Geektique #2

[Tellyn]

Written by your friendly neighbourhood admin, Ashley Boyd.

 

Video games, it seems, are constantly facing an uphill struggle. Despite the increased popularity since the advent of the home consoles in the 1980s, the idea that kids should still be playing outside has remained. It's understandable that some parents may wish for their children to go out and learn to play tennis rather than just sit in doors in front of Smash Court Tennis. However, with Wii Fit, and to some extent Wii Sports, parents are facing a new problem; a game that simulates actual exercise. Whether or not Wii Fit is an adequate replacement for real-life exercise was discussed on the forums shortly after Wii Fit came out, and shall be discussed in further depth here.

 

For anyone who has yet to play Wii Fit, the game offers a variety of different exercises and activities to keep you exercising and, with enough dedication, hopefully keep you healthy. As well as a variety of muscle exercises that focus on different areas of the body there are yoga exercises, which again focus on a variety of body areas and also a range of game-style activities, such as a football header game, a ski jump game and a hula-hoop game. As well as this Wii Fit offers the ability to jog for a set period of time anywhere between six minutes and thirty, as an ideal method to burn calories. The jogging activity shall form the basis of this comparison between the benefits of Wii Fit compared to its real-life counterpart, jogging.

 

 

Better than the real thing?

 

A large benefit, I feel, of jogging offered in Wii Fit is the fact it is simulated which offers a variety of advantages over putting on your finest tracksuit and heading out into the real world. As I write this the world outside me is not one you would want to go run around in; heavy rain, strong wind and a grey sky certainly put me off going for a jog at least. On Wiifitty Island (the name of the simulated island Mii characters jog around) the sun is always shining and the scenery is always stunning, be it in the lush woods, the perfectly blue lake or the calm sandy beach. While I am perfectly aware that this is indeed a simulated world and of course it is going to look picture-esque, it's certainly nicer to look at than road kill and McDonald's wrappers.

 

This was not the only benefit that was discussed on the forums, as even during an unconventionally beautiful day, in the UK at least, people would still rather jog around Wiifitty Island for a variety of other reasons. While on your jog you may get overtaken and waved at by your friend, you may see Mike Tyson standing around cheering you on and it's highly unlikely, as one forum member put it, you will get mugged or chased by a chav. It appears that the simulated world offers more desirable circumstances to jog than the real one, but is this necessarily a good thing?

 

Click here to read the rest of the column - it's an excellent read.

[Hellfire]

I'm not saying this just because I'm staff, but I really like the article. Comments are on the site Ash