Lots of TCG News/Updates, Gameboy, and TV News

»Base Set and Best Promo Scans Added: For those of you that did not read the update that I added at 3 in the morning last night, which is below this, I added all of the Base Set scans. To view those, click Base Set under Card Scans in the left menu. Also, since I went to bed at 3:30 last night and then woke up at 2:00 in the afternoon, I had no time to upload all of the Best Promo scans I had finished. So, I just uploaded them and you can now view the Jumbo cards, Promo Cards, and Stamped Winner cards that you could have won last season at the Pokemon League. To view them, go to Promos under Card Scans in the left menu and then scroll down to Best Promos, which is right under Nintendo Promos.

»Better View of #9 Combusken Promo: As I reported yesterday, for the Pokemon League this season, you will be able to get a #8 reverse holo Torchic promo, a #9 Combusken promo, or a #9 Combusken Jumbo card. Now, someone at Ebay.com has put up a bid for the Combusken Promo, which gives a big scan of the Combusken Promo card. To go to the auction page and view the scan, click here.

»EX Ruby and Sapphire Challenge Series Stuff: When I went to the R/S Challenge Series in San Diego, everyone who registered received an Eon Ticket. With the Eon Ticket came a brochure that explained how to use it. Also when I came in first place for my age division, I received a medal and was sent in the mail a gift certificate. I for some reason forgot I had the pictures of the medal and Eon Ticket brochure and forgot to upload them. I have now received the $200 Gift Certificate in the mail as well and have posted it for your viewing pleasure. To view the pictures, look below and click the thumbnails.

»New EX Tin: EBGames.com has put up an EX Tin for sale. The tin will include five booster packs with a random mixture of EX Ruby and Sapphire and EX Sandstorm booster packs. What I think the main feature of this tin is that it will come with a holographic Pikachu and Meowth card, though it is not yet known if they are promos, reprints, etc. The tin will also come with a double-sided poster. To pre-order the tin from EBGames.com for an incredibly low price of $19.95, click here.

»Deck Fixes: Alright everyone, I start school in two days (Thursday) and probably won’t have time to fix any decks. Right now, I have four of them that I probably won’t have time to get to unless I stay home from the beach tomorrow. If that happens, then I will definately fix them. So, for those of you that sent in your decks, if you don’t get them tomorrow, I probably won’t have time to fix them for a while.

»Pokemon Pinball Released: For all of you Gameboy players, Pokemon Pinball was released yesterday! It is the second edition of the original Pokemon Pinball, and there have been many improvements to the game. First off, the graphics have been dramatically improved and the sound effects are incredible! Obviously, the game will allow you to catch the Ruby and Sapphire Pokemon along with the older ones, though you can only catch a little over 200 Pokemon all together. One rumor going around is that there may be a way in the near future to capture all of the Pokemon that are unobtainable through another game (like with Colosseum allowing you to download the unobtainable Pokemon to your Ruby or Sapphire Gameboy games) To view pictures of the Japanese version of the game, click here. (Note: The Japanese version and the English version are EXACTLY the same except with a few translations) To go to the official Pinball site, click here. To view an animated gallery of some of the screenshots from the English version of the game, look below if you already haven’t.

»E-Reader Bundle: Remember how I reported a few weeks ago that Nintendo would be releasing an E-Reader and Gameboy Advance Bundle? (NOT Gameboy Advance SP, just GBA) Well now, IGN.com has gotten hold of some pictures and the average price, which is $79.99. To read more on it and to see much bigger pictures, click here.

»More Info. on the Pokemon Pinball Commercial: Yesterday while uploading the Base Set and Best Promo scans, I had the TV on all day with Cartoon Network, with the exception of watching Return of the Jedi three times in a row. From the five hours I watched Cartoon Network, the Pinball Commercial came on exactly twice. So, I naturally watched it and took notes. Unfortunately, I tried to take pictures of the TV but my digital camera only showed scan lines. The only way I could take pictures was to snap the pictures at a certain time so the scan lines wouldn’t appear. Anyways, the commercial had Jigglypuff, Loudred, Groudon, and Treeko in it. All of them were standing in line and then Loudred and Groudon began to fight on who would go to the exit of the line as Jigglypuff disappeared into the exit, which we don’t know to where it leads. Then, Treeko began to freak out while they are fighting and then Loudred and Groudon decide who gets to go, Treeko! So they push Treeko to the exit of the line and something punches him. Now the viewers know that it is the launcher that hits the ball on to the pinball field that has hit Treeko. That part then ends, and it jumps to some clips of the game. Next, it shows a GBA SP with Treeko bouncing all around the TV screen, and then the commercial ends.

»Major Improvement in TV Show Graphics: In a few weeks, a new episode will air in America called Address Unknown, featuring Unknown G! (ya know, the Pokémon that look like alphabet soup without the soup according to Meowth) This will be the very first Pokemon TV episode that will be using digital animation. (The first two pictures are from the episode) That means the graphics will greatly improve. Then, when the Hoenn Region episodes begin to air, the animation will once again be improved to a higher level of digital animation, improving the graphics even more. One reason for the dramatic improvements is that during the entire Johto region season, the animators in Japan were only sponsored by three companies, which means they got a smaller amount of money. As a result of this, the later Johto episodes began to be drawn much more poorly. One example of this is that you will notice in the Johto episodes airing right now that Ash and gang are drawn incorrectly at times and that at all times, their eyes are much further apart. Now this will all change. The animators were able to get eight sponsors, instead of the previous three, allowing them to hire more animators, for the animation building where they work to be expanded, and allowing them to upgrade to digital animation during the later Johto episodes and then to an even higher level for the Hoenn episodes. So now, we will be viewing the last few episodes of Johto in digital animation as well as the Hoenn episodes in even higher digital animation. (The last picture shows the first level of digital animation. You can tell the graphics are better.) Note: I did not make these pictures, I got them from SPP.

»Back to School Promotion Report: Pokemon.com has written up a nice report on the Back to School promotion that took place over the weekend at the Pokemon Center in New York. The report talks about the Eon Ticket giveaway as well as the selling of Pokemon Pinball before it was released. To read the report, click here.