Archive for the ‘Gaming’ Category
Wii Fit, This Week’s Coveted Fitness and Gaming Gadget
I love my Wii. My husband and I managed to stand out in the cold, freezing ourselves to the bone for nine hours outside of a Wal-Mart in order to get one, but the wait was totally worth it. The night we got it, we stayed up until very early in the morning playing Wii Sports, the game that comes packaged with the Wii system in this country.
The thing about Wii Sports is that it gives you the opportunity to actually get off the couch in order to play games. There are real motions involved. To play baseball, swing the Wiimote like a bat. To play golf, swing the Wiimote like a golf club, and so on.
When the concept of the new game Wii Fit was introduced at the famed E3 convention and advertising videos were placed online, the inevitable backlash began. This video on YouTube lampooned the strange motions that accompany a Wii Fit gaming session:
After all, who would want to play this game? When playing the game, you look very silly.
Wii Fit is the next evolution in Nintendo’s bid for an “active gaming” market. The game comes packaged with a balance board, a white board on which you stand in order to do most of the minigames involved in Wii Fit. You can also check your weight and track your progress over time. There are aerobics, strength training, yoga, and balance games you can play, all using the ingenious balance board to measure weight fluctuation and center of gravity.
After seeing and reading about recent demonstrations, including a somewhat-puzzling demonstration on NPR’s Morning Edition, I’ve decided that the Wii Fit is the next frontier in active gaming and I’m all for it. Perhaps kids all across the country will play fun balance games while at the same time dropping some pounds. Perhaps it will bring families closer together with games everyone can play. Or perhaps it will surprise everyone and become a flop.
Whatever it is, I want one. If my family is reading, you can buy me one for my birthday which I know is in the fall, but I take advanced presents.
Wii Fit is now available at stores for about $90.
