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Wii Aches - Couch Potatoes Working it Up
Genocaust writes "While the new controller on the Wii is proving to be a success, it's turning out to be more effort than some die-hard couch potatoes bargained for. The Wall Street Journal reports on the newest workout regime for nerds." From the article: "In Rochester, Minn., Jeremy Scherer and his wife spent three hours playing tennis and bowling, two of the games included with the Wii. Mr. Scherer says he managed to improve his scores — at the cost of shoulders and back that were still aching the next day. 'I was using muscles I hadn't used in a while,' says Mr. Scherer, a computer programmer who describes himself as 'not very active.' Mr. Scherer is vowing nightly 'Wii workouts' to get in better shape." "Bunnies Don't Know What To Do With Cows", in Rayman, is another guaranteed way to get your arm aching. Cows are heavy, and it takes a lot of energy to throw them.
Honestly, with the way the control scheme works, you CAN be a couch patatoe and play the Wii just fine.
:) When you really get into it is when the workout starts, but its also when the fun begins.
Its just boring
Maybe this could be a solution for Bovine America. If only they could come up with a video game controller that removed excess complacency and enabled one to recognize propaganda, then we might even go back to having a free country again!
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
before they make a actual exercise themed game?
Imagine this as the start of a trend -- play video games and still get in shape.
It has been discussed to death that the wiimote could be the answer for so many overweight gamers (which is a great thing) but how easy is it to damage something (ie: back, arms, neck, tendons, etc) due to prolonged usage of this device? I don't own a wii but how accurate to "real" sports movements is it? Do players have to do unnatural movements at times in order to get things "working"?
[alk]
I think http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/11/13 eloquently puts the point across.
Since the wii has wifi, Sebastion isn't allowed to play with it.
This
I mean really really out of shape. I've known this for awhile, but it's nice that I have something I can do that I enjoy that actually gives me a bit of a workout. My SO and I are playing a lot of Tennis together. It's less of a learning curve and more practical to play a few best of 3 games of tennis every night than to go out and do it in cold wet seattle. And surprisingly, we can work up a sweat after a half hour to an hour of tennis.
The bowling is really easy on the arms. Baseball can be hard on the pitching arm. Boxing is a real work out. And golf is kind of relaxing and is more of a precision game. Several of the Raving Rabbids games have tested our metal. I seem to be really good at the running and rhythm games, and my SO is great at the shooting and fine manipulation games.
All in all, it was fun to notice that little bit of pain in the back of the shoulder that lets you know you got some exercise. Something I rarely feel I can do much of anymore, which is really just a mental block and lazyness on my part. Still, if they could figure out some way to get your legs to workout in this games, it would be something better for youth to do besides the regular sit and stare video games that I grew up with.
And hey, maybe a pad you can put on the ground! I'll make a game called track n field. It'll be great. Or how about a glove you can wear? That'd be neat too.
This may help the obesity rate among kids. It has been climbing at an alarming pace, and now that we have a workout program disguised as a video game... Things are bound to get better.
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I've been playing quite a bit exploring the landscape of the latest Zelda game. As long as I hold my wrists strait while playing, I've found it a much lighter stress than using a mouse. The closest thing to an ache I've gotten was while playing a precision flying minigame for more than a half-hour - having to hold the pointer perfectly still to pop these stationary balloons as the camera pans around your character's flying figure is akin to trying to hold your hand out in front of your body for a similar time... extremely easy at first, but your muscles do tense from the focus on a position. Sitting cross-legged on a chair, and occasionally resting my elbow on my leg pretty much fixes that issue with me though. Swinging both controllers, almost an endless number of ways and times though, hasn't itself been much of a stress at all, even now at the end of the game, and after going through a 50-floor optional battle-fest.
Nintendo has done a very good job so far making a comfortable and light controller. Players concerned about wrist or arm stress should compare against mouse usage, and be willing to take breaks if they have to do the same when using a mouse. Don't be afraid to rest your arm on something while playing, or to be creative with 'lazy' ways of performing the same action if it must be repeated. And, if it's really an issue, consider getting some cheap light weights (1-5lbs) and do some light exercise while watching TV at night or something - this works for even the oldest or the youngest people out there, from my experience.
