Niantic finally has my attention with today's announcement of Monster Hunter Now

It might be heresy in certain gaming circles, but I'm not a Pokémon guy. Not even a little. I know some people live and die by certain Poké-games, but I've never been one of them. I was an adult when those first Gameboy games started hitting, and I could never bring myself to engage with the card game, which just seemed like a black hole into which I could throw my hard-earned money in my broke-ass twenties.

So I never played Pokémon Go. The closest I got was standing idly by in the streets of San Francisco as one of my sons engaged in some sort of group battle with a furtive hoard of people that silently gathered outside an office building one day, did their shameful business, and quietly dispersed. Didn't look fun to me at all.

Hells yeah...

But that was then, and this is now. Niantic and Capcom today announced a new joint venture - Monster Hunter Now. A mobile game that promises to "bring the excitement of Monster Hunter to the streets, parks, and neighborhoods around the world," according to today's press release. That sounds good to me.

Monster Hunter Now is going to follow the same basic Niantic M.O., getting players to group up in the real world to accomplish missions, but this time, we're going to be fighting something cool. Players will be wandering around the parks and streets fighting awesome Monster Hunter monsters - and get this, you can mark them with something called a "Paintball", and bring them back home to finish the fight there! (Insert Jabba the Hutt laugh here.)

Fine, Niantic, you win. You finally got me. I will be there in September when Monster Hunter Now launches, cosplaying down in front of the local Target, screaming in front of the other patrons and fighting a Rathalos.

Register for the "Monster Hunter Now” closed beta test at monsterhunternow.com.