I thought we needed a new topic about the recently announced Pokemon games. While they don't seem to be much of an improvement over the previous games, they do have some pretty cool new features. I wouldn't go as far to say that they "breathe new life into the series", but the games definatly look like they'll be great for fans of the series. For people who don't know, Pokemon is an RPG series - on the DS this time round that revolves around capturing monsters and battling with them to level them up. I know many people will still think of this as a kids game, but it's a pretty deep RPG, at least battle wise. It involves a lot of training and strategy and is one of the most balanced RPG's I've ever played. For people who love collecting, or power leveling hundreds of little critters, you should definatly give it a try.
Firstly, the day and night cycle make a return, after being mysteriously absent from the previous few games. This means, if you play the game at night, it will be night in the game, allowing you to capture some of the more nocturnal Pokemon.

There also appears to be different variations for the male and female Pokemon. While this isn't a huge difference, it is pretty cool to not have every single Pokemon you come across look identical. In the picture below, the male Wooper has longer antena than the female.

It also has numerous other smaller updates, such as being able to monitor the Pokemon in the day care centre, so if you're Pokemon happen to produce an Egg, you'll know about it, instead of having to constantly back track to the Day care, only to find you
still don't have an egg.
It's also going to be the first DS game to link up to the Wii, to another Pokemon game, known as Battle Revolution, which is looking similiar to the Stadium type games released on the N64, but with a massive graphical over haul. Bits of the arena fly apart during one of the Pokemons attacks. It also features some kind of RPG mode. The game does look really impressive and for once the Pokemon actually physically hit each other. Both games feature Wi-fi for battling and trading with others online and are due out in Japan later this year.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Lj2Jqz-rxk8&search=Battle%20RevolutionA video of Battle Revolution in action.