Ryan Fenton
Also, I find this absolutely ridiculous. This article is horribly worded and this quote seems completely out of context. What is harder than playing basketball? The writer seems to make it sound like the kid is talking about actually moving the wiimote around, but I suspect he is actually referring to some specific game being exceedingly difficult to complete. Maybe it gives you a little exercise, but as the spokeswoman from Nintendo says,
I should also point out I do not yet been able to get a Wii.
I just want to know how long before we get some good DDR games, with a supporte mat, for the Wii.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I get plenty of right-arm exercise in front of my PC, but I could do with something that works on my left arm, and preferably doesn't make you go blind ;)
Oh no... it's the future.
You could make a dance game with extra detail, maybe. Two wiimotes, one in each hand, and a dance mat connected as a standard controller.
Come to think of it, that wouldn't only work for dance games. How about a fighting game? Wii Boxing with fancy footwork...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
When I was a kid, the only way we could convince our parents to buy us an NES was to convince them that the Power Pad (I think that's what it was called) would encourage us to be more active. I don't know if they really believed us, but that christmas, there was a brand new NES under the tree with the Power Pad. We actually used it for a little while too, though the only game we had for it was some kind of olympic sports game. It soon gathered lots of dust though after we discovered much more fun games. Here's to the new generation of kids who get to convince their parents to get them a Wii "because it will keep them active". And here's hoping that these newer games might be fun enough to keep he kids interested and active.
And the system is amazing.
I decided to see how many calories I actually burned, so I attached a small fitness monitor to myself and played away.
After about 20 minutes of play, I was up to 97 calories. That isn't have bad, a very light work out.
It has real work out programs designed by nike motion works: cardio, tai chi, yoga, firming exercises, etc.
It's a program that also scales with use. The eyetoy is a better controller than the Wii to me as well, since you can use your whole body. Like the Wii controller you might have to adjust your lighting for perfect useage and keep an area clear for movement. I also suggest getting a mat as well. I was a judoka for a long time, and I still get a good workout from this system.
Unlike us: Slashdot-reading-adults who would never want to do anything as silly and embarassing as waving a remote pretending it was a sword. Though, if instead of sword you got a lightsaber...
but does anyone have any games the recomend for the Wii, I'm pre-ordered zelda today but was also interested in that red steel game... what's good?
(In case your wondering I live in the UK and we get it on the 8th of December)
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
Just so you know, this is the new Wiimote, coming next year.
Wiimote 2.0
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
I suppose you could have a Bat'leth game, with the controller attached to an actual bat'leth. That would give a good work out. Maybe an American Gladiator pugil stick game as well?
I drank what? -- Socrates
Stop with the "Nintendo is for kids" thing. It's not true and honestly, unless you do manual labor for a living (lifting servers and running cable doesn't count) you shouldn't be physically tired when you get home. If you are too tired to play a Wii game then you are probably the one most in need of the little bit of exercise you would get from playing it.
The Wii is the only one of the new systems that is made for adults. Single men under thirty don't count as adults. I don't know one man who wants to come home from work and play adolescent games where you shoot other people. Those games are still pushing the same formula that they did a decade ago when most of us adults got tired of them. I'd rather play a golf or baseball game than Gears of War for the same reason I'd rather spend Saturday playing real golf than I would hanging out with friends.
Make no mistake, the 360 and PS3 are game systems for adolescent boys, not adults. The Wii is the only system that offers gameplay that might be entertaining for an adult or his family. The fact that my six year old son will also find entertaining games on the Wii is a bonus so I won't have to buy a dedicated kids system like PS3.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
Thanks for typing out what I was thinking :)
Fact is, what constitutes a "kids game" is quite subjective, and people in different age groups tend to feel differently about it. For example, most people who think of Mario as a "little kids game" are probably under 25 (I'm 24 myself, and disagree with Mario, etc being for kids... Ecco Jr. for the Genesis was a little kids game. Its a total other ball park).
Ironicaly, the previous poster mentionned coming back home wanting to get high and drink, which (if we're going by stereotypes, in the same way one can associate the Wii with kid games), tends to be associated with hormonal frat college teens, a group which are seen as "kids" by about anyone above 30 and a little less.
So honestly, away with the stupid stereotypes. Fun knows no age.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
"I AM A FISH!"
Mr. Rimmer, this is the 11th time you've failed the astro-navigation exam. Don't you think you're just not cut out to be an officer?
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As a college student, I can safely say that many Nintendo games, both old and new (Super Smash Brothers Melee and SNES Mario Kart, to name a couple) are quite popular in that particular age range.
