Category Archives: Close Playing

by Braydon Beaulieu Fire Blast. Thundershock. Giga Drain. Psybeam. These words drip with nostalgia for those who played – or still play, in my case, as with many others – the Pokémon games. They are attacks that expel elemental energy from the bodies of creatures that populate the regions of one of Nintendo’s most successful game franchises – a franchise that has blossomed into card games, television shows, films, manga, et cetera. Pokémon pervades the imaginations of people around the globe, and not simply children. You’d be hard-pressed to find a gamer who wasn’t at least cursorily familiar with the mechanics of Pokémon. Catch ’em, train ’em, become a master. The player improves his or her team of pocket monsters by battling them against other creatures with increasingly powerful attacks and evolutionary forms. The term used to describe unclean, out-of-control bodies is “abject,” a term that points to such bodies Continue reading →