Games That Raise the Heart Rate

The Rocky Mountain News is running an article by Kotaku's Brian Crecente entitled Fit to Play, about the effect that games with a workout component have on the health of the player. From the article: "...five years later and 100 pounds lighter, Jennsen is a video evangelist in the most 21st-century sense of the word, preaching the fat-melting, muscle-building power of video games to generations that have grown up holding joysticks."

Comments

Bussiness as usual: nothing to see here :p

[tibike77]

So instead of going to the gym and/or buying expensive fitness machines, you buy some peripherial and some game(/other nondescript software) that basically does the same.
Same thing, only cheaper ?

Re:Bussiness as usual: nothing to see here :p

[bluGill]

Lets add it up:

PS2: $150. DDR: $50. Good pad $100. total: $300. (Subtract the cost of a PS2 if you would have it anyway)

Cheap Wal-mart treadmill/exercise bike: $400. Quality treadmill/bike: $1200.

Simming pool: $6000. Home Spa: $3000. Sauna (build it yourself): $700. adds no value to your house

Freeweights, dumbells, bars, various benches: $250.

Racquetball court $4000.

Gym membership: $7-$100/month. (the cheapest requires health insurance to cover some of the cost) Has all the above (except DDR) in high quality equipment. And for those who pay with Master Card it also has: Cute Girls working out next to you: priceless!

The most important consideration is will you use it. If you won't go to the gym you are better off getting your own stuff - if you will use that. If you will go to the gym, then the gym is a better deal because you get so much more for so little money. Add it all up, and even a lifetime of membership won't pay for everything you use at the club. (if you use it all) Any there is no extra storage space needed for all of it.

Of course some things are free. You can run on the sidewalk/road for nothing. Most parks have basketball hoops. If you don't mind rain/sun/snow.

As for me and my household... we will DDR

[Jerf]

We just got into DDR this Christmas. Money is tight at the moment but the next scheduled luxury purchase is now a RedOctane dance mat, the soft $100 one. We have a cheaper one now and it is now ruining my score from false triggering (just sitting there with nobody on it, it fires) and not releasing the trigger correctly. (I'm on the verge of getting the easy AAA's in Light mode and starting to move up to Standard, but the pad makes that impossible.)

I think the key is to avoid the Education Game Trap (it's quite similar); the quickest way to a crappy "educational" game is to take the same-old, same-old and bolt it on to one of the Stardard Generic Game Frameworks. "Answer this math question to advance one space closer to the end." Woohoo, mommy can I please play "Advance The Squares"?

Similarly, I've seen people bolt a crappy racing game onto an exercise bike that in essense consisted of a line advancing forward that you had to stay ahead of, or lose. Woohoo, mommy can I please play "Finish The Boring Task In The Alloted Time"?

DDR isn't trying to make you exercise, but if you expect to play at the higher levels, you'll be sweating.

I'd also love to see a traditional car combat or 'kart' racing game that ran on a bike that you could turn, that used your pedaling as the acceleration with adjustable levels. See, the fun would be the cart game, the exercise the means to an end, instead of the explicit and boring goal.

I thought I didn't like to exercise. Turns out it was the boredom of doing laps that was killing me (semi-literally).

The real world works like this, too, after all, so this should hardly be a shock. Which is more fun, running a mile for no real reason, or a game of soccer, basketball, or water polo? Why do people insist that exercise has to be boring? That's really a relatively recent "innovation", you know. Maybe there's a reason that innovation has coincided with people dying due to lack of exercise?

Re:why not just going swimming?

[X0563511]

Not everyone has access to a heated pool and lives in a warm environment all year round. I wouldn't be caught dead swimming in an unheated pool here during winter, it hits -20F at times.

I prefer swimming in natural bodies of water, but that can be kind of hard with over 2 inches of ice on the surface.