61 Frames Per Second

Browse by Tags

(RSS)

Respect the Pokeymans

Confession: Pokemon frightens me. It's nothing to do with the dead eyes of Jinx or Psyduck, either (okay, maybe a little). The truth is, Pokemon is intimidating. It's a sprawling franchise that sucks you in waist-deep after two steps.

A skeptic who spares naught but a quick glance at Pokemon sees a bunch of cash-in kids' games that merely scotch tapes a few new Muppets to its roster with each new installment. So untrue. Oh, so untrue.

I was a self-proclaimed Pokemon Master through 1998-1999. No ten-year-old had a chance against my Nidoking, “AAAAAA” (“I choose you! AAAAAA!”). No job supervisor could tear me away from my heated matches for dominance—because I knew all the best places to hide.

I ran out of slacker friends to play Pokemon with, and I took a long sabbatical. A friend of mine bought me a copy of Pokemon Pearl, and I decided it was time to whup preschoolers again.

I quickly came to realise that the audience for Pokemon has grown up—and not all its fanbase dropped away as the franchise aged. Nintendo is well aware that there is a well-seasoned adult fanbase that is far beyond coddling Pikachu and drinking punch with Charmander in the shade of a big tree.

Freaktastic Fanart: The Momachu

If you hold your breath and look slowly to your right, you'll see a rare thing indeed: a baby Pikachu, commonly referred to as a “Pichu” by zoologists.

Pichus weigh approximately four ounces at birth, and exit the womb with a faint yellow fuzz already present on their shoulders and backs. Over the coming weeks, this fuzz thickens into the striking black-and-yellow coat Pikachus are so well known for.

Also, I'm talking complete nonsense. But it is fun to consider Pokemon at their tiniest and most vulnerable. They're pretty interesting critters with a wide variety of talents, but I guess when you come right down to it, Nintendo's most famous mascot since Super Mario is a mammal. And mammals have an inborn set of instructions they follow when it's time to carry and raise young.

That's what makes “Momachu” by Dogsfather two parts fascinating and two parts disturbing. Pikachus grow up to shoot lightning out their cheeks, but first they have to drink their milk and grow up strong.

Momma is celebrating the circle of life just past the jump.

In Which Your New Blogger Proves His Geekness

Introducing 61 Frames Per Second's latest blogger: Joe Keiser, here pictured hiding his fear of the Pikachu that walks like a man

So resident strongman John Constantine has asked that on this, my first day of blogging at 61 Frames Per Second, I start off with a sort of “get to know you post” so you the reader understand who I am and why you are to be subjected to my writing. I can tell you right now that the second question will probably remain unanswerable until the end of days. The “who I am” part is doable, though!

I’ve been doing this writing-for-games-on-the-internet thing since 2004, back when Nintendo was still trying to convince us that Frankensteining our GBAs and GameCubes together was somehow not an aberration of nature. Since then I’ve puttered around all over the place, mostly Edge-Online nee Next-Gen.

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.