I’ve compared my son to a Magikarp a few times: when he first came home, he didn’t do much except flop around, splash in the water, and he spent a lot of time in daycare, but once he grows up a bit, he’s going to kick ass.
I couldn’t decide between two games, so I decided to portray them both. I’ll start, naturally, with the more known of the two, the one depicted on the right.
That fish there is a Magikarp, a water-type, first-gen Pokémon. You get the opportunity to buy one early in the game, and once you do, you find out that the Magikarp is, as the Wiki describes it, “pathetically weak” (i.e. useless). But if you do somehow manage to level it up (for example, by putting it in the first slot and changing Pokémon as your first move so it shares EXP), it turns into a Gyarados: a flying-water dragon so powerful you can dispense a bit with strategy and simply overpower most opponents you’ll encounter early in the game.
The second game depicted, the alien on the left, is Gateway II: Homeworld, an “interactive fiction” (text/graphic adventure) game based on the Heechee universe created by sci-fi author Frederik Pohl. The alien is a Heechee, the super-advanced alien race from the games (and novels), and the text is the Heechee alphabet used throughout the game. It’s a fantastic game with an in-depth plot and lots of puzzles to keep you, well, puzzling: defeat terrorists, control robots, genetically engineer an invasive species, interact with all kinds of alien creatures, including Earth cavemen, fly through black holes, and above all, save the Earth.
Published in 1993, it was highly praised for its graphics and plot, and has been a favorite of mine since I first played it as a kid. The other game, Pokémon, I never played until this year, in fact. But, thanks to the magic of emulators and extracted roms, I was able to play through the first and second games, even as ancient as they are.
Question for readers: Do you have a favorite Pokémon? Which and why?
Expatriatism 