Personally, I'd say the only legitimate "Nintendo is for kids" argument would be concerning the online play, where your identity is hidden to the extent that you aren't even allowed to exchange text messages with randomly assigned opponents. Great for kids, of course, but for the older crowd, a system like that tends to get a bit tedious.
I think we can now officially declare humanity to be doomed when exercise means playing a video game. Could the last human please turn out the light when they leave? Oh, and remember to turn off the console and plasma TV too.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Ironically enough, I'm pretty positive that if Lucas Art comes out with a -good- game from the Jedi Knight serie on the Wii that correctly uses the Wiimote, the Wii sales for the next few months after launch will flat double.
The idea is to have something that'd give you a good workout without being long enough to destroy your TV, or furniture, or little brother. :-P
Most of the Mario "kiddie" games you speak of are far more difficult than the majority of the "grown-up" games out there. GTA for instance is a cake walk next to Super Mario Brothers 2 or Mario Sunshine. The myth of Nintendo being a kiddie console is one perpetuated mainly by teens and preteens that think they are too old to play a game with a cartoony main character. Once you grow up you will find that its ok, mario is no threat to your manhood. Oddly enough you will also generally find that immaturity in gaming is usually on the violence for violence's sake crowd. In the end its all about fun and a challenge, Nintendo does a good job of delivering both.
The Wii is the only one of the new systems that is made for adults. Single men under thirty don't count as adults.
You made a good point and sounded intelligent up until that comment.
I'd rather play a golf or baseball game than Gears of War for the same reason I'd rather spend Saturday playing real golf than I would hanging out with friends.
What? You don't like hanging out with friends? Have you lost your social life outside of your family? So single men under thirty aren't adults, and you'd rather play golf than hang out with friends. You sound like an unhappy married man (since you think single men don't qualify as adults) who probably didn't go to college (I say that because you seemed to allude to college students being the "adolescents" who play first person shooters) and is unhappy with his job that he started right out of high school, but that would just be my guess.
That doesn't really matter though. You do realize that you just stereotyped "single men under thirty" while bitching about the stereotype that Nintendo is for kids. Its a lot more convincing when you practice what you preach.
I'm a 23 year old college student, which is probably why I was so irritated with your comment, who loves the GameCube, not to mention the other systems. My roommates and I play Mario Tennis all the time when friends come over before we go out on the weekends. We play Mario Party with our girlfriends. The Mario games are our favorites on the system, and we have probably gotten more use out of the GameCube than the other systems we own.
I'm a little confused on why you say that the Wii is the only new system for your definition of adults while your only reason for that is that adults like sports games more than FPSs. Historically, the PS and XBox have more sports games than Nintendo, unless you are counting all of the Mario sports games. I admit I haven't reviewed the latest list of games for the systems, but even if there are more sports games out for the Wii at the moment, I doubt that that will be the case in another year since, as far as I know, it hasn't been the case in the past.
Finally, my 63 year old father loves the PS2 and plans to buy the PS3. This is because he doesn't like games that require manual dexterity, and the PS2 has the largest concentration of RPGs (which usually don't require hand-eye coordination). He doesn't like sports games and is not interested in the Wii or the thought of using its controllers. The PS3 is the system to most likely have a large number of "standard" RPGs (by that I mean games like Breath of Fire, Dragon Warrior, and FF instead of Zelda or Secret of Mana), so that is what my father wants and the PS3 is the only system for him, a married man over 30.
It's not true and honestly, unless you do manual labor for a living (lifting servers and running cable doesn't count) you shouldn't be physically tired when you get home. Okay I'm with you except for this. What I do is not physically challenging in any sense of the term. But both my spouse and I are often exhausted at the end of the day. Most people work more than 8 hours a day unfortunately, and add in travel time etc. it gets rough. I'm a 34 year old physics major doing major catch up in math & sciences (because neither were heavily required for the degree in psychology *sigh*). I'm bone tired at the end of the day, and ready to sleep all weekend (as if I could) by Friday. If I had kids to boot...yikes! All that being said, exercise helps with that kind of fatigue. It's just easy to wimp out at the end of a long day. It's incredibly easy to justify with 'I just spent 6 hours in a lab, 5 more on equations, and now I have to do pre-lab reports AAAAH' I want to veg. out.' But I like gaming. I like gaming a lot more than going to a gym, going for a walk, riding my bike (and I really like riding my bike) and more than vegging out in front of the television. I suspect the Wii Workout will be the majority of my 'exercise' next semester. Which suits me just fine if I can also get a decent workout from it to boot along with gaming. :)
I partially disagree with your argument. Before I start, I'm 21 and finishing up college (not your typical party guy though).
