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Games Entertainment

Give A Workout To More Than Just Your Thumbs 44

Posted by Zonk from the my-thumbs-are-huge dept.
RosethornKB writes "Over at Killer Betties, we have an article on all the fitness games available on the market currently. From the article: 'Perhaps it was the Nintendo Power Pad that issued in the era of interactive and athletic workout videogames, but the results were less than thrilling and the new technology did not takeoff as intended. The Nintendo Power Pad - a twelve button (6 red and 6 blue on one side or 2 red and 6 blue depending on what side you were using) mat with sensors that corresponded to the presses you inputted for certain games that supported the peripheral - hardly made an impact when it was released in 1988.'"
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Give A Workout To More Than Just Your Thumbs More

Give A Workout To More Than Just Your Thumbs

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  • I remember my sister had a dance game where the goal was to hit certain buttons on the power pad set a la DDR. It never did take off like DDR did some years later.
    Even though I'm terribly uncoordinated I did beat the game; I found that if you plugged in a controller and hit "select" it advanced you to the next level.

  • Obvious (Score:4, Funny)

    by voice_of_all_reason ( 926702 ) on Tuesday February 28, 2006 @10:51AM (#14816958)
    The Nintendo Power Pad - a twelve button (6 red and 6 blue on one side or 2 red and 6 blue depending on what side you were using) mat with sensors that corresponded to the presses you inputted for certain games that supported the peripheral - hardly made an impact when it was released in 1988.'"

    Yeah, because it took us fat kids all of 10 seconds to realize we could just sit on the floor and slap the pads with our hands.
    • Remember doing the long jump? We fat kids would slap the pad back and forth and then just take our hands off it expecting to sail into infinity. Well, Nintendo is more clever then a few 9 year olds. If you were in the 'air' for more than a couple seconds, your guy would trip and the jump wouldn't count. Still, at least our arms got a good workout.
      • "If you were in the 'air' for more than a couple seconds, your guy would trip and the jump wouldn't count. Still, at least our arms got a good workout." Yeah, Nintendo sure was smarter. Do you have any idea how high a kid would have to jump to be in the 'air' for more than a couple seconds?

  • Mind in the gutter? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Am I the only one, or did someone else immediately think "masturbation" after reading the title?

  • DDR has more bounce than DOA (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    1) Buy DDR + two RedOctane pads
    2) Get girlfriend and her friends hooked on game
    3) Crack beer
    4) ...
    5) Profit

  • Only mention mats? (Score:3, Informative)

    by oneiros27 ( 46144 ) on Tuesday February 28, 2006 @11:18AM (#14817223) Homepage
    It's not cheap, but they didn't mention the Kilowatt [bbc.co.uk], which is basically an exercise joystick. (you have to throw your weight into it, and it's supposed to have some adjustable resistance)

    It looks like the company has a less expensive controller [powergridfitness.com] coming out, too.

    If you search for 'exercise controllers' on your favorite search engine, you'll also find info about products from companies like Qmotions [teamxbox.com] and CatEye [pcworld.com].
  • They manage to forget a similar floor controller for the 2600 - The Joyboard - developed by the same engineers who developed the Amiga. The original versions of the Amiga OS would occasionally serve up a crash report with a 'Guru Meditation' dumping the processor state - the story goes that one of the programmers liked to sit cross legged on the board and try to balance it while figuring out what had caused the crash - in this pose he resembled a meditating Guru, hence the error message.

    There's a page on th
  • How could they forget the Kilowatt Pro by Powergrid [powergridfitness.com]?! You plug it in to a game console (PS2,XBox,Game Cube) or PC (USB) and work out. There's a stick that you push, and use it like the left controller. It's not much fun on anything but driving games, where you push harder to go faster. I imagine it works with Tetris though.

  • Video games are all well and good, but, when they are our entertainment (good ol' fashion games), our living (MMORPG economies), our excersize (DDR), our significant others (video porn), our pets (robot dogs), and our education (games in schools), where do we draw the line? Virtual friends? Virtual parents?

    There is this culture developing around video games that seeks to virtualize every aspect of real life. If real life sucks so much, why even go to that effort? You'll probably find that the things tha
    • I couldn't agree more.

      From TFA:"Spinning and bicycling classes are a great way to burn calories and get your heart pumping, but sometimes the tunes blaring in your iPod just aren't enough to keep you enthralled for the entire session,"

      For those who have trouble "[keeping] enthralled for the entire session" I would like to recommend a little game called "Biking Home In Rush Hour." My favorite level is "Down 5th Avenue and Across the Birmingham Bridge," though I'm sure that there are many other great one

    • here do we draw the line?

      Who says a line even needs to be drawn?

      Even if it is, my line might be different than yours. If more "reality" makes you happy, limit your "virtual" experiences. If you prefer to be a brain-in-a-jar who lives entirely in a virtual world, the means to do so may someday exist.

      Being the libertarian crackpot that I am, I'm very pro-freedom when it comes to this sort of thing. If somebody feels their best means to a fulfilling and happy life it to disappear into an electronic world, I
  • Fitness Game Bot? It's only a matter of time...
  • DDR was an obvious mention of the article- being an overweight guy myself, it's surprising how much fun it is to play a few rounds while making an ass of yourself in public. (You get over the nervousness quickly as you focus on your legs instead of those around you.) In fact, once the price drops on the PS2, I plan to buy one and whatever DDR games are out there to have a workout at home- a great way to relax after a hard day of slashdotting at work. Assuming I haven't already downloaded DanceMania.

    I'm surp

  • Rock 'n Roller! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Tickenest ( 544722 ) on Tuesday February 28, 2006 @01:05PM (#14818474) Homepage Journal
    How could anyone forget this little gem? Rock 'n Roller [gamersgraveyard.com]
  • Nintendo Power ... controllers (not the magazine) were not exactly what you would call a success. When was the last time you saw someone using a Power Glove ... 1989? Nintendo and SEGA both had stupid pads on the floor with IR sensors that added little to games that used them. Gamers are fatter than ever, if the idea did not go over well in the late to early 90s what makes anyone think it is going to go over well now? :)
  • I use my whole hand...
  • Why not build something that is basicly an excercise bike, treadmill, rower or something similar but with a video game element (for example, pedal the bike faster and the bike on the screen goes faster and you win the race).

    Perhaps someone could hook an excercise bike to a MAME cabinet and use it with Prop Cycle :)
  • A few days ago the New York Times did a good article [nytimes.com] on the Yourself!Fitness and EyeToy:Kinetic.

    Full disclosure: I'm featured in the article. :-)

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