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With Pokemon Crystal recently coming out on the 3DS Virtual Console and the Pokemon Switch game looming on the horizon, @Dcubed and I started talking about how the mechanics of Pokemon have changed since way back in 1996. Because we're super cool like that. A criticism of the Pokemon games you see thrown around is that they're "just the same game over and over again" These people know nothing and you should discount their opinions immediately, while the basic gameplay follows the traditional "Catch loads of different monsters and battle them in Turn Based RPG battles" format. It's the underlying mechanics that distinguish each entry. And these mechanics have changed many times over the seven generations of Pokemon. So I'm gonna go look through them and see just how influential each gen was. Generation 1 - Red/Blue/Yellow While there's no denying that Red and Blue will probably forever be the most important game in the franchise (I mean, it started the craze). The mechanics and features that make up the game are almost entirely gone from more modern games. Gen 1 is a very different beast to what you can play these days. That said, Red and Blue introduced a few things that have managed to stick around. And to better understand how things have changed, it would be a good idea to acknowledge these. Version Exclusive Pokemon is a term that most players use to describe a Pokemon that can only be caught in one version of Pokemon. For example, Scyther could only be caught in Pokemon Red while Pokemon Blue had Pinsir instead. Be as cynical as you like, but this was designed to encourage players to trade Pokemon with another person who has the opposite version. (Not to encourage people to buy both versions, only nutjobs do that) It bloody well worked, I remember bringing my Game Boy to my Primary School and trading Pokemon with other kids. Which brings me nicely to... The Multiplayer features are the main selling point of the Pokemon series. Using the Game Boy Link Cable, there were two things that you could do with a friend. Trading and battling, it's pretty obvious what they do, so I won't go into too much detail here. Technical Machines (Commonly known as "TM's") are items that you could find in the game that can teach a specific move to one of your Pokemon. Some Pokemon could use these to learn moves that they would otherwise be unable to use. They were one-time usage, with many of them being unable to be obtained again without starting a new game. Making them very valuable items. Well, except Water Gun, no-one cares about Water Gun. There were 50 TM's in Gen 1. There were also 5 Hidden Machines (HM's) which taught Pokemon a move that could actually be used outside of battles. Most of them were needed to complete the game (Except Flash) and once a Pokemon learned a HM move, it could not be forgotten. Effort Values (Also known in Gen 1 as Stat Experience) are more of a hidden mechanic that has also stuck around in modern day Pokemon. (Well, sorta, more on that later) For example, say you have a Charizard that you've trained to Level 50. If you compared the stats of that Charizard to a different level 50 Charizard, chances are they'd be different. That's because of Stat Experience. In Gen 1, whenever you beat a Pokemon, the Pokemon you used would get Stat Experience. These were completely invisible to the player. As an example, beating a Blastoise would net you... 79 HP 83 Attack 100 Defense 85 Special 78 Speed After a calculation that I won't bother going into, your Stat Experience will be added to the base stats of your Pokemon, which makes for the fluctuations of stats between different Pokemon of the same species. Every single stat can effectively be "Maximized" using this making for an extra 64 points in each stat for a level 100 Pokemon. Event Pokemon also saw it's first implementation here with the Mythical Pokemon Mew. Way back then, players had to go to a special event organised by Nintendo with their copy of the game where staff would plug their cartridge into, effectively, a glorified Super Game Boy which would then put the Mew into their party. There's one more mechanic that has stuck around, but it's quite a bit different in how it's implemented. The Third Version is a term that most players use to refer to a Pokemon game that is similar to another set of Pokemon games. These games tend to be enhanced versions of another game. So let me ask you something, what was the first Third Version Game released? While the Third Version is still kicking with Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, it's not in every generation. But I won't get into that yet. Pokemon Yellow is also notable for having the first instance of a Pokemon following you outside of battles. This only applied to Pikachu though, and it's not a feature that is around these days, one of many things that got dropped in future generations, but I'll cover that when I get to them. Anyway, time for me to take a break, next up, I'll be talking about Generation 2, where things start changing and getting interesting. But before I go, I'd like to give my personal thoughts on the mechanics of Gen 1. As a game, I enjoy Gen 1, truly, I do. But the mechanics behind it are incredibly dated, which make gong back to it these days a bit difficult. It was a huge, influential game that would help popularize the Turn Based RPG genre in the west. And I will forever acknowledge it for that. But everything about it has since been improved in future installments. Which is a good thing. But for the love of God, Game Freak. Stop advertising Pokemon games using nothing but stuff that was seen in this Gen. The majority of people who want this kind of stuff stopped playing Pokemon years ago!

