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Video Games in Gym Class - DDR 101?
Saige writes: "When I was in school, gym class was basketball, running laps, and icky locker rooms. Today, kids get to play video games - and get credit for them! No, it is not as bad as it seems. Apparently, someone has become clued in that Dance Dance Revolution promotes physical activity, and a school in California is making use of that. Can I go back and retake gym?"
one of the few I have seen girls playing in arcades. We need more games that have a broad appeal like that.
Strangely when I was at school I was the only boy in the gymnastics class (an attempt to keep fit). It seems strange that no other boys thought of the benefits of this class!
People are getting fatter all the time (I certainly am) so we need to encourage fitness, but I would be disappointed if this replaced something good with queues for the machine.
I hear that in many US high schools they have vending machines that dispense flavoured sugar water. This is to raise money for the school (and large companies). Surely getting rid of some of those would do as much good to improve health as a modest increase of exercise.
I'm assuming they'll be using the "American" versions of DDR? I believe most of the good mixes are Japanese (or Korean) and specifically not for export (music licensing issues).
Also, nobody's going to complain that some of the lyrics are possibly objectionable? Oh well, it's California...
"Come on baby do it to me right now, do it to me slowly" is not something my school principal would have accepted in school, i think.
Back when I went to school (Melbourne High, FWIW), we had to take a sport activity. One activity briefly offered was Phasor Strike, i.e., laser-tag. Students would run around in a darkened room with backpacks shooting infrared beams at each other.
This was canned after a year or so after protests from parents. (The fact that a former student of the school made news by going postal and massacring some 7 people may have had something to do with it; OTOH, the mass murderer attended the school before Phasor Strike, and was a product of the culture of militarism in its cadet corps, which nothing was done about. *shrug*)
As for me? I took golf as a school sport. It was a decent excuse to have a leisurely stroll, rather than wrestling in mud with 10 other blokes or something equally unpleasant. Even at the cost of lugging a set of cheap, decrepit-looking golf clubs back and forth on the peak-hour train.
Konami (the same people behind Dance Dance Revolution)has been putting out quite a few games that can burn some calories.
Police 911 uses an image tracking system to move your on screen character based on your actual body position. In order to reload during the otherwise typical gun game you need to duck behind something. In order to duck, you have to squat/duck in the real world.
MoCap Boxing has you put on a pair of weighted gloves and actually punch and block in a first person boxing match. This will tire out more than just geeks. I've watched as macho buffed guys with their girlfriends walk up to the machine and brag about how easy it will be. Within minutes they are barely able to keep their arms up.
If game designers can keep coming up with creative and well done games like these maybe the arcade is not as endangered as it has appeared.
Once more unto the breach dear friends...
DDR is definitely a workout -- at least when you're doing the 3 or higher level songs. It's also the only excercise in which I ever bother to engage. When I was working part-time and taking late afternoon classes I would play DDR for one hour a day three days a week. I lost weight (I'm not overweight, but I'm approaching an undesirable heaviness) and I noticed that I was getting significantly less winded when running from the parking lot to class.
Unfortunately I'm working full time now and my DDR playtime has dropped to zero. Recently some friends were over and the mat got pulled out and I found myself winded after just three songs.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
It's probably more expensive, but has anyone seen that pedal-plane game? (You fly a plane around a course - The twist is that you have to pedal it to keep flying!)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I sucked at football, baseball, basketball, etc. But I owned at dodgeball.
I was the same way. Why the hell isn't dodge ball *not* a professional sport? Maybe some of those old XFL folks could put it together...
the starting position for wrestling pretty much looks like a gay buttfuck
or in your case, a visit with grandpa.
Don't attach your negative perceptions to a group. I'm sure you feel equally offended by my imagery.