video games

Vii Fit update

22
3 years ago
by Veronica in

Allow me to be honest for a moment. When I started this endeavor, I truly believed that I would keep up with the exercise routine. That being said, I got bored of the Wii Fit after about a week. Is it the WiiFit’s fault? Partially. Is it more GTA4′s fault? Probably. Anyhow, I promised that I would give you my impressions, so here they are:

  1. The Wii Fit isn’t fun enough to make me come back to it. If they’re trying to reach out to gamers in some way, make it a little more entertaining.
  2. The trainers speak like they’ve taken too much Vicodin. I need high-energy encouragement, man!
  3. I have terrible balance, and apparently this is very important for doing almost every single exercise in the game.
  4. The jackknife and push-ups were pretty effective, and they could actually tell when I was dropping my hips and being lazy.
  5. The step aerobics game was pretty awesome, especially after I unlocked the advanced class, but it would be even better if I could use my own music.
  6. The yoga poses are OK for stretching, but it’s really easy to do a yoga pose incorrectly and hurt yourself. These are basic, but I think it’s better to have someone (real) around to show you the right moves.

Overall, the best thing to come out of Wii Fit was that it got me motivated to head back to the gym again. If you’re really interested in fitness and feeling better about your body, take the $89.99 and spend it on a fun class at the gym, or put it towards getting a human trainer that will really get your ass back in gear.

If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments and I’ll respond there as well. Ryan also has an in-depth look at his fitness odyssey over at Engadget.

UPDATE: Twitterer @NinaSpezz showed me this parody that I missed! Hilarious, and also true…

How to really make GoW2 more “girlfriend-friendly”

38
3 years ago
by Veronica in ,

Cliff Bleszinski (a.k.a. Cliffy B.) of Epic Games spoke to Wired about Gears of War 2, and how they’re planning to make it more “girlfriend-friendly.” Here’s the full quote:

How do you make a game girlfriend-friendly?

You do jump-in, jump-out co-op. You have configurable difficulty settings for the other player. You have very cool and bad-ass main characters that have a very human side. And you make sure that the female characters in your game don’t have ginormous tits and aren’t bad stereotypes.

Yes, stereotypes are annoying, but I have a feeling that’s not what is keeping your girlfriends from playing GoW. Because frankly, I think we’re all a little desensitized to stereotypes in video games: play 10 minutes of (the absolutely stellar) GTA4 to see what I’m talking about.
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Vii Fit: Day 1

56
3 years ago
by Veronica in

V Fit

As some of you may have seen on Engadget, Ryan is challenging himself to a month of suffering at the hands of the Wii Fit. And while he is nowhere near overweight, we do live a somewhat… sedentary lifestyle. A lot of sitting is involved. Therefore I’ve decide to come along on his fitness odyssey, not only as a supportive measure, but also to encourage myself to live a healthier lifestyle.

Yes, if it takes a video game to get me off my lazy ass, then so be it.

According to the little white board sitting on my living room floor, here are my stats so far:
Weight (I can’t believe I’m telling you these things): 117 lbs
Height: 5’7″
BMI: 18.5
Body Age: 35 (WTF?!)
Actual Age: 25

OK, so apparently I’m a little underweight (my burrito belly is begging to differ). I’m not sure how Wii Fit expects to solve this problem (“Please get off the Wii Fit and go eat a pizza while watching Battlestar Galactica”) but I guess I need to build more muscle mass. The Fit also told me that my balance sucks by asking me “Do you trip a lot when you walk?” You snarky bastard.

I’ll be reporting every couple of days to let you know how this thing is going. I know the Wii Fit isn’t exactly the same as training for a triathlon, but it’s more exercising than I ever do (except for climbing, which I hope to work more into this month as well). Wish me luck!

“Still Alive” with Jonathan Coulton, Leo and Merlin

47
3 years ago
by Veronica in , , ,

As you may have gathered from my tweets of late, I was given the amazing opportunity to play Jonathan Coulton’s song “Still Alive” on Rock Band with Leo Laporte, Merlin Mann, and of course Jonathan! Horrifyingly, it was also on stage and in front of about 600 people at the Great American Music Hall here in San Francisco! I was on guitar (in the video, my part is on the right), Jonathan was on (duh) vocals, Leo on bass, and Merlin on drums.

We were soooo close to getting through the song! 99% isn’t bad, and if we had more time to practice (instead of having only played the song once!) I’m sure we would have made it. But it was a ton of fun, and I even saved the band a couple of times with my overdrive ;)

But I want to thank Jonathan for giving me one of the most memorable experiences I’ll ever have. I’m a huge fan of his music, and I got to live out my rock star dreams for real. Not much can beat that!


Jonathan Coulton performs “Still Alive” in Rock Band from Joy Stiq

Special thanks to Chris from Joystiq for recording the video! Go check out his post for more details.

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