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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?
I think http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/11/13 eloquently puts the point across.
I'm going to have to disagree with this article..
This article assumes that nerds are somehow NOT used to making quick/small jerking motions with their wrists.. I mean.. common.
MABASPLOOM!
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.
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
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.
I've used the Wii. I am also a tennis player and was delighted to see that the real world tennis motions match up with the game as expected. As far as injury goes, I think you are just looking at repetative type injuries that can't be avoided. Since there is no actual contact with anything and therefore no resistance I find it hard to believe that anyone could get injured simply from waving the remote around in a natural manner.
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.
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.
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.
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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 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.
Nope...dead serious.
I've written about this before on here....one of the BIG reasons I see today, is that kids just aren't outside playing like we used to when was a young kid. Most everyday after school, we and the neighborhood kids I was friends with (we actually got out and met our neighbors) were always out doing something...football in the street...kill the man with the ball in someone's yard..skateboarding on our homemade ramp (semi-half pipe)....riding bicycles.
Nowdays...it seems that schools are giving too much homework to kids (even 1st and 2nd graders) that take all evening to do...combine this with parents that just don't seem to let their kids out...hell, my folks would pretty much 'toss' my ass outside to go play. The kids today are couch potatoes...playing video games or something stationary.
Yes, I believe parents are overly paranoid and this is a large contributing problem to childhood obesity...along with families not cooking home made meals that are healthy...and eat junk food or the like.
I'm quite sure that there were pedophiles and other bad people out when I was a kid. I was taught to be smart enough to not get in a car with one...etc. I think rather than being a greater danger out there....that there is just more hype and broadcasting of a problem that is nothing new. We didn't have 24/7 news channels back then competing for each other...todays 'news' more often is for ratings rather than dispersal of real news. Parents have all bought into this paranoia....many others just don't take the time to care about their kids.
So, yes...I do see paranoid parents, and ones that are pretty much negligent in overseeing the proper diet of kids as being largely the problem with the overabundance of fat kids out there.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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.