

Pokemon Go buddy: How to use the new buddy system.Walk through Trafalgar Square in London and you'll be collecting items about every 10 paces, feeling the endorphin rush of having your cravings sated, but again, the countryside can be sparse, a barren Pokemon Go hinterland. PokeStops - places where you can collect items like health potions and Poke Balls - are often on notable cultural locations, like statues, memorials or pubs, once you're in a populated location, the riches are plentiful. That's fine for business folk, less good for kids. In Spain the normal Pokemon are different to the UK, for example, so this is a game that needs and rewards travel. Pokemon variety has been addressed by Niantic - the game's developers - increasing the types you'll find in a particular area, but you still need to travel far and wide to find those missing types.

This will cause frustration for some players: if you live in the country, Pokemon might be hard to find and that's been an enduring criticism of the game. But head into a town, or city centre, and Pokemon Go quite literally takes over. Your garden is unlikely to yield much Pokemon action and quiet residential streets may be the same. Pokemon Go rewards you for heading to new places. You have a Pokedex, a list of those Pokemon you have and those you could have, so you face the same sort of addiction that drives people to collect football stickers or Facebook friends - you don't want gaps, you want the complete set. This is the aspect that's casual, but very, very, addictive. It's at this point that Pokemon Go is likely to divide its players. Pokemon Go review: A game of two very different halves

You're not playing in your front room on your sofa - something that has characterised computer gaming from its inception - instead you have to take yourself outside into the real world, where there are real people. It crosses divides, from the softly heated leather of a BMW, to the cowled figures sheltering from the rain. From the soaring high of the victory, comes the crushing low of seeing those teens rush out to reoccupy the Gym with a new set of more powerful Pokemon, faster than we can move in. The gym is a soft target, although it takes several Pokemon to defeat the fully powered-up Hypno who's lurking there. This is their Gym and they're about to lose it. The flash of green on their permanently-awake smartphones confirms they're Go players too.

Sheltering under the bridge next to this particular Pokemon Gym are three teens. It's raining, after all, and as a 39-year-old it's perhaps a little too wet to be outside, even if that's what Pokemon Go wants you to be doing. The cosseted interior of a BMW 5 Series is a fine place to launch an assault on the local Pokemon Gym. The British summer has been everything we expect it to be, and at 4pm on a Wednesday afternoon, you're not supposed to be sitting in your car playing Pokemon Go.īut addiction makes you do things you wouldn't normally do and things you certainly wouldn't normally admit to.
