Issue 5

Welcome to the fifth edition of PokeZam.com Newsletter! I would just like to tell everyone that I'm happy to announce that we have 40 members, so keep the new members coming! Oh yeah, I'll try to make the newsletter monthly from now on, like it is suposed to be. This is hard work though, it takes a lot of time, which I don't always have, but I'm not complaining, I enjoy the newsletter. Anyway, enough with my babbling on, here's the newsletter!

Feature Story

I may not be the first to say this, but I predict the e-Reader to be a major success. I think that it's going revolutionize the way people play with cards all around the world. I for one I am not a player of Pokemon TCG since I don't really have any interest in it, but I might just get the e-Reader for the games.

On September 16th, 2002, the e-Reader was released in North America. For a retail price of $39.95 US ($59.95 Canadian) you'll get your very own e-Reader along with two packs, which contain 10 cards that'll give you an idea about the range of gaming options that the e-Reader makes possible. You'll receive an NES game in one pack (either Pinball or Donkey Kong Jr.). In the other, you'll get Manhole-e (a Game & Watch card), a complete set of three cards from the Pokemon-e: Expedition series (Machop, Machoke and Machamp) and a sneak preview of the Animal Crossing series.

The e-Reader doesn't just take advantage of the GBA, it is also going to use the GameCube. Animal Crossing will be the first to take advantage of the e-Reader and hopefully will change the way people look at cards forever.

You may be a bit skeptical about the e-Reader and I'm here to help you get over that. Don't worry, the cards work well, you don't have to scan them a million times to get them to work. You do however have to scan them slowly to make sure the e-Reader picks up all the information. Now the games for the e-Reader are not going to be as good as your average GBA game since it just isn't possible. What they are going to do is bring back some of the old classic Nintendo games that people have forgotten about or have never had a chance to play. Those include Donkey Kong Jr., Pinball, Balloon Fight, Excitebike, Tennis and more to come! The graphics and sounds aren't going to be amazing, but you'll understand why the games used to be so popular in their heyday.

Not impressed yet? Well if you scan the short side of any Pokemon-e: Expedition card, a cool mini-network will pop up that covers everything that you want to know about using the card. So basically the e-Reader also acts as an interactive TCG Pokedex.

The e-Reader has even been improved and has had more stuff added to it then from its Japanese counterpart. The US version features more memory, more internal software, and, most importantly, a pass-through link port so that users can connect their GBAs to their GameCube while the device is in use (the Japanese version did not feature this support, making its functionality extremely limited in comparison). The US version also features a female voice that instructs users as they swipe their cards through their device.

Now here are some negative points; some games require 5 cards to play, which can be a bit time consuming to scan. Another set back is that the e-Reader doesn't keep the games in memory, so if you want to play the games again you got to rescan them. Also with the Pokemon Expedition cards, you must have all the cards in an evolution chain to be able to play the game. By that I mean you must have Charmander, Charmeleon and Charizard to play their collective mini-game. If you don't have a card or ever lose one, you can't play the game! The graphic and sound quality of the data from e-Reader cards isn't amazing by any means since the data strip can only hold 2.2K of memory on the horizontal strip, 1.1K on the vertical, which doesn't leave a whole lot of room for extraneous data. Nintendo does however make good use of their limited memory and it is truly amazing how much one little card can hold.

You may be wondering how much games cost on their own. Well you'll be happy to know that you can pick up your own classic Nintendo game for only $4.99 US, which isn't too costly compared to what most games cost today.

The e-Reader is the future and there is going to be lots more to come, this is only the beginning! I just hope that they figure out a way to bring Duck Hunt to the e-Reader, I love that game! :)

The Psychic Network still knows what you're thinking.....

After more than a year's absence, the Psychic Network (http://www.the-apcc.com/network) is back! That's right, if you have a smaller Pokemon site and want people to know about it, this is the way to do it! The first time it opened we got over 75 members, so let's try to break that this time. Join today because it will only help the Pokemon community grow!

YTV delays new Pokemon

Since Pokemon: Master Quest started airing in the US well over a week ago, I was starting to wonder when the new season would show in Canada, so I emailed YTV to enquire and this is what they said:

We are currently in repeats for 'Pokemon'. At this time we do not have information available regarding new episodes. You can try contacting us at the end of September as we may have more information to provide at that time. Pokemon Fans be sure to check out Three Hairy Thumbs up on October 5th and 6th when we will be airing "Pokemon: The Movie" and "Pokemon 2000". Three Hairy Thumbs Up airs Saturdays and Sundays at 4:00pm E/P.

Not exactly the response I was hoping for. I am going to email them at the end of this month like they said to do and find out what's up with Pokemon and why it's being delayed.

Pokemon 4Ever

We have been waiting for the GS Ball mystery to finally be revealed and in just a few tense weeks it will happen. On October 11th, the long awaited fourth Pokemon movie will finally hit theaters. Just like with every other Pokemon movie you'll get a free TCG card while supplies last. This time they will be giving away a Pokemon-e: Expedition Celebi card to promote the release of the e-Reader. I know that the synopsis for the movie has been available for months, but hopefully you held off like I did and are going into the movie with limited information. The teaser that Nintendo Power put was that Sammy, a new character who appears in the film might just turn out to be someone we've known since Day 1. Wow, that just makes me go crazy and wish that the movie was out today, but it's only a few weeks away! For all the latest news be sure to check out PokeZam.com's Movie Guide page, since I've added a bunch of new screenshots from the movie.

What is next for Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire?

We've found out about some of the new Pokemon, including the starters, but what about new Pokemon types? Will they add another one to the mix? How about a Light-type? I also wonder if Pokemon will be able to have three types instead of only two. Hopefully I will be able to answer those questions in the near future.

Pokemon absent from the Lycos Top 50

For a while Pokemon hung around the thirties, but alas it didn't last. Week after week it would drop just a bit at a time until it finally disappeared. It isn't even on the top 50 anymore, but hopefully the new movie will regenerate some searching interest. Maybe searching is down since people are sticking with a few reliable sites *cough* for information.

The Pokemon Community to grow

According to Kwesi, my host the community will be on it's own in a few days, parting ways with theud.com/this/and/that on to new things... new domains. Soon you'll be able to access one of your favorite Pokemon Communities at the PokeCommunity.com! It's not there yet.. it will take a little time to move and recreate the community over there so be patient and stay tuned. He also said that he's happy to announce that Orange will be helping the community out with Pokemon doodles and drawings, making the next community layout the best ever.

Site of the Month

This month's site has to be one of my all time favorite since it's so darn original, which a lot of sites aren't these days. Team Rocket Video as you might have figured out from the title, has lots of videos. They are all to the theme of Team Rocket of course, but these aren't normal videos. They have a huge sections of music videos that they made themselves and that the fans sent in. They also have their own episode that they made. I have to admit that I was really impressed because it sounded like a real Pokemon episode, no wait it sounded better! It also has a huge section featuring fan art along with fan fiction, so make sure you check them out!

Well that wraps up another issue of your favorite newsletter. Remember, if you have any comments, don't hesitate to send them in. Also remember to check out the Pokemon Community, we are still in need of some new members, even though we are "moving on to bigger and better things". Hopefully I can contact NeoTrainerX for next issue so that I can bring back everyone's favorite section, Neo's Corner.

Well until next time Pokemasters!

- Alakazam