Consumer Reports Gets Its Game On 301
Itninja writes "A few days ago Consumer Reports posted their first report on a specific video game: Wii Fit. From the article: 'Our testers ranged in age from 24 to 69 and included 10 women and five men. Users ran the gamut from regular exercisers to mostly sedentary folks.' Will this be a harbinger of things to come? Will CR be reviewing the next installment of Gran Turismo?"
n = 15 (Score:2, Interesting)
I welcome CR (Score:5, Interesting)
Consumer Gamespot Reports (Score:4, Interesting)
NO.
Re:Wee Fit (Score:5, Interesting)
But when Nintendo makes a workout game, I have no such hesitation. perhaps because I know it won't kill me. Perhaps because they have a nice track record. Perhaps because there are other video games known to give a nice workout.
Your pessimism really doesn't apply here.
Wii Fit IS NOT LIKE Gran Turismo... (Score:3, Interesting)
That would be aweomse (Score:3, Interesting)
Previews: Holy shit, glowing reviews, the game is better than blowjobs and bacon sammiches combined!
Reviews: Walking the fine line between placating advertisers and telling the truth. Reviewers who bite the hand that feed them soon go hungry. So even the most disappointingly middling hash job gets a gentleman's C.
If we get the money out of the review process and really see some honesty... well, I don't know if we'll get better games but I do know it will honk off more suits and that's almost as enjoyable.
have you ever used a balancing board? (Score:5, Interesting)
It is a HELL of a workout of your leg muscles, and VERY effective. The workout I get fromt hat is comprable to doing wall sits which are a staple of my boxing class every night.... and your quads get a tremendous burn.
Unless the wii balancing board is somehow deficient, you'd sure as hell get a nice workout.
after i went through therapy with a balancing board, i bought one for home traning the next month.
Re:Wee Fit (Score:5, Interesting)
Why do you feel the need to mention it, out of curiosity?
Wii Fit is a completely reasonable "workout" of balance and flexibility, and even for very moderate workouts for people who are otherwise sedentary (and there are a lot of those people, though they're probably sitting at their computer writing about how Wii Fit isn't a real workout because they see everything as a binary full-on-workout, or nothing).
Steps and other basic activities aren't going to replace the gym for someone who is actually into fitness, but it's better than nothing for people who have limited activity.
And one of the best elements of the Wii is the simplest element of all -- weigh-ins with time plotted tracking. It's simplistic, relying upon the lame BMI scale, not taking into account muscularity and other variables, however again for a normal everyday person seeing an accurate graph of their weight when they occasionally weigh into their Wii can be a very powerful input.
Analogies are like a dog with a tail growing out of its nose. Kind of like the planet Mars with annuity insurance.
Nintendo's whole angle with the Wii has been whole-body gameplay that is their "gimmick" instead of the traditional thumbs only. This is an obvious continuation of that. Like Wii Sports, the included game (Wii Fit) isn't the most incredible demonstration of the board, but it gets the units out there.
There are over a dozen balance-board-using games in development, and of course it launched with Wii Ski. It's another input controller (one with amazing potential...and it's bluetooth, and could be used with a compatible PC bluetooth stack), and Wii Fit is one use of it. I certainly don't think very many people are going to stick with their Wii Fit regiment
No, CR will not review Gran Turismo. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wee Fit (Score:3, Interesting)
Not perfect, not a gym , but quite useful.
Re:Wee Fit (Score:5, Interesting)
Since your post makes it painfully obvious that you haven't used Wii Fit at all, I'll post about my actual experience, and then people can comment.
After 30 minutes of actual activity on Wii Fit, I am sore. I am also pretty fat (32.xx BMI, and I'm not an athlete, so that's pretty accurate). The game charts your progress (based on BMI, and as a relative percentage) every day, which is quite useful.
The game places an emphasis (peculiar, at first, I have to admit) on balance. This is for a few reasons. The Balance Board is the game's only input, but it can tell where your center of balance is (and what your weight is) very well. The game doesn't come with any weights for additional resistance, so any resistance your muscles would work against is directly related to your body position.
Finally, the emphasis on balance seems to be firmly rooted in eastern culture. I mean, I can't really think of why it's so important to have *exactly* 50.0% of my weight on my left foot, and 50.0% of my weight on my right foot, and right now, that goal seems impossible.
Where the game succeeds best is, as is noted in the CR review, is in the balance games. Some people can exercise without the additional benefit of visual stimulation -- they enjoy varying degrees of pain or short-term uncomfortability for the hope of long-term progress. I am not one of them. So this is a big boon to me. And these exercises are not of the Wii Sports variety, either; whereas that game would just give you tennis elbow, in Wii Fit you're fighting yourself while trying to head soccer balls or being the human Super Monkey Ball. (Fighting yourself. How very eastern.)
