My Egress from Ingress

Some of you might have heard of this game called Ingress. Lemme tell you about it, from my biased point of view.

The concept is fascinating, really. Google overlays an MMO over Google Maps. Meaning that in order to move your avatar in the game world, you have to move your smartphone in the real world. "Augmented reality" they call it. They tie places of interest in reality to "portals" in-game. You have to go to those portals and claim them. It's fun. Then you trace lines along these portals, and when you form a triangle it's filled in your faction's color, successfully claiming that turf for your loyal faction.

The game features minimalistic graphics, and gives verbal cues to most actions, so that you may play while you walk. Headphones are suggested on the load screen.

"Hold on, m'homie" you may be wondering. "Do I have to get off my couch for this?" you may ask. Yes. Yes you have. You have to get out there, and if you're serious about it, or if you want your faction's approval, you have to get in your car and spend some serious gas money on it. Now, before you run away, I assure you, the game ties in-game locations to places of interest. So you should be leaving your house to see cool places! Every time you play it's an adventure! At least in theory. In reality you will find most portals are garbage. Somehow Google thought it would be good to let users submit portals in order to mine the data and profit by measuring human traffic... but the result was players who wanted more portals started reporting bus stops, lawn ornaments, signs and such as portals, and Google played along. You will spend your day running from uninteresting location to uninteresting location.

"But it sure is worth it, right?" You may ask next. "Capturing all those portals and claiming the land for your faction sounds satisfying!" Sure. Sure it is. Until some jerk from the other faction shows up and claims them. Portals usually last a day or two. You're not meant to keep them forever. It takes a while to realize Ingress is a plate-spinning game. The idea is to have as many going as possible, not to have them all. This can be extremely frustrating if you're outnumbered, or someone in the opposing faction is targeting you or even cheating.

And boy, is there cheating! It's a well known fact that some players play from their couches, spoofing coordinates in a PC running an Android emulator. Targeting large fields and remote portals. These people never seem to get banned. Google provides a nice "intel" page that players may peruse to plan their trips. Some players, however, use forbidden apps that mine this system for extra information, this allows the cheater to virtually stalk other players and harass them. Of course, if you ask these cheaters, they will say they're just hardcore and insist it's OK to break the rules as long as you don't like them.

But then there's those who don't cheat the game, but still have an unfair advantage, and use it to troll other players. I can think of many examples, but some may come off as whiny, so I'll skip to the worst. There is an actual police officer that actively plays while on duty. Pretty much funding his Ingress addiction with taxpayer dollars. He will use his badge to get to hard-to-reach places and will use his uniform to intimidate others. If that doesn't make you want to flip a table, I don't know what will.

"What about the community?" I'm assuming you asked. Well they're OK. You'll meet fun people, and may even organize fun expeditions. But then there's the stalkers, the faction-switchers, the spies... then there's the roleplayers...

Google has made a point to give the game an RPG feel by adding a "backstory". They gave names to the factions and have even established recurring characters that come up in social media posts. Some players play along and that's fine. I'm a fan of RPGs myself. But this is a game that takes place in real life. And it's freaking scary when people do it as part of their regular lives. Some take the grudge between the factions too far and make threatening posts and such. It creates a very hostile environment.

So basically it's everything I hate about an MMO, without any of the things I like about MMOs. Eventually I got tired of coming home late because I had to spin so many plates on my way. I got tired of blocking the creepy players. I got tired of trash talking. I got tired of reporting fake portals. I got tired of visiting lawn ornaments and road signs. I got tired of the endless notifications. I got tired of being antagonized by fucking Robocop. I own many games that are far better and require far less effort. If you need me, I'll be playing Tetris.

I Fink u Froakie and I Like u Alot

I've never been a Pokemon fan. I never even saw the appeal of it. You go around the world doing horrible things to innocent creatures for fun and the only thing that is at stake is... uh...  that someone else may have more pokemon slaves than you. I say slaves instead of pets because I know some of these are sentient.

On the other hand, Pokemon is a pop culture phenomenon that is VERY hard to avoid. I'd seen the cartoons, I'd seen the memes, I even completed the pokedex in the 3DS (I was bored at work)! I'll throw around phrases like "it's super effective" when surrounded by pokemon people, and I'd probably be able to to name quite a few pokemon. One really can't just ignore it, but one sure can try, and try I did; I steered clear of any actual pokemon games for all these years, simply because I knew it'd take up too much of my limited brain capacity.

For the last few weeks, Nintendo ran this promotion where they were giving out a free download code for Pokemon X/Y... It's free dagnabbit, I can't turn down a freebie! So since my son's 3DS is broken, I decided to install it in my 3ds and give it a go. The truth is that I had knocked it before I had tried it, and maybe it deserves a chance.

So here I am, I've played for about an hour... and I still don't get it. What's the point of the entire game? My character is a boy and an unknown man told him to leave home on an adventure! Stranger danger! His mom immediately packed his stuff and sent him off to enslave all the pokemen. I love you too, mom!

I chose Froakie as my starter and named him Freakie (because I'm so froaking clever). I assume I have to walk down the road because there is nowhere else to go. That's my motivation to move forward; because my other option is to stay where I started. You call this an RPG?

So I find a creature in the grass, I tell my creature to beat it up, and if it doesn't quite die I get to keep it and torture it. Hooray! If something interesting doesn't happen soon, I'll erase my save.

So why am I writing this, then? Why not just stop playing now? Because something freaky is going on. I find myself giggling uncontrollably at the references made in-game! I cheer when I see a pokemon I recognize! ...and I feel I have to catch more! This game is tickling that "ooh, I've seen this before" nerve in my brain, and it's all backwards! You're supposed to play this game FIRST, then enjoy the memes, the cartoons, the damn pokedex...

...It's all backwards? Why? What is the meaning of life? What if, this whole thing is just a dream? Maybe there is no reality, and all exists within my head, which only exists because I thought of it.

One thing is certain, this blog only exists in my head, and I'm the only one that reads it. I haven't written in ages and I have so much to say about the Wii U, Bravely Default, and a handful of mobile games. Oh well. I'll write more about this game once I've gotten a few more hours into it.