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Pokemon Blue speedrunner uses 'shortcut,' is super effective
Are you going through Awesome Games Done Quick withdrawal like we are? Those that missed some of the speedrunning marathon's fast-paced antics have two options: Attempt to mash through a game of their choice as fast as possible or catch up on the action with archived videos. Frankly, we're taking the easier approach, opting for this fascinating 21-minute speedrun of Pokemon Blue. Performed by "Werster," this run avoids save-file-corrupting tactics, instead taking advantage of glitches that manipulate the number of items in the speedrunner's inventory. Thanks to the item manipulation glitch, he reached Pokemon Blue's final scene in mere minutes after triggering a few events early in the game. Awesome Games Done Quick wrapped up this past weekend, raising over $1.1 million for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. The marathon offered plenty of entertaining moments to Twitch viewers, including a marriage proposal. [Image: Nintendo]
Choose your first starter again in Pokemon Monopoly
If you're going to start fights with friends and family members over imaginary property and play money, you might as well get a gameboard that recalls something you can consistently enjoy. As the Toy Fair International 2014 foretold, a Pokemon Monopoly Kanto Edition is now available for pre-order from GameStop, with the trip down memory Route lane priced at $45. Players will have to revisit the series' most important question: Bulbasuar, Squirtle or Charmander? Pikachu, Eevee and Jigglypuff are also available business tycoons, but why pass up an opportunity to stir up old starter Pokemon-related rivalries while playing a relaxing game of Monopoly? Judging by GameStop's listing, your financial type Pokemon battles can begin on October 1, the date you can first encounter Pokemon Monopoly in the wild. Of course, this assumes you've lost enough pieces from your 1999 edition of Monopoly: Pokemon Edition to render it unplayable. [Image: USAopoly]
Twitch Plays Pokemon levels up to 75k concurrent viewers, learns democracy
Last week, the chat-controlled Twitch Plays Pokemon grabbed our attention, as ten thousand people were able to simultaneously control the lead character in Pokemon Red/Blue. In the near five and a half days of the stream's existence, it's crossed 75,000 concurrent viewers, though Twitch says that the number of unique visitors to the chaotic game tallies over 300,000. Given the madness of Twitch Plays Pokemon, the stream's creator implemented a new system for the crowd-controlled game: a democratic voting system. Now, those that type commands are essentially casting their vote for the next action in the game, which goes into effect after a couple seconds. It also allows voters to add a number after their desired command to indicate how many times the action should be performed, such as "right3" being used to tell our hero to go right three times. As expected, not everyone is on board with the new voting system, so the command "start9" is gaining traction to stall the game's progress. That's why the creator also added another voting system, allowing viewers to push a meter to either "anarchy" or "democracy," presumably to decide the future format of the game. Twitch Plays Pokemon has also amassed plenty of extra attention in the form of its own observational Twitter account, Subreddit and even public Google Doc status tracker. Among the noteworthy activities on the stream since last week, the community opted to throw away two Moon Stones and its starter Pokemon Charmeleon, relied heavily on its "Bird Jesus" Pidgeot and has earned four badges in the game. [Image: Twitch Plays Pokemon]
Thousands control one Pokemon master on Twitch simultaneously
Twitch Plays Pokemon looks like an average Twitch game stream at first. In fact, it is a game in itself, as viewers are able to control the hero of Pokemon Red and Blue by inputting commands in the streaming platform's chat window. As of this writing, the stream is nearing ten thousand viewers after close to two days of play, many of which are wildly typing "a," b," "up," "down" and other instructions, sending the obedient Pokemon master into frenzied directions. We've embedded the stream after the break. As much as it sounds like players would never be able to accomplish much in this fashion, viewers were able to push on past the second gym leader of the game, Misty. Our math may be shaky at best, but we figure that with the diligence of the stream's viewers, we'll have collected all the Pokemon in a month. We shudder to think of what will happen with the beloved, singular Master Ball in the game, however.
Final Pokemon Origins episode translated into English, available now
If the animated Pokemon show the franchise grew up with wasn't really your thing, you can try a different, sans-Ash Ketchum origins story with Pokemon Origins. Destructoid noticed that the fourth and final episode of the series, which is based off the Pokemon Red / Blue storyline, is now available in English. You can watch all four episodes on the Pokemon website or go mobile with The Pokemon TV app in the App Store or Google Play store. Each episode runs just over 20 minutes. The series follows Red's journey from Pokemon Zero to semifinalist for the title of Pokemon Champion, with the other contender being that smug jerk, Blue. There's also an encore battle involving Ash's quest to finish filling the Pokedex. If you're willing to take a break from your own conquest in Pokemon X & Y, Origins is a nice way to remember how the Kanto region laid the foundation for the world of Pokemon.
The Birds and the Beedrills puts a mature spin on the Pokerap
There's no real way to ease into this, so: A rapper by the pseudonym White Licorice has painstakingly crafted a track titled "The Birds and the Beedrills." Its innuendo-filled lyrics contain references to all 151 Pokémon from the series' first generation. It is, in no small measure, a masterpiece.
