Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Turns You Into One Of 16 Pokemon

I will admit that I have, upon occasion played a Pokemon game or two. Never the card game, mind you, as during that craze I still held true to my Magic: The Gathering roots.  I will admit that the video games are fun, but I know when there are games that I should stay away from. Namely the ones where I end up feeling compelled to spend countless hours "catching them all," because I'll do just that. There are a couple of new Pokemon games hitting stores this week that take a different approach to the franchise.

Rather than going around catching the little critters and battling them against each other, you are actually transformed into one. You'll take a quiz at the beginning to figure out what type you should be, and go from there. You spend your time on an island populated only with other Pokemon, searching for a reason why you have been turned into one.

One really awesome feature is that if you're playing and you need some help, you can send out an SOS Mail (if you're connected to a WiFi network, that is) and your friends will get a notification via email or txt message. They'll have to register their address or phone number in order to get those, so you won't be spamming random friends that don't even own the game.

You'll be able to pick up Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness or Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time starting today for $34.99.