book movies. The overarching narrative isn’t one of heroism and overcoming adversity, it’s simply a story of one man’s spiral into madness due to his own conditions and the environment he is exposed to.

We must address the elephant in the room surrounding the controversy of this film. For those who didn’t know, it almost essentially started when Joaquin Phoenix was asked during the press tour whether or not her thought people might look at Joker as inspiration for violence in real life. Understandably shook by the question he walked out the interview, only to return later on at the behest of the producers. From this, many have looked at the film through this lens that Joker may be promoting violence in real life. While it isn’t for me to say what people may take away from this film and its depictions of violence, in my honest opinion I don’t agree with this idea that it promotes it at all.

As a viewer we are asked to sympathise with Arthur to a degree, this is true of most stories throughout media history to identify or at least connect with our protagonist in some way, but right from the start we are shown and can see that Arthur suffers various mental disorders. The most prevalent of which is his laughing which acts similar to Tourette; Arthur will laugh uncontrollably for several minutes whenever he is upset of angry. While we’re not asked to sympathize with him or forgive his killings, we are shown throughout the film what it is that has taken him to this dark place and follow his decent into the character of the Joker. Again, it isn’t for me to say that no one out there will be effected by the level of violence on screen but I can say that this film doesn’t promote it during its run time.

To summarise this review, Joker as a movie is unlike any other comic book movie of its kind and one that only works because of the character it’s based off of. The camera work and direction from Todd Phillips is both engaging an uncomfortable in the best ways, forcing us to see everything in Arthur’s life that even he doesn’t want to. Joaquin Phoenix delivers his own interpretation of the character unlike what we’ve seen before, easily as stand out in his own regard, and it works incredibly well to give us a look at the clown prince of crime that we know we aren’t supposed to idolize or aspire to be, but whom we can see along every step why he becomes what he does. After the film had ended, the first words me and my partner said were “That was hard to watch” and “If anyone deserves an Oscar, it’s him”.

Borderlands 3 (PS4) Review - A Great New Borderlands Game

- Written by James Walters

The fresh batch of Vault Hunters to choose from! Who will you main? [2K Games, Gearbox ©, Image Source: Destructoid]

Borderlands, as a franchise, wasn’t actually my cup of tea when it originally debuted way back in 2009. I had friends who would play it non-stop and encourage I do the same, but it never really stuck with me. I never played either of its sequels either. In fact, the first time I sat down to commit with the game was when The Handsome Collection released on PS4 and Xbox One back in 2015 when I had the opportunity to play through the campaign with a friend. From that point on I was hooked and the announcement of Borderlands 3 earlier this year had me more excited than I thought possible for a Borderlands game. Now that’s its out and I’ve managed to run and gun my way through the campaign, I thought I take the time to write up about 2K Games and Gearbox’s latest entry to the series.

For anyone who couldn’t tell, this is a follow-up to Borderlands 2 and takes place an undisclosed amount of time afterwards. Anyone who played the Commander Lilith and the Fight for Sanctuary DLC for The Handsome Collection will know a bit more than those who missed it and just jumped straight through from 2 to 3. But the long and short of it is that the Vault Key the Crimson Raiders had up and went missing (assumedly destroyed) and they want to  find it as it holds a map to other Vaults across the galaxy. Your player character, one of 4 new Vault Hunters, is hired by Lilith (and Claptrap) to help find it and ultimately the vaults. Opposing you are a psycho cult that has formed on Pandora called The Children of the Vault led by the Calypso Twins, Tyreen and Troy. Really, I don’t want to go any further into any story stuff because while story isn’t the focal point of the Borderlands games, it’s still worth going into it blind and experiencing it for yourself. It has a variety of call-backs for long-time fans and some clever Easter eggs hidden around the place if you’re willing to look for them.

Gameplay is pretty much the driving force behind the Borderlands games. It’s fast paced, hectic as hell gun play is pretty much what the series is known for, as well as its signature self-titled looter shooter mechanics. Enemies will drop randomly generated guns and you can swap and change them from your inventory as you please. The game trailers boast something ridiculous like “Over 1 billion guns” and it’s not too hard to believe. There is plenty of variety in weapons but they all fall into the basic categories i.e. pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, SMGs etc. which was the exact layout of gun types I used throughout my time with the game. It’s all down to experimentation and that again is its driving force; you’ll find a layout that appeals to you, you’ll use that to your hearts content and then you’ll find something new to play with! Basic stuff.

