video games

For Christmas, my boyfriend got me Pokemon Heart Gold.

A few weeks before Christmas I was telling him about how he was so perfect because he asked me if I wanted to play with his extra Nintendo DS. Game Boy Color is the last one I had as a kid and my mom wouldn’t let me get another one when the cartridge sizes started to change because she thought I was too old for Game Boy games.

When I started chemotherapy last year, I dug out my old Game Boy and Pokemon Red to keep me busy during treatments but didn’t get very far because I couldn’t find the strategy guide anywhere – but now that my sister tells me that the book fell apart and all the pages got put into sheet protectors in a binder I could probably find it. Boyfriend also conveniently already has the Pokemon Heart Gold strategy guide for me to use. A new Pokemon game is perfect for me and I appreciate the fact that unlike my mom he does not think I’m too old for it.

The part of Pokemon Heart Gold that most tickles my fancy is the Pokewalker.

The Pokewalker is a cross between a pedometer and a Tamagotchi.

• Every step you take counts as an experience point for the Pokemon you choose to load onto the Pokewalker.
• Every 20 steps gets you a watt.
• Watts can be used to play mini games on the Pokewalker (10 watts to fight and try to catch other Pokemon or 3 watts to try to find items – all of which get ported back to the Nintendo DS game).
• Watts can also be saved up and used to unlock new routes on the Pokewalker that give you the chance to find even more Pokemon.
• Each route has 3 different levels where you can catch 2 different Pokemon each. You can catch the lowest level Pokemon right away, you can catch the mid-level Pokemon after about 1000 steps that day, and to catch the highest level Pokemon on the route you need to have taken over 5000 steps that day.

I love the Wii fitness games like Wii Fit Plus and EA Sports Active and I love how the Pokewalker incorporates that virtual fitness aspect into a pedometer. I have another pedometer stashed away in a drawer, but I’m much more motivated to use this one because I can play the mini games in my downtime, use it to level my Pokemon, and I have a total goal of 2 million steps to reach to unlock the highest level route and be able to catch some really rare Pokemon.

I love how this video game motivates me to get out of the house and take my dog for an extra long walk or take an extra lap around the Target store to get a few more steps in.

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