EASPORTS really has cranked up the PR machine in anticipation of the November 16th release of EASPORTS Active 2. In the last few months they have announced that David Beckham and Venus Williams will be celebrity spokespeople for the product, and they have also been releasing a steady stream of promotional videos to drive player interest. The latest video, released last night on Facebook, reveals an impressive array of interesting and, perhaps more importantly, challenging looking exercises.
While dance simulators are nothing new in the realm of console gaming, the upcoming release of the Kinect for Microsoft’s XBox 360 opens up the field to a whole new world of possibilities in the realm of getting your digital groove on. One of the first games that we’re going to see tackle this new level of booty shaking is Dance Central from MTV/Harmonix (the folks behind the phenomenal Rock Band series). Featuring tracks from the likes of Lady Gaga, No Doubt, and Bell Biv Devoe, Dance Central will follow in the footsteps of the Dance Dance Revolution series that came before it by including a feature that will allow you to track the calories you burn while playing the game. While there hasn’t been any word on whether or not new tracks will be available for digital purchase to add on to the initial game, it seems fairly obvious that the with the success that MTV/Harmonix has had selling content for Rock Band they will follow suit with this new franchise. This would help to remove the one obstacle that always seemed to get in the way of regularly using Dance Dance Revolution as a means of getting your exercise in – The songs get old after a while!
On Tuesday, August 17th, at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, MTV/Harmonix announced several new songs that will be available with the initial release of Dance Central. Look behind the cut to see what new grooves are going to be available, along with a list of tracks that had previously been released.
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Image courtesy of Scott Smith via Flickr
Fitness gaming has come a long way in a very short time. We’ve advanced from games that were, for all intents and purposes, glorified exercise videos to fully interactive workouts with virtual personal trainers. With the upcoming release of the Kinect for the XBox 360 the bar is being raised even higher, and companies like EA SPORTS are fully poised to rise up to the challenge with the addition of gadgets that will actually monitor your heart rate while you’re working out and evaluate your form at the same time. Despite these advances, though, there still seems to be a somewhat unspoken belief out there that these games, while keen, are…well…
For girls.
Many guys just don’t feel that fitness games are “intense” enough for them. Mind you, if they actually tried the games in question they would probably be surprised to find out just how intense they can be, but the incentive just doesn’t seem to be there for them.
That may very well be changing soon.
Buried deep within the comments on one of my recent articles over at WoW.com was an interesting little bit of information from a poster named Saitenyo. She talked about how she set up a platform near a recumbent bike in her home so that she could use her laptop to play World of Warcraft while exercising. I was curious to learn more about this, because while we’ve talked about getting in exercise while playing an MMORPG like WoW, in all my years of gaming I’ve never really known anyone that has put a serious effort into doing so.
A brief exchange of emails later, and I had the full story from the player behind the avatar, one Chelsea Brown. Ms. Brown is a recent BFA graduate from the Laguna College of Art and Design and a self-proclaimed fan of a long list of things that would make her a perfect candidate for attendance at Dragon*Con. She did such a great job of explaining her set up and the benefits that she got from it that I figured I’d go ahead and let her do so in her own words.
While the First Lady of the United States of America has no official title or responsibilities, it has become tradition for the women in this arguably influential role to associate themselves with a humanitarian cause during their husbands administration. In the past few decades we have seen examples of this in Laura Bush’s efforts in support of womens’ rights and childhood literacy, Hillary Clinton’s push for Health Care reform, and (perhaps most famously) Nancy Reagan and her Just Say No anti-drug campaign. First Lady Michelle Obama is no exception to this tradition, and she’s taken up the fight against what many feel is an increasingly dangerous threat to our overall health as a nation – childhood obesity.