The differences between this game and previous comes down to the smaller details, otherwise everything else is nearly identical. You’ll level up and earn skill points but instead of having one super powerful “oh no I’m nearly dead” move you can choose from 3! Which skills you’ll get will change depending upon the character you choose, but the character I chose had 3 skills they could use (although I only ever used one of them). Speaking of characters, the choices on offer this time are as follows;

• Zane - The Operative: To my understanding he’s a pretty standard assassin/rouge type character as he can use one of his abilities to create a decoy or summon a flying robot helper.
• Moze - The Gunner: Arguably a cross between a tank and a soldier as her specialty in normal play is the standard assault rifles and SMGs. Her main skill is to summon a giant mech called the Iron Bear that you can pilot around the battlefield for a short time.
• Amara – The Siren: A staple character type found in the numbered entries now is the Siren character, a pretty well rounded character type that had use of special powers like a huge ground pound and the ability to spawn multiple arms that will smash up bandits and psychos.
• FL4K – The Beastmaster: A first of his kind in the series, FL4K uses Ai controlled companies during battle in the form of tamed beasts found out in the wild (although it is jarring when you have to fight those same beast types throughout the game). He can have at his side a Skaggs, Spiderant or a Jabber each sporting a difference play type and having multiple evolutions when you level up enough in a certain skill tree

If it sounds thus far like all I’ve done is describe the game and not review it, well you’ve caught me there… The difficulty with this game is, if you’ve already played a Borderlands game then you’ve pretty much seen all there is to see I’m afraid. Like I said there are some mechanical changes that I’ll go over in a moment but other than that, it’s pretty much just another Borderlands game and that in itself will be what puts people off or makes them want to play.

I didn’t title this review “A great new Borderlands game” for no reason; it’s simply another game in the series that has some quality of life improvements. Like getting money and ammo is more streamlined now with not having to hold down the ‘pick-up’ button to gather a group of items, instead just walking past will auto collect any money and necessary ammo nearby. The new clambering feature is great and adds a whole new level of verticality to proceedings, with hidden crates and small platforming sections. They added a much needed slide function for when you need to get behind cover in a fire fight; it was so useful a feature that going back and playing the Pre-sequel, I would be running and press the crouch button expecting to power slide only to stop dead in my tracks. These feature are all great new additions and really add to the experience of playing a Borderlands game but that doesn’t take away from the fact that is still the same game at heart.

Although I do want to mention one big gripe I had with the game. As mentioned before, story isn’t the biggest driving force in these games but character is; the worlds you explore are full of interesting and fleshed out characters that add some colour to your missions. These games are known for their memorable characters and even the villains, or at least one great villain being Handsome Jack. Do you see where I’m going with this? The Calypso Twins are just not very interesting in my opinion. They fill the stereotypical eccentric bad guy role well and literally everything they do makes me want to shoot them in the face… repeatedly. But beyond that they’re just so dull. They’re whole reason for what they do is to find and open the “Great Vault” and become gods, they see the whole opening of the Vaults as their birth right (which is explained later on) but beyond that they’re so one dimensional. At least Jack was interesting because in his own way he thought he was the hero and he sought to open the Vault and save Pandora, Tyreen and Troy are more like spoilt brats and annoying social media ‘influencers’ that constantly vie for fans and followers while streaming everything. I wanted to defeat them because they were annoying more so than because they tried to rule the universe.

Before I waffle on I’ll finish up this review now. But it’s like I said before, it’s a difficult one to review because of its similarities to its predecessors. It adds enough little changes that make the overall experience better for it, but simply quality of life improvements does not a whole new game make. The gun variety is expanded upon and there are newer additions to give more variety to customization and play style. The bad guys are underwhelming and the story investing enough that I saw it through to the end. But all of this still comes back to that one glaring point I made earlier; it’s just another Borderlands game. So if you are an avid fan of the series looking for more of what you like but improved upon slightly then you could do worse than playing Borderlands 3. If you are a newcomer to the series than it’s a great place to start and get a feel for it, but a lot of the story beats and call backs will go completely over your head and going back to play the older games might feel a bit jarring. If however you just liked the other games, then you could give Borderlands 3 a go but don’t come into this expecting a drastic change up to what you’ve already seen.

