Pokemon Go: a Brilliant Mobile App or a Bug Filled Piece of Crap?

As have millions of other users around the globe, where available so far, I have caught Pokemon Fever and have been trying to hunt down the cute little critters in the real world using the Pokemon Go app. The question is, after the huge wait for this game’s release is it living up to the hype, or could it have used a few more months in development to work out a bunch of bugs?

So I myself got the game. It was interesting just trying to get the game for myself on the three places we can play it. The iPod Touch I have which I believe is 5th gen was relatively easy to get just go to the app store and download. The big problem I come across with the iPod is that the way the iPod gets it’s location services or it’s gps is though a single wifi source. This game is not set to use such a simple gps source and thus you can only play using the iPod Touch for about 10 minutes out of every hour or so because it’s telling you that it cannot find the gps. So then my wife sees how cool it is and wants it so I find it for her phone…which you can’t search the playstore for it or it won’t come up at least for some phones instead I had to use a link in a blog directly to the playstore. So my wife starts playing, and she has no problems with the gps function; however, because her phone a Moto G does not have a specific gyroscope in it, it won’t do the cool Augmented Reality pics. So she can still find and capture pokemon but can’t see them in the camera with the real world whereas my iPod Touch can do the pictures just fine but can’t find where it’s at half the time. Now add onto this that I decide I want this on my phone a Moto X…I figure probably no AR but still that’s better than the 10mins per hour of play but wait it’s not as easy as last time! You see this game is made for 2g of ram and the moto x has only 1…the game will still work on it but we can’t install it from that page we installed the other one from. Soooooo we have to do a look up for an APK file which is something you can put on your phone as an admin and then download and install it that way. So now I have the game and the phone plays it alright but no AR. One other big problem both my wife and I have observed is that due to lack of good servers at the launch of the game (or maybe just server overload) we lose servers quite a bit which has caused us to lose out on lures and such in the game that we used.

OK so that’s what we have had wrong but when things are going right is this game worth it? I would have to wholeheartedly say it sure is. When the GPS is working on my iPod Touch and I can actually see the pokemon I am going to catch in the real world well that’s just a lot of fun. The pokemon appears where you first point the phone it seems basically, so if you know you are about to attack a pokemon you can set up some fun scenes, for instance we found a Rattata at a Steak and Shake and it ended up on my wife’s plate. Before capturing it, I had her hold the ketchup bottle over it and it looks like she is about to spray it all over the pokemon. Others have already been posting cute little pics and yet others have been posting NSFW pics using the app (after all if there’s something that’s been made the internet has porn of it within a day usually).

Another good point for this game is that it has gotten the people of our society to get out of their houses and exercise and relate to others again. In my town alone we have a facebook group for Pokemon Go and everyone talks about how they will be at such and such a place for however long, and if anyone else wants to come out then do such and people do. I keep hearing reports of 30 or 40 people at our local park just down there having a good time going after the poke gyms there. I myself belong to Team Valor or the red team as some of you may know it. In our town alone so far there are over a hundred team valor members that are part of this facebook group. We have an app called band that is being used to coordinate gym strikes and things like that in an effort to #MakeOcalaRed. I would assume that Mystic and Instinct teams have a similar thing going on in Ocala as well. As of the posting of this blog I would say to stay away from Team Valor if you are in the Ocala area and to actually check your local areas boards before choosing your team. There are a few bad apples in Team Valor here but it is sucking the fun from the game just by seeing their posts. Some people are starting to take this game WAY too seriously, cursing and berating those that would try to help gain and hold gyms by placing their pokemon in them. But why would someone be cursed at and berated for such, well because they placed a low level pokemon in the gym and instead of explaining to the rest of us how this may be worse than an empty spot in a gym they decided to start cursing. Normally I would have let this go but honestly I expect better from someone who lists themselves as a first grade teacher on their profile!

For me one of the huge bonuses is the exercise and how it helps promote that. You see, if you have kept up with my blogs, back in October I had my kidney out. I have had very little energy since and it is hard to stand for more than 10 minutes or so for me. However, thanks to this game, when I get out and start “hunting” for the pokemon in the neighborhood or at walmart or the mall I notice I am concentrating more on the game than my pain. I’m waiting to feel the phone buzz in my hand instead of realizing that my back is hurting. Yes it only takes me so far, but when this week I walk the mall twice or go 3 blocks and last week I could barely make it to the corner well it shows that it’s helping a lot!

All in all I think this is a fun little game…

TIPS AND TRICKS

~Yes you can run out of pokeballs but instead of buying them make sure to hang out at a poekstop a few times a day and spin whenever possible. Or if you’re a lucky SOB like me you’ll have a pokestop in the front yard and be able to spin spin spin till your hearts content all day every day and never run out of anything again!

~ Want to level up swiftly? Hold onto your candies and low candy needing evolvs such as rattata, pidgey and a few others. Once you can get a lucky egg which doubles your XP go ahead and spam the evolutions before transferring them back to the professor as a higher level pokemon, your trainer level will thank you.

~Don’t be cocky even a CP10 can escape a level 5 trainer

~ Want Pikachu as your starter Pokemon,,,walk far enough that your initial 3 have to respawn 3 times..on the fourth time Pikachu WILL appear as a possible starter.

~Eggs can NOT be hatched by driving around with your phone on…they will not pick up any millage on the egg after aprox 12mph has been reached!

~Always have fun…and don’t let the team competition get in the way of making new pokemon trainer friends!