According to statistics from the Center for Disease Control, the number of children who are overweight to the point of obesity has increased dramatically since 1980. The percentage of children aged 12 to 19 who fell into this extremely unhealthy weight range (generally considered to be 50 pounds or more overweight) increased from 5% to a stunning 17.6% in 2006, more than tripling the 1980 numbers. Unsurprisingly, research has shown that nearly 80% of children who are obese between the ages of 10 and 15 continue to hold that unhappy distinction into adulthood. With obesity being linked to serious life threatening diseases such as Type II Diabetes and Heart Disease, it is clear that this trend is not only bad for our well-being as a nation but that it is also puts a strain on our already financially strapped health care system.
EA SPORTS is at it again. Last year they released the highly acclaimed EA SPORTS Active, and interactive fitness game for the Nintendo Wii that used the various motion detection equipment available for the platform to offer a wide array of physically challenging workouts in a convenient 30 day program. In the same year they came out with EA SPORTS Active More Workouts, expanding the already excellent game with a broader focus on core exercises and “leveling up” the challenge to last for six weeks. The franchise seems to be working out very well for EA SPORTS (no pun intended), so much so that they even expanded their advertising push to include the Sports Authority fitness equipment chain.
On Tuesday, EA SPORTS announced that they are expanding the line yet again. EA SPORTS Active 2.0 (working title) is currently in production at the Vancouver headquarters of EA Canada.
Back in July of 2009 Krystalle wrote up a review of the game Personal Trainer : Walking for the Nintendo DS. Having used the product myself I can say it’s a really neat way to motivate yourself to go out and walk if you like video games, and the ability to communicate with your Nintendo Wii to download an avatar was an awesome feature. The only real “criticism” I had of the game was that all of the motivation took place after you were done walking. There wasn’t really anything built into the game itself to make your walks interesting and you are only entertained for the few minutes it takes you to upload your step records every night.
Games like EA Sports Active and Wii Fit are fine ways to get exercise indoors, but they can be very daunting for people who haven’t been doing any kind of exercise. Walking is really the best way to get going when you’ve been sedentary for a long time, and Konami has come up with a new way to get you walking and entertain you at the same time.
Free is good. I’m a big fan of free stuff. Especially free food. Heck, it’s one of my biggest weaknesses when it comes to the whole “eating right” thing. If you put me in an all-you-can-eat scenario that I don’t have to pay for you bet your sweet bippy I’m going to go out of my way to make sure I eat until I’m so full I can’t move anymore.
Hey, I’m aware of my weaknesses.
Free food isn’t the only thing I like that. I also like free stuff. Like video games.
See where I’m going with this? If you haven’t already figured it out from the title, that is (and really, if you haven’t? I’m willing to bet you’re the type of person who asks where Mankirk’s wife is).
Earlier this year Humana Games for Health put out the call for aspiring video game designers to pitch them with their ideas for a fitness based video game. The contest, dubbed InsertCoin, was an effort by Humana to find new and innovative game concepts that would motivate people of all generations to get more exercise. The top three entries in the contest would earn a chance to see their idea developed into an actual video game and also receive a fairly significant cash prize. Considering how difficult it is to break into the video game industry, and how hard it can be for game developers to come up with original ideas, the contest looked to be a potential win/win situation for all parties involved.
Regular readers of the site may recall a post from a few months ago where I lamented the fact that the disturbingly bizarre Namco/Bandi game Muscle March was not available for purchase in the Western markets. As I said at the time this game really doesn’t fit all too well into the “fitness game” genre that we generally cover here but, frankly, I don’t care. You could burn calories basking in the sheer awesomeness that is Muscle March. I mean, come on! You can play a body building Polar bear in a swimsuit who has his protein shake powder stolen by a football player, working your way through the various obstacles thrown in your path by going into body builder poses! How can a game like that NOT be good for you??
Well soon there will be no need for you to spend hundreds of dollars for a Japanese version of the Wii to experience the awe that is Muscle March! Namco/Bandi as announced that Muscle March will be available for download next Winter through Nintendos online service, Wiiware.
The only bummer about this particular announcement is the fact that we have to wait so long for it to be released. I suppose the upside is that we have plenty of time to work on our form so that we’re in top shape and ready to bust some serious protein shake stealing butt next Christmas.
Guess it’s time to go speedo shopping.