I think Nintendo heavily targets kids, age ranging from around 6-15. What really makes me agree with the statement is that most of the core games Nintendo releases (most especially Mario) is more-or-less an interactive cartoon. I don't mean this just visually, but the story lines are similar to those that you might encounter in a Nickelodeon cartoon (at least the classic ones, I'm not up to speed with current cartoon trends). Often characters in these games do not die, or if they do it is only implied; Mario just falls off the screen or falls on his back, you don't see blood all over the ground as you would with, say, Quake on the Xbox. A lot of the games are simple, and the story lines are not so complex that a kid wouldn't be able to follow it -- although there are of course exceptions. This really sways me to think Nintendo is the family company of the bunch, they really target kids in a safe and friendly environment.
My dad (45) never plays video games. Once upon a time he had an Atari 2600 and quite a collection of classics (Galaga among his favorites). He wouldn't touch a SNES, N64, or GameCube, and I can understand that -- with the Atari you have a joystick and a button, but with each generation the technology took leaps ahead, and now the GameCube has what.. 8 buttons, a directional pad, and two joysticks? For an adult who might have been a casual game player, this might seem intimidating if he was trying to get back into it after 20 so years. I think this is really how you are seeing the Wii appeal to adult users. The Wii has the latest technology, but in a form that any adult can pick up and immediately begin experimenting with without a lot of hesitation or intimidation. If the developers play their cards right, I can really see people like my dad picking up a Wii and playing it from time to time. However, the key here is probably with minigames, and I see this happening already (Sports and Rayman). If games have been out of your life for 20 some odd years, you likely will not be interested in picking up a game that will take several weeks of casual play to complete (ex, Zelda), rather some game you can play for 10 or 15 minutes then put down.
With this, I think Nintendo targets both kids and adults, maintaining a family appearance, but still appealing to adults.
Am I wrong?
How about a bazooka gun for first person shooters. You would have to balance the large awkward gun on your shoulder to be able to use it. Oh wait...
Try cutting out MSG and High Fructose Corn Syrup from your diet. I cut just those two things and found my never-ending daily fatigue has all but gone away.
I'm not saying it will work for you, but it's done wonders for me. Oh, and MSG "hides" as all kinds of things like textured proteins and autolyzed yeasts.
Anyway, I'm less tired all the time and I'm losing weight. I'm now trying to start exercising regularly... at least now I have the energy for it.
I think a small 1 or 2 lbs hand weight would be a fine workout for most people. Might not seem like much but you try swinging 2 lbs around for 2 hours and see if your arm's don't feel a little sore the next day.
then have larger sizes up to 5 lbs or so. Wow, can you imagine if the Wii actually made people stronger? You'd see some muscular guy and think "What a geek! Must spend 10 hours a day playing with his Wii!"
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Actually, an exercise bike bottom, with a wii-mote top for handlebars, could make a killer version of Prop Cycle and really get geeks sweatin'...
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Way to take a not-bad point and stretch it all to hell.
We know Nintendo games go beyond sheer kiddie value for elegant gameplay reasons, but don't kid yourself, its a game with characters that have names like Princess Peach, Luigi, and Toad, and its coloured like an angry fruit salad. The fact that one can look past the PlaySkool elements to see the interesting game design beneath does not somehow elevate the entire enterprise into the realm of what most adults would call ... adult.
A console is not made for any range group ("make no mistake" - i love that phrase. end of debate!) Get a grip. There is no 'adult game'. There are only games we sometimes don't like small kids to play. That's it.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
I don't have my Wii yet, but I actually bought Rayman in anticipation and played it on a friend's console.
Anyways, there's this one game where you're looking at a beach, and rabbits in scuba gear are coming towards you from underwater. You've got to shoot them with carrot juice. You use the wiimote to aim the hose, and you rapidly move the nunchuk up and down to pump carrot juice...
You know, I would have thought that I'd have more staying power in that game, but holy hell was I wrong. Maybe I was pumping too hard, but my arm was fricking tired at the end of the, I think, 50 seconds you needed to last to beat it.
Damnit son!
Sports are for men, men are for sports.
Don't you get it!
