Tag: ds

Building the Best Pokémon Team (Part 27)

~ Burkey Gaming ~ Leave a comment

Building the Best Pokémon Team (Part 27)

Ice creams and gears, we’re at the heart of Generation V now. The last great Pokémon Generation, I called it. But listen, these things are always cyclical. I’m only denouncing later Generations now, the ones that younger players love today, in the same way that people probably dumped all over Generation II when it was the most gobsmacking thing I’d ever experienced, at the time. And if you go still further back, older folks would have looked at me memorising all of the original 151 Pokémon, their types, their moves, their cries, and said “put that down, you fool. Go out and get yourself a girlfriend.”

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If only panda bears could do it on command

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Star Fox Command (2007)

When I was over in Munich, which by a very happy coincidence and completely unbeknownst to us was at the same time as the Oktoberfest, we eventually peeled ourselves away from the dancing tables and found ourselves in a busy park. Not busy with people, but rather there was a WWF display.

It wasn’t HHH versus Stone Cold under the trees, more’s the pity. No, this was the World Wide Fund for Nature, and they were hosting a display of hundreds of little plastic panda bears, which represented the amount of pandas left on earth.

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Building the Best Pokémon Team (Part 26)

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Building the Best Pokémon Team (Part 26)

We’re just about getting to the halfway point of the Unova Dex, which is traditionally where the Pokémon designs begin to get a little more interesting. You’re far away from the generic birds and rats, and getting into heavy metal crocodiles and ghostly coffins. Mind you, you occasionally get the odd trashbag cropping up in places of the Pokédex where it really shouldn’t be – like Stantler being near Blissey and the Legendary Dogs in Johto, or the many generic Water types taking up residence next to the Regis in Hoenn. This time around though, I fear the trash may be just a bit too literal.

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Building the Best Pokémon Team (Part 25)

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Building the Best Pokémon Team (Part 25)

Every Generation starts off with a bit of juice. You’ve got the Starters, some quickly evolving Bugs, and even the common birds have been taking level ups in coolness. Pidgeot and Fearow, classic though they may be, were hardly far removed from real-life birds. But Staraptor and Talonflame? Now we’re talking. Unfortunately, you do eventually have to get to the cave dwellers and fishing fodder. Bottom of the barrel merchants, these guys. You won’t find Zubat in Unova, you’ll be happy to hear. Instead, it’s… Woobat and Swoobat. So that’s tedious and uninspired, then.

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A pearl of wisdom for you – pressure makes diamonds, but leisure time is platinum

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Pokémon Diamond, Pearl & Platinum (2007 / 2009)

I like to think of myself as a pretty patient man, willing to accept cock-ups, malaise and the problems that one generally encounters in life. After all, I don’t tend to care too deeply about anything. I’m perfectly happy to be just sat there, as lazy as a snail, watching Countdown all day. And my primary motivation in work, and anything in life really, is not money, or fame – I just want to avoid any hassle.

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All aboard the Zelda train! Next stop: the anorak masonry

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The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (2009)

I want to bring you, Henry Hill style, into a murky underworld. Don’t worry though, you won’t be an accomplice in anything, nobody’s getting whacked here. Still, there’s plenty of wiseguys having to look over their shoulder all the time, because they’re only minutes away from getting embroiled in it all. Welcome to the dark and seedy world of model trains.

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A Nintendo demo cartridge? No way, it’s gotta be cursed

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Metroid Prime Hunters (2006)

Demos, don’t talk to me about demos. A live demo of something might be the worst thing of all to give to people, yes, even ahead of gonorrhoea. I have found myself in the unenviable position of having to give live demonstrations of how a particular piece of software was meant to work. When you’re in that position, old Murphy can’t get his arse in gear fast enough to track you down and invoke his law, to make it all go wrong for you.

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Marth steps out of the shadows and into another remake

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Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon (2008)

Hollywood’s gotten itself into a creative funk again, and but for the presence of a hundred thousand Marvel and Disney films, made with the express purpose of giving these two creators more disposable cash than any piddly old first world country, there isn’t much to see in the cinema.

Well, that’s not fully true: there are a bunch of remakes for you to “treat” your eyes to. I even hear rumblings that they want to redo The Breakfast Club. Simply impossible – how do you catch lightning in a bottle twice? The kids would be on their phones all day, secretly capturing videos of each other to post publicly in humiliating fashion for the victims, and that would be that. God, I’m glad the phones weren’t smart when I was in school.

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Do you think they’d let you bring a Game Boy Advance to the frontlines…?

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Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising (2003)

I hate to say it, but I think we may be due another World War. All of the classic signs are there – the population figure is getting too high, and that means there’s millions more wastrels being born every year. Medical science has the gall to continue improving, meaning less and less deaths are occurring from natural causes and disease. Something’s gotta give here.

More people need more resources, and the planet is not thanking us for it. Who knows? Maybe the earth really has started to fight back, by nudging some nasty pandemics along and throwing some icecap melting our way. Also, and let’s be open here, aren’t teenagers getting just a bit too obnoxious and comfortable with their lives these days? Isn’t it high time we shipped them off to war?

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“We need to talk… I think we’d be better just as Friend Codes”

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Mario Kart DS (2005) NOTX

Every man out there who’s managed to convince a woman to stay in his companny for more than three days will have experienced that blood-curdling, spine-tingling text message that reads: “We need to talk”. I’m certain it’s taught as part of the curriculum in all-girls’ schools.

You know, a quick module they do just before they learn how to show indecisiveness about what they’d like to eat, and how to get the last word in arguments. Well, if you’re a male and you’re reading this, fear not because I have struck a blow for our whole gender – I have subjected a woman to the “We need to talk” routine.

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