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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
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!
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 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.
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.
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.
If you've got a DDR dance pad, you can do this already. ... The dance pad basically maps to the 'face' buttons on a PS2's controller.
:)
One gathering, after a bunch of DDR matches between friends, someone popped in one of the Gundam Fighting games. Imagine 170lb guys dancing on a pad trying to get combos off, as giant robots battle it out on screen.
Scarily enough, one of the group started getting good at it
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