Time for my highlights, I got a lot!

@RedShell awesome video. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever been in the top three of the league table. Yes, I know it’s only the first week but I’m taking it. Battle mode is probably gonna wreck my standing.

I've just spent over half an hour searching for a dedicated Cyberpunk 2077 thread to update, but I couldn't find one (if there already is, please, by all means, delete/merge this thread), so I thought it best to start one in the event of its absence. Cyberpunk 2077 is an upcoming RPG developed and published by CD Projekt Red, whom are most well-known as the Polish developers and publishers of the The Witcher video game series. What we've seen so far: The game was initially announced in May 2012, before a teaser trailer was released on 10th January 2013 (which garnered a number of trailer awards). Some concept art images were also released alongside the trailer. What we know so far: The game is likely to release on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows. It will be playable in both first- and third-person perspectives. The game will feature both a single-player story and an online multiplayer component. The game is based on loosely on the Cyberpunk 2020 tabletop role-playing game, which was created by Mike Pondsmith. Pondsmith is consulting on the project. Marcin Przybyłowicz, the composer for The Witcher 3, was chosen to write the game's music. CD Projekt Red started upgrading its REDengine 3 game engine for the game around the time The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was released; a funding application for the Polish government, granting CD Projekt Red $7 million (USD), confirmed the employment of the next iteration of said engine: the REDengine 4. The same funding application noted that the game's release could potentially take place in 2019. It will be set in an openworld metropolis called Night City, a fictional city located between San Francisco and Los Angeles. "Braindance", a digital recording device connected to the player character's brain, will enable the player character to experience the thoughts, emotions and muscle movements of other people (likely NPCs, but possibly even the player characters of other players) as if they were the character's own. The game will feature non-English speaking characters. If the player does not speak a character's language, they can purchase translator implants to improve their understanding of them, with translation quality depending on the quality of the translator implant (i.e. an expensive implant will translate much more accurately than a relatively cheaper one). During pre-production, approximately 50 staff were working on the game. As recent as last summer, around 550 staff were reportedly working on the game (compared to the peak staff volume of The Witcher 3 at 200). As of October 2017, CD Projekt Red co-founder Marcin Iwinski and studio head Adam Badowski revealed in a joint statement that the game was moving along as planned. In June 2017, CD Projekt Red published a statement explaining that data containing early designs had been stolen and threatened to be released to the public. The developer refused to comply with the ransom demand; the stolen data/ early designs have yet to be leaked. Now, onto why I wanted to update the relevant thread... Earlier this month, on January 10th (5 years to the day after the release of the game's teaser trailer), the game's official Twitter account posted for the first time since December 2013, after recently being verified. A few days later, on 15th January, Gry-Online - the largest gaming website in Poland (more-or-less their version of the US's Gamespot) - published an article revealing that they had received information from two separate sources about Cyberpunk 2077 being present at E3 this year (12th - 14th June), with both a trailer and gameplay footage to boot (The Witcher 3 was previously present at E3, so this wouldn't come as too much of a surprise). According to their sources, the game will likely appear as part of either Sony's or Microsoft's conference, though they stated that it is more likely to appear at the latter; their sources also stated that a playable demo will be available at E3 behind closed doors for industry journalists. They ended the article by stating that this information should all be taken with a grain of salt, as the game's presence at E3 could be subject to change depending on how the development of the game continues over the coming months. In the article's comments section, it was posited that the site's information is "bulls***", but interestingly, the website's editor-in-chief responded to the comment by telling them to "Save this page and come back here in June. We'll talk then." It's also worth noting that CD Projekt Red's co-founder - the aforementioned Marcin Iwinski - previously praised Bethesda's rollout of Fallout 4, saying that "We're impressed with Fallout 4's rollout. [Bethesda] came on stage and said, 'It's here, it's real, and it's coming out on this date.' We're going to do something similar. We're going to wait [to reveal Cyberpunk 2077] until we can show off a very meaningful piece of it." Granted, if the game is at this year's E3 then there's no guarantee that it will be released by the end of the year, but it's presence could certainly signify that it will be released within the following 12 months, given that the game has been in development for a number of years now.