A 24 hour live stream to reveal just 1 Pokémon? Oh dear…

The Glimwood Tangle, which fans got very intimate with over the 24 hour period! [Nintendo, Game Freak ©, Image Source: Dot Esports]

 

If only the title of this post was an exaggeration, but I’m afraid to say it isn’t.

It was announced at the start of this week (Monday 30^th September), that the official Pokémon YouTube channel would be holding a ’24 hour live stream from the Galar Region’ set to begin on Friday 4^th October. Not simply a Nintendo or Pokémon Direct, but 24 hours’ worth of footage from inside a location from the upcoming game; Glimwood Tangle.

Naturally fans around the world were excited to see what this lengthy stream would bring! In UK time, it began yesterday at 2pm and ended this afternoon at 2pm. While I never stayed awake for the full 24 hour stream, I did catch around half of its total run time. The image at the top of this post of the aforementioned Glimwood Tangle (minus the logos of course), was pretty much all we saw for 24 hours straight.

Now I’m only slightly exaggerating! Throughout the stream, various Pokémon would appear and run, float and fall across the screen, even random Pokémon cries would sound at random moments. For a complete breakdown of what happened and when then check out Serebii.net where they posted live updates as the stream went on. I know when I was watching, the Pokémon I saw were; Pikachu, Morelull, Shiinotic and Impidimp of the already established Pokémon. By way of anything new, we only got 1 (potentially 2 yet to be confirmed) brand ‘new’ Pokémon shown off.

At certain points throughout the stream, a bush will rustle and you’ll see something behind it. Not the whole image mind, just a head or a foot (hoof in this case). At even more stretched out moments, the Pokémon would gallop across the screen; clear enough to see it’s something new but not clear enough to see what exactly. Of course, eagle eyed viewers could tell a mile off what it was (also its cry sounded a bunch and, obviously, the galloping is a dead giveaway) and this mysterious new Pokémon was… Galarian Ponyta.

Seems to me that the new Ponyta might have a touch of Fairy type about it! [Nintendo, Game Freak © , Image Source: Amino]

While not totally new of course as it’s a new form of an existing Pokémon, it was great to see something new being shown off during this stream. However, it was the ONLY new thing to be shown off. Sure Impidimp, the new Fairy/Dark type Pokémon, hasn’t been officially revealed yet but fans have already known about him since a screenshot from the E3 demo this year. There was also one final Pokémon cry that went off as the camera went black during the streams close, that of a Rapidash (Ponyta’s evolution) but as many who have experienced the Pokémon gen 7 games (Sun and Moon) will know, a regional variant of a base evolution will evolve into a regional variant of that Pokémon too. E.G. Alolan Geodude evolves into Alolan Graveler, then into Alolan Golem. Having seen a Galarian Ponyta, it was only right to assume it will evolve into a Galarian Rapidash (although this wasn’t shown off).

Regardless of the new Pokémon however, numerous fans who tuned into the stream (myself included) were left very disappointed by the whole procedure. Only giving us 1 or 2 new Pokémon during a 24 hour period is pretty poor. While showing us 24 hours’ worth of gameplay would have arguably been too much, asking people to watch a 24 hour stream with the only payoff being right at the end is ridiculous.

While this hasn’t really dampened the excitement from many fans, this whole experience has left some with a bitter taste in their mouths. A new trailer or even a Pokémon direct would have served much better and would have been far better received than this. Keeping with their theme though, the official Pokémon site updated with a message from Sonia once the stream had ended.

Sonia is a new character in Pokémon Sword and Shield and the granddaughter of the regions professor, Professor Magnolia. The set up behind the stream was that Sonia intended to record footage from the Glimwood Tangle for 24 hours in order to help her grandmother in her research.

Going to the official website page for the stream here will show a message from Sonia that reads, “We saw some interesting Pokémon, didn’t we? I’ll collect everyone’s reports and create a summary for my gran soon. Thanks for the help!” This is likely to mean that we will be receiving a new REAL trailer for Sword and Shield soon. Which really begs the question; why bother with this whole stream in the first place??

Regardless of what everyone thinks of this stream, it’s clear that despite the game being just over a month away, Game Freak and Nintendo aren’t done with showing us new footage and information for the upcoming titles. We haven’t even seen the started evolutions yet! Here’s hoping whatever is shown next won’t involve us having to sit through 24 hours of what is essentially a desktop background.