If I had anything worth reviewing I'd do it. That said: Pokemon Channel Review

[A Genius]

I swear, I'm serious. I haven't seen any movies that I have much to say about, about, and I haven't played many video games lately (I will be getting Pokemon Colloseum sometime, though. Which rules.), but I REALLY wanted to write a review today. Thus, I dig around the bottom of the barrel and find THIS. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

A bit of backstory first. Pokemon Channel is essentially a Gamecube version of the N64 nightmare, "Pikachu Talking Challenge." I don't think that was the actual name, but I refuse to look it up, and "Talking Challenge" describes the game very well, I'd say. The idea is, the game came with a microphone. You'd speak into it and give a Pikachu on the screen commands. Unfortunetly, Pikachu is, as we all know, a very stupid creature, and thus refuses to understand even the most obvious sentences. If, for instance, you're like me, and has a habit of always saying "please" after making a request, then you'll be shocked to learn that just that one word, even if all the other words are legible by Pika-standards (which are, admitedly, not high), renders the sentence illegible. And there are thousands of other stupid rules for speaking in this game. Damn the Japanese. Damn them, I say, and stuff.

In this game, there's no microphone to be annoyed by, which is good news. More good news comes in the fact that a bunch of those "MiniPokemon" games Nintendo released a while ago are available here, and some of them are definetly worth playing. My favorite is the Pinball one, in which you use a Pokemon's head to slam Pokeballs into holes. There's a puzzle game, too, which is also pretty cool. The good news stops there, however. As most of the game revolves around a cubular device on the other end of the room, the TV.

Where should I start with the TV? Oh, yes. The "Anime channel." We all know and hate the Pokemon Anime. You just can't defend it. There is NO aspect of the show that was at all good. Okay, one, by the name of Wobuffet, who doesn't appear that much anyway. Wobuffet is here, but he can't save what can ultimately be described as "The number one reason for suicide in modern society's youth. That, and folk music."

What's it about? Meowth is throwing a party, and all the Pokemon are invited. Of course, Meowth is evil, so what's his plan? There isn't one. Meowth just threw the party for kicks. I'm serious. I wish I wasn't, but wishing never helped anybody. Meowth is throwing a party and inviting a bunch of Pokemon for NO REASON WHATSOEVER. EEERRGGGGGHHH.

Pichu and his similarly named brother, "Pichu" don't get invitations, so they run around and do some stuff. They then get their invitations, for Meowth, against his better instincts, DID send them some, but the deliverybird was late. But, against HIS better instincts, he delivered it in the end. By this point I had no idea what was going on, so I was just babbling some random ****e king of Jeswik stew.

They arrive at the party, and we are treated to something special. Remember a REALLY long time ago when Gamecube was still being previewed? Well, on of the tests run was "Meowth's Party", a N64 quality video played on Gamecube which featured Meowth running around inexplicibly zapping stuff with a guitar. The video is here, now. It's played to a piss-poor theme song of sorts, which basically goes like...

Team Orcket: Meowth! Meowth! Meowth! Through the forests he did crawl! Meowth! Meowth! Meowth! Then a magic suit did fall!

Something like that, anyway.

If I was in charge of the anime, there would've been a killer lawnmower running around decapitating Pokemon like in the fourth movie. Alas, I was not in charge of the anime.

The anime, on the subject, sucked. The Japanese version is here, though, which is more withstandable, since you can't understand what the narrarator is saying. Also because Meowth's voice was much crazier in Japanese than it is here. I don't know Japanese, but even if I did I doubt I could figure out what Meowth was saying in Japanese. For the oblivious, this is how he talks: "NYA, NYA MYA GNA NYAAA NYA. GRARBLEMNABBLEGROOP!" As an added bonus, "Squirtle" is "Damnit" in Japanese. Isn't it great?

Did I mention the Anime sucked?

The other channels aren't an improvement. We've got an aerobics channel (How many kids are honestly going to bother with an aerobics program?), several stupid quiz channels (One of them starring EVERYBODY'S favorite Pokemon, Wobuffet!), some sort of irrelevant news channel, and a painting channel (You can paint pictures you see on tv. Did I mention that?). There's also a shopping channel (which happens to be the only place you can get those "Pokemon Minis" mentioned earlier) and a channel where you can save your progress.

There's more to the game, you can collect a special brand of Pokemon cards, there's a few games to play, there's the outside world to explore, but I just can't bear even talking about this game anymore. I thin I ran out of reviewing steam since the bit about the N64 version.

Good Stuff:
-Pokemon Minis. Those things really do rule.
-No microphone.
-Woooooooooooooooobuffet!
-Japanese Meowth.
-Squirtle's name is "Damnit" in Japanese.
-Meowth's Party music video.

Bad stuff:
-Everything else.

Overall: 3/10

-A Genius (In other news, Spyware has taken over my computer, but another company, which is also Spyware, has offered to patch it up, and a third company, which is also also Spyware, has offered to do the same. More on that later, Pat.)