None of this cartoon wops jumping on mushrooms crap.
I grew up in Wyoming, where I never saw a crosswalk, and to cross when cars were coming meant death. We Wyomingites often go to Salt Lake for rock shows and whatnot. It took me several trips down there to understand that you had to stop for the people in the stripey line zone. Stoplights I understood...but these fools were just out in the middle of the road! I must have chased hundreds back onto the sidewalk before I finally got it...couldn't figure out what the hell was WRONG with those people.
So if you're walking in Salt Lake, keep a wary eye out for those Wyoming license plates. They have the little cowboy on them.
For those who don't get it, the Wii is going to make doing a bit of exercise FUN. I used to lift weght's, but it's SO BORING; lift, return, repeat, rest.
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Great for kids, of course, but for the older crowd, a system like that tends to get a bit tedious.
Well, that depends. Personally, I find it a real turn-off when 12-year-olds curse you out using l337 speak online. Yes, you can usually get around it by blocking them or turning off chat, but what if you can't stand the way that your own teammate speaks? Turning the chat off puts you at a significant disadvantage. At least with Nintendo's way, everyone has that disadvantage. I'm not saying that it doesn't come at a cost, but it's a cost that I'm willing to pay for a more pleasant experience.
My girlfriend and I started playing Wii together (she pretty much hates all video games and I'm a gamer dork) and we have pretty much decided that Wii Sports Boxing is an awesome workout..
A few 3-round fights and both of us are catching our breaths.. (We're not in bad shape either.. she's 21 and I'm 24). The one thing the Wii does is get my ass off the couch. Even when I'm playing games like Zelda or Red Steel, I find myself standing up intently and precisely swinging the Wiimote around.
Boxing, though, is a whole different kind of workout.. I've done real boxing - and there's nothing like it. But, with Wii boxing, you can actually beat up your girlfriend and feel good about it. I love how intuitive it is.. She hasn't played any video games except for Grand Theft Auto (and that she did rarely) and she beats me about as often as I beat her.
I will admit, the graphics for the Wii are HIGHLY dissappointing. They are seriously bad. I would've thought Nintendo would at LEAST improve them somewhat to look halfway-decent on a 720p HDTV. Oh well.. Maybe in the next round of console wars we'll get a Nintendo system that's a ton of fun to play AND has good graphics. I agree with Nintendo, though.. gameplay is definitely key. There's a reason I have a Gamecube and a Wii.. and no Xbox or PS2 (or the newer ones.)
--- We need more Ron Paul!
And hey, maybe a pad you can put on the ground! I'll make a game called track n field. It'll be great......That reminds me of an old idea I once had. It was a "Jump to Conclusions" mat. You see, it would be this mat that you would put on the floor... and would have different CONCLUSIONS written on it that you could JUMP TO
Can you say "Dance Dance Wiivolution"? I thought you could...
That's easy, clashes shouldn't hold like in the movies. Tn the game you're probably trying to harm the person not carry on a convo about parenting. If the swords do 'lock' in game, it gets marked a block and it pushes your character back to a 'reset position'.
I'm sure if managed properly people could get good at forcing people off edges (or into corners), with timed blocks...
There are lots of reasons.:
Generally, I prefer real sports to console sports, but they do quite simply occupy a different niche in my life. Playing Wii Sports takes away from my console playing time, not from my sports time. I'm doing more physical activities, not replacing real sports with Wii sports.
Ah, yes, the classic "games where you shoot other people" genre. I'd hate to be doing something that was formulaic a decade ago. Give me a modern, fresh game like... golf. A game where everyone aspires to consistancy.
Seriously, if you think all of these games are the same, you don't know enough about the genre. It's like saying all golf courses are pushing the same formula. Sure, but there are variations to the theme that make them each interesting in their own right. And there's people lined up to tell you that your golf hobby marks you as a boy in a man's body, just like with video games and every other activity on earth. Starting a pissing contest about who's a man is one of my qualifications, personally.
Will the extra exercise gain support for video games or lose it? I wonder the affect this will have on american obesity, and sadly I also wonder the "legal" effects. I can see someone arguing that having to move the controller realistically is the next step in the evolution of murder simulators.
Honest anwser, because you may not be physically able to. My mother loves Tennis, but now has bad knees and can't play anymore. She really got into WiiSports Tennis, and My dad liked the golf game. My parents (who are retired and don't play video games) now want a Wii.