Gotta Free ’em All. That’s the tag line for the well-known animal activist group’s latest gaming stunt, a lampooning of the Pokémon series.
I’ll give PETA – the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals – this much; when it comes to raising awareness for the troubled plight of animals worldwide, they certainly know how to make heads turn. Probably, in the most annoyingly fashion – yes – but you can’t say it doesn’t work.
Their advertisement tool this time takes aim at Pokémon, the hugely successful creature-collecting series from Nintendo, along with its latest iteration, Pokémon Black 2 & White 2, which just so happened to launch this past weekend in North America.
It’s called Pokémon Black and Blue, and as you would probably picture from its name and the few images I’ve wrangled up, the flash game is a witty caricature of the Game Freak franchise made to teach kids about cruel animal exploitation using Pikachu and friends.
“Games such as Pokémon send kids the wrong message that exploiting and abusing those who are defenseless is acceptable when it’s not. But with Pokémon Black and Blue, children can experience the great feeling that comes from saving others from harm.”
… Or so says PETA’s Joel Bartlett, to which my rebuttal would be 1) Pokémon are fictional creatures, and 2) since when have creatures that can shoot lighting or cause earthquakes totally defenseless? But, of course, coming to that conclusion only misses the forest from the trees.
Pokémon Black and Blue is just another platform to shout: hey, stop being asshats to animals. A noble cause if any, and looking back at PETA’s past gaming exploits – including one such that accused Mario of being a murderous fur scalper – is pretty much in the same activist vein.
I don’t like that it’s my darling Pokémon they’re using to make their point… but… and this might get the “pitchforks and fiery torches” committee after me, I’ve heard the game is a sharp put together spoof. With a ton of funny little references long-time Pokémon veterans will probably get a kick out of.
Not surprising, this is all attributed to small-fry developer THIS IS POP, creator of this title as well as a bunch of Adult Swim games that are both quite popular and quite funny. So, if any of this remotely sounds interesting to you, go right ahead and visit Pokémon Black and Blue’s web portal, through here.
Those of you staying behind though, go ahead and visit what’s hot and fresh here on Walyou. Particularly, this deliciously geeky Portal pumpkin or a rad RC robot enforcer that helps injured Policemen.