Yay my box copy survived Royal Mail and arrived intact.

Just read the opening chapter... I’ll be reading this for sure! Cheers man!

I really enjoyed reading that @Glen-i. A good write up.

I'm really enjoying it. Its such am advancement from the Wii U/3DS games. I have no idea why people aren't talking about it. People are playing it already through their established groups though. I imagine games are being organised via whatsapp, PSN or something. I'm mainly playing on my own but have had some games with lostmario when there is space in his group.

Are you @Ugh first aid? She had the same reaction once I told her that. A shame too, because Ampharos is one of the few Gen 2 Pokémon that's actually quite good in Crystal.

Same here! It’s looking good next to the other two!

One Piece is getting stale. I decided to give The Promised Neverland a go. It seems like Attack on Titan on a smaller scale and without the bloodshed. I love it. Edit: Can't put it down. @Kav and everybody else...give it a try.

Never fear, JBS is...not here Been getting nostalgic thinking about playing with you and @Kav on 3 all this moons ago, had some great times on that! How are you finding this one? Not feeling much hype in here; having actually been in Game yesterday and resisting the urge to buy it, I should be able to wait until it's reduced in price a bit now.

Switched to full bone armour now, try and actually get some resistances up a bit after having a bit of mix and max with the leather and preorder armours.

Spinarak learns String Shot and then Scary Face because it needs to know 2 speed lowering moves for some reason. Tried the duplication exploit to get all the starters, ended up corrupting my Totodile. Must've reset too early. Love you can get a Poliwag straight away though, used one for the whole of my first playthrough on my original copy.

The N-E equivalent of the bathroom is @MoogleViper I'll have a look into it on Sunday as I'm busy with other work at the moment I'm afraid. For now enjoy the serene blue.

If anything is getting passed around at the meet its you.

Haven't done a 96 run in ages...never actually tried it as a speed-run either. And to be honest, I've never really tried any speed-run techniques for a Bowser run. Never looked them up I just try to be as quick as possible. Last time I did it was a year ago, drunk in under 20 minutes. A mate wanted me to prove it because I kept telling him I can do it

That Boomerang throw actually worked twice!? Wow! Spectacular! I'm so proud of myself! Even if karma hit me like a ton of bricks in Ribbon Road. Righto! Here's the table after the first night. Very early days, of course. Averages will fluctuate all over the place over the next few weeks. Of note is @BowserBasher and I both getting a 1st, 2nd and 3rd place tonight. Creepy. What's even creepier is that @viceview51 and @Nintendo Fan have the exact same score. How'd you manage that? So, all warmed up with racing? No? Cool! Let's get you up to speed on Battle Mode then! Next League Night: 1st Feburary 8pm Room 1: BowserBasher is host Glen-i BowserBasher viceview51 Pretty simple schedule here. Because there's only 8 courses in Battle Mode, I won't enforce the "Don't choose the same track twice" rule, obviously. But let's try and do each stage at least once, right? Sign up Now!

Just enjoying the view

Norman Reedus talked about Death Stranding on a B&H podcast; here’s what he had to say:

I've also just recently (finally) started on the Champions Ballad. I'm really enjoying it. Would I have liked and did I expect a new storyline, absolutely, but with expectations in check, I'm loving what we actually got. Just finished Mipha's sidequest. Also, running around Hyrule for the first time in months is making me fall in love with the game all over again. Similar to Ocarina of Time, it's one of those games I wish I could experience for the first time again.

I'm certainly not the guy to ask when it comes to Photoshop, never used it ever. But @RedShell did a smashing job on my signature. So maybe he can help? BTW, my Paint skills are way more awesome than yours. You can't one-up that. Just go home!

I can't be the only one who thought "Did he really call the thread 'H-O-T Topic'? That aside, it's a very well thought out mini-article. There's some solid logic here. Of course, until Virtual Console does come out, there's no way to be certain it has an effect. However, while I feel the lack of VC has some kind of effect. I don't think it's quite as big as some might think. I think the biggest factor so far is the actual quality of non-Ninty games on eShop so far. It's been a hell of a lot better than some of the utter dreck that Wii, WiiU and 3DS got. Of course, early days, but Nintendo being quite selective with who they wanted to get games from has done wonders for the standard of the average eShop game. Also, put me down as one of those who enjoyed an eShop game more than Zelda, namely Wonder Boy, who anyone who actually wants VC should play.