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Harley Pasternak workout is coming to Wii and Xbox 360 Kinect
Harley’s getting game
According to this press release, Majesco (makers of the very successful Zumba video games) is coming out with Harley Pasternak’s Hollywood Workout for Kinect and Wii this fall. Pasternak is a trainer that has shown up on various chat shows and written some books.
From the description, the game sounds a lot like the Biggest Loser game series: your average everyday workout led by a personality. It’s nice that they say “Wii” and not “Wii U”, the Wii upgrade that will probably be announced next month at E3 and go on sale in time for the holidays, putting the classic Wii out to pasture.
Future successor to Walk It Out: Rebound It Out?
ExerGame Lab posted this cool video from a Japanese university, showing a rebounder used in a Walk It Out-style game. The video shows how it works, with infrared sensors under the rebounder picking up the foot movement (possible use for Kinect?) and making the exerciser walk forward, backward or even fly by jumping in the virtual world. Adding the ability to go airborne would be a fantastic upgrade to the game!
Online support for EA Sports Active 2 and NFL Training Camp will end next month
EA Sports Active 2 for Wii
EA has announced that they will shut down the online servers for a group of games, including EA Sports Active 2 (on all consoles) and NFL Training Camp (for Wii). That means your online workout stats and workout groups for those games will go to cyber-heaven on April 15.
While EA should get some props for having the first console fitness games to have crucial online support – something I decried the lack of – it’s still dismaying that they’re pulling the plug after only about a year and a half after those games were released. It’s also a consumer issue, since EASA2 and NFL are still on many retail store shelves and still selling for as much as $50. Someone might pick up one of those games on a whim, or as a gift for a football fan who’s wearing a hole in the couch, only to find that the online support promised on the box no longer exists.
On the silver lining side, NFL has been drastically cut to under $15 at Amazon and I expect EASA2 to soon follow suit. I picked up NFL a couple months ago and tried it a couple times, and while it does have some connectivity issues (Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012 for Kinect has really spoiled me) it’s still a good workout with plenty of NFL fan flavor. The heart rate monitor and leg controllers are identical for both games, so if you get one of each, you can enjoy multiplayer on both games.
And since it’s the age of social networks, there will still be forums and groups devoted to EASA and NFL even after the built-in support is gone. The EA Sports Active forum is very active, and by all indications, will keep on movin’ after April.
(Via Ars Technica)
Like this:
Study: exergaming may have more benefits for seniors than “traditional” exercise
Dame Helen Mirren stays young with Wii (via Jezebel)
Another good reason for older folks to get their (exer)game on: as reported in The Atlantic, a study at Union College found that a group of seniors who rode exercise bikes equipped with a Cyberbike-like video game, gained better executive function and a lowering of progression to dementia than a group of seniors riding exercise bikes that weren’t equipped with video games.
There was the same exercise frequency, intensity and duration between the two groups – but the exergaming elders performed better on memory tests than the non-gamers, and I bet they had more fun, too!
Like this:
Oh where, oh where can the Nintendo 3DS exergames be?
Count real steps in Nintendogs + Cats for 3DS (courtesy Nintendo)
My daughter loves her Nintendo 3DS, the handheld game console that succeeded the Nintendo DS, and I agree that it’s a nifty little gadget. Among many other features, it has a pedometer built right in, and an Activity Log on the main menu automatically records your daily steps if you go for a walk with your 3DS. The built-in pedometer means that games can also have the ability to give you bonuses for getting up and walking around. No need anymore for 3DS games to have peripheral pedometers like the Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver Pokewalker or the pedometers that came with Personal Trainer Walking or My Weight Loss Coach for DS.
So there should be more 3DS walking and activity games than you can shake a walking stick at, right? Doesn’t look that way. Even though there were several walking and general health and fitness games for the old DS console (see the list here), my active game list for 3DS remains empty. You can play any DS game on the 3DS, and it is easier to have a tiny pedometer clipped on than to carry the 3DS console in your pocket all the time, but it would still be great to have more games that take advantage of the built-in pedometer technology. Besides, you’re less likely to put your pants in the washing machine with the 3DS in the pocket.
It’s not easy to even find which 3DS games give you bonuses for walking. One that does is Nintendogs + Cats, a fun simulation game in which you adopt and pamper a virtual puppy. You can take Rover for a fake walk by just steering with your stylus, but if you take the console for a real walk with the game turned on, not only do you burn real fat and gain real fitness, you also get presents from your dog, and not the kind you have to scoop. Gifts depend on how many steps you take; according to the list at Nintendogs Wiki, they range from a dog biscuit for 10-99 steps all the way up to a gold bar for 99999+ steps.
The Street Pass feature built in to the 3DS is another feature that might encourage walking, or at least getting out of the house. With Street Pass, you leave the wireless internet detector on in the 3DS as you walk around, and if another wireless-activated 3DS is in the vicinity, your Mii avatars will “visit” each other and sometimes exchange gifts, or show off their Nintendog or Nintenkitten. We’ve walked extra loops around crowded malls just to try to collect Miis.
Do readers know of any other 3DS games that encourage walking?
