Leveling Down

Everyone knows Rock Band is a huge hit, but what else appeals to non-gamers?

Last week I started the conversation about the types of games non-gamers (specifically, wives and girlfriends) could enjoy or at least tolerate. After laying out some general principles and looking at some broad areas of gaming, this week I’ll be narrowing my focus and talking about some specific genres that might appeal to non-gamers. I’ve organized the games from most appealing to least, in general. As always, your mileage may vary, and I’d love to hear others’ ideas as well!

More »

I got EA Sports Active for myself (and not my wife, as some of you readers will probably recall) a while back and I’m ready to post my impressions. They are actually quite positive, as I’ve been getting a pretty good workout every day for about 25 minutes a day and definitely breaking a sweat. There are some negatives though, which I’ll detail below.

Here’s what I loved about it:
- 30 day fitness challenge with three difficulty levels, allowing you a continuous 25 minute workout each day with a structured exercise plan of working different parts of the body, etc. (unlike Wii Fit, where it’s “here’s a bunch of minigames, do whatever you want.”)

- It’s definitely a workout. While you only burn maybe 100-120 calories each workout, you will probably be sore the next day (and you’ll also sleep quite well that night after you work out). The jump lunges kicked my butt.

- Wiimote functionality works decently, with some exercises having you hold the remote in your right hand and the nunchuk in your left hand, and others having you put that nunchuk in the thigh holster that comes with the game.

What I didn’t quite like:
- Wii Fit board is pretty useless. It’s like the developers only put it in as an afterthought and to be honest, I will probably stop using it myself because the activities you do with it are few and stupid. It doesn’t even calculate your weight!

- While the Wiimote functionality works, it’s not super great at detection, so sometimes the trainer will think you didn’t finish a rep. Also, with it not being 100% accurate, it makes me wonder if I’m even doing some of these exercises correctly and would have liked more guidance. Sometimes I have to shake my Wii-mote & nunchuk for it to register that the rep is complete.

- The included resistance band that you are supposed to use to do shoulder presses, bicep curls, etc. is not very strong. By supplementing it with light free weights, I was able to get a much better workout. But for those that don’t have free weights, I don’t know if you’ll really tone much of your muscles with just the included resistance band.

Overall, I think it’s definitely worth buying for $60 if you just want a routine exercise program that you can work out to every day. I’ll probably be doing it for a while, and I’ll chart my weight progress as well. It’s the best “exercise game” out on the market right now, but there’s definitely room for improvement and I’m sure based on how well it is selling, sequels will be imminent.

I think my hardcore “gamingness” peaked years ago, with all that competitive PC gaming like Quake, Starcraft, etc. Ever since then I’ve been slowly moving on a downward trend, shying away from most multiplayer games and simply being content playing single player games where I don’t have to get all competitive. Well recently, it looks like the trend has taken a further drop.

Ever since I relocated and have such little time to play nowadays, I’ve come to the realization that I am no longer a fan of Achievements. I just don’t have the kind of time to hunt down every little thing these days, and if I had the option to, I would probably now turn off all Achievements for my 360 games. Then I could simply play the games for the sake of playing. But, I guess for now I’ll do my best to just play without caring about Achievements any longer.

I bought Bionic Commando: Rearmed a little while back when it was on sale for $5, and have spent maybe an hour or two playing it. But I can’t even get past the first level! Granted, I picked Hard difficulty and I’m still getting reacquainted with the fact that I can’t jump and have to use the grappling arm for everything, but man, it’s tough. It made me think two things: “Wow, I really beat this game when I was a kid?” and “I guess I’m getting a little too old for this since I can’t even beat the first level.”

Instead, I spend my evenings now playing Guitar Hero World Tour, EA Sports Active, and Punch Out!! What the heck has happened to me?! Who would have thought that I’d be spending more time playing the Wii than the 360. Dark times indeed…

A funny thing happened with my most recent Gamestop online order, whose contents include: EA Sports Active for the Wii and Raiden Fighters Aces for the 360. If you want Raiden Fighters Aces, you’re going to have to order it online – it’s got such a small print run that no brick & mortar store seems to carry it, so you either have to grab it from Amazon.com or Gamestop.com. For $20, I wanted to get in on this hardcore shooter collection. Whether I end up playing it or not is a different story, but for some reason it just makes me happy to buy hardcore games at good prices.

I was also showing EA Sports Active to my wife earlier since I discovered that this game is consistently the top selling game on Amazon.com for the last couple of weeks (but it recently got dethroned by The Sims 3). I wondered why everyone kept buying it so I started reading glowing reviews about what a great workout you can get, etc. and asked my wife if she was interested since she loves working out. She pretty much scoffed at it since she goes to the gym already, and after all the hype I got from reading it and sharing it with her, even after she didn’t care for it I ended up buying it for myself.

I told my wife afterwards that I bought it, and she replied, “I figured”. What?! You think you know me huh? I’m really a hardcore gamer! How can you figure me for buying an exercise game?! Maybe I am becoming a casual gamer after all or my wife knows how easy it is for me to pull the trigger on any game I get interested in -_-