Most importantly, the game makes sense to anyone who hasn't touched a controller. It's straightforward in the way Nintendo has made all of their games in the Wii generation, so that everyone can use it. This alone will be why Wii Fit should outsell Gran Turismo by at least a factor of 2-3 : 1.
I don't exercise nearly as often as I should. I also don't think this game will be the start of a sweeping change in our culture (where everyone walks swinging their arms as much as possible to improve their posture). But it's a big step forward in getting the interactive part of exercise to the home, without having to resort to video tapes or DVDs (no feedback in terms of balance), Bally's (image conscious?) or personal trainers (far more expensive than $90).
Anyone actually TRY this? (Score:5, Interesting)
I own a Wii Fit. I've been using it for 5 days now. Not a workout, my ass! Maybe if you only do the balance games, or maybe if you only consider a workout to be doing weightlifting. I've been doing the cardio games (Hula Hoop, Stepping, Running), and I end each session out of breath and sweating. No, a single 2 minute stepping series on the starter level doesn't wear me out. 30 minutes of rotating between the 3 exercises in the more advanced mode (which you only get after having done them for 30 minutes...I think. Regardless, they are an unlockable you wouldn't see the first time you tried) will have your heart rate up just as effectively as the same amount of time on your average exercise bike or elliptical trainer.
Would I lose any more weight if I drove 30 minutes to the nearest gym, paid the equivelent of a used car payment in membership fees every month, and used machines covered in somebody else's sweat? I doubt it. More importantly, I wouldn't bother, so I wouldn'get get ANY exercise. Walking into my living room and turning on the TV seems to have a much lower barrier to entry, so I can't easily make excuses for why I can't work out today.
Short answer: no (Score:4, Interesting)
CR picking up on Wii Fit is less an indication of CR getting involved in game reviews and more an indication of the success of Nintendo at reaching out to non-gamers. By the blurb alone it's easy to see that they tested it not as a video game but as a physical fitness device.
So no, Consumer Reports will not be reviewing the next installment of Gran Tursimo, any more than they review the next movie or album.
Re:Ughh... (Score:1, Interesting)
As for video game reviews, since about every review I read now are amateur journalism at best, I think CR would be a lot better for that too.
Re:n = 15 (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:No, CR will not review Gran Turismo. (Score:3, Interesting)
It is one of many criteria.
Agreed; I do see some innovation on the Xbox and PS3 in this area. And as you correctly point out, the key to the Wii's success is anything but secret.
Agreed. You hate real golf and the simulated version. I love to fish, but I hate fishing simulations. And I don't have any data on this, but I would bet that the vast majority of those who love, for example, Grand Theft Auto, would probably not want to shoot/run over/blow up someone in real life. So it is difficult for me to come up with any kind of general relationship between how much people enjoy activity X in real life vs. in a simulation, no matter which box the simulation runs on.
Agreed. Opinions are definitely subjective, so YMMV.
Another good point - visuals are definitely part of the equation. I didn't intend to say that visuals don't matter, and if that's how it came across then it is my fault for communicating poorly. My point is merely that I think photorealistic graphics aren't the X-factor, the end-all-be-all, of fun in games; that Nintendo realized this early on and designed the Wii with this idea in mind; and that Nintendo's sales numbers show that there a great many people out there who agree.
All this is fun and good, but there are occasions when I do find myself agreeing with you - sometimes mowing down zombies with a minigun is just the kind of fun I'm looking for.
Re:Wee Fit (Score:3, Interesting)
A lot of people don't engage in any other activities already. I have a friend whose mom is like 62 or something, and her body has just broken down because she stopped doing anything, just sat on the couch and watched TV or read books or ordered shit from catalogs while balancing the ice cream container on her gut. If she would get up and walk around the building a couple times, it would be an improvement. Depending entirely on Wii Fit would be a DRAMATIC upgrade.
Re:n = 15 (Score:3, Interesting)
On topic, though, I think Wii-Fit is a great idea; I promised my wife I'd buy her one, and she's a fitness instructor at Gold's Gym (and couple of other local only places). The point is, if you're going to play, you can play something where you're NOT just sitting on your ass. We even stand when we play guitar hero, but Wii Sports is great, and I think this will be pretty cool, too. It's not great exercise, it's just some exercise when you'd otherwise just be sitting there playing a different game.