The Wii Fit and Wiimote controllers
are merely the latest attempts to put
the traditional joystick to shame
Power Glove 1989
Combining game-pad control buttons
with a primitive motion-sensing glove,
Nintendo nearly presaged its own Wii
design. Unfortunately, the technology
wasn’t advanced enough to actually,
you know, work.
Controller 1999
Despite a motion sensor for casting and
a working reel, inventive ideas like this
never had a chance to catch on after
Sega’s Dreamc ast console flopped.
In the back of every serious gamer’s mind is a series of calculations known as the Spousal Acceptance Factor: That’s the statistical probability that one’s significant other will embrace any new gaming purchase. The more space said purchase takes up in a room—hello, Rock Band drum kit—the lower that probability. But despite its bulky accoutrements, Nintendo’s new
Wii Fit ( ½), a collection of highly physical games played while standing on a large plastic footpad, seems like the perfect title to buck that trend, bridging the gender gap with snazzy fitness-oriented activities, a few arcade-style games, and not a firearm in sight. And if it potentially helps burn away excess pounds put on by nightly Halo 3 marathons, all the better. The genius of Wii Fit is in its pseudo-scientific sheen. Step Come on over to our pad. on the included footpad, a wide white hunk of plastic that looks like it came from a step aerobics class, and it calculates your BMI (body mass index) and center of gravity, and assigns a score called a Wii Fit Age—the lower the better. The games are all designed to decrease your Fit Age through physical activity, from stretching and posing to furious hula hooping. If that’s too close to an actual gym visit, say namaste to the yoga-lite vibe and try out the simple slalom skiing and snowboarding games, which are a natural fit for the balance-board peripheral.
Cheaper than a Crunch membership, anyway.
Getting fit through gaming seems too good to be true,
and that’s because it probably is. Despite its resemblance
to a piece of exercise equipment, this is no substitute for
an hour on the treadmill, and even the most slothlike may
be hard-pressed to break a sweat. But perhaps more
important, Wii Fit is fun—we can see a booze-fueled
round of balancing exercises breaking out at parties, in
case Guitar Hero ever gets old. The ability to track the
scores of friends and family will be irresistible to anyone
with a competitive streak, and putting
that obsessive energy into cardio
rather than shooting aliens feels like
a positive step for gaming.
This is part of a growing trend
toward well-meaning games
that at least try to improve
body and mind using logic and
memory puzzles, such as 2006’s
Brain Age for the handheld
Nintendo DS. Looking for real-
world benefits, researchers in 2004 found that
surgeons who played video games a few hours every week
(presumably not while operating) made 37 percent fewer
errors and performed some operations 27 percent faster.
Today the Wii hardware is actually used to train surgeons,
and it has become a staple in physical therapy clinics,
including the Walter Reed Army Medical Center—which
will probably do wonders for its Spousal Acceptance Factor.
DAN ACKERMAN
Guitar Hero 2005
Traditional controllers really started to
become passé for mainstream gamers as
plastic guitars (and drum kits in Rock Band)
eliminated a major level of abstraction
between the real and virtual worlds.
Logitech Driving
Force GT 2008
Tricked-out steering wheels have always
been the obsession of driving-game
enthusiasts; this latest entry offers 900
degrees of rotation and knobs for adjusting
brake bias and traction control. And driving
while impaired isn’t a problem. D.A.
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