video game: Nintendo 64 Pok�댩mon Stadium

"Gotta catch ����_�em all!" First issued by Nintendo in 1996, this challenge sparked a Pok�댩mon craze that led to a successful television series, trading card game, and full-length movie. Since its initial release, Pok�댩mon has become the second best selling video game franchise worldwide, and the best selling role-playing video game (RPG) of all time.

Nintendo released the first Pok�댩mon games for the Game Boy in Japan as "Pocket Monsters: Red & Green." After proving successful, the games came to North America in 1998 as "Pok�댩mon Red" and "Pok�댩mon Blue." The games provide a simple premise: A single player travels and catches Pok�댩mon while fighting other trainers and their teams of monsters. The player����_��s ultimate goal involves winning Pok�댩mon battles against eight Gym Leaders and entering the Pok�댩mon League to battle the Elite Four, while simultaneously completing one����_��s Pok�댩dex, which contains a record of all known Pok�댩mon. Although it is a single-player game, players have the opportunity to trade or battle Pok�댩mon with other Game Boys via a Game Link Cable.

Even though Peter Bartholow, a Gamespot critic, described the graphics and audio of the original Pok�댩mon games as "somewhat primitive," other critics praised the games for their innovativeness, as well their promotion of imagination and creativity among the children playing them. Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of Pok�댩mon, modeled the monsters after the insects that he collected as a child. He did this to provide a new generation of children with the opportunity to collect insects and creatures while stimulating their sense of exploration and ingenuity.

After "Pok�댩mon Red" and "Blue" proved successful in the United States, Nintendo continued to release new and updated versions of the game. Most of these were RPGs similar to the original games, but Nintendo also released several spin-offs. Nintendo published one such game, "Pok�댩mon Stadium," for the Nintendo 64 in 2000. In this game, players compete in various tournaments using the original 151 Pok�댩mon. Players could also transfer their Pok�댩mon from "Red" or "Blue" into "Pok�댩mon Stadium" for use in battling. Critics and players enjoyed this game, claiming that it was a nice change of pace from the original games. In 2001, Nintendo released a sequel to the game, entitled "Pok�댩mon Stadium 2."

In 1999, Pok�댩mon appeared on the cover of Time Magazine in a story titled "Beware of the Pok�댩mania." The so-called "Pok�댩mania" was sweeping the nation via trading cards, a television series, toys, websites, and the original Game Boy games. By 1998, "Pok�댩mon Red" and "Pok�댩mon Blue" sold a combined 9.85 million copies in the United States and spawned many sequels. It is evident that even decades later, the "Pok�댩mon flu" that struck America����_��s children with the release of the first games has still not subsided.