Exergaming, don't believe the hype, artist gets close though
This Dutch artist’s project [via we-make-money-not-art] opens up possibilities for gaming.
Run Motherfucker Run, by Dutch artist Marnix de Nijs, is a trip through nocturnal Rotterdam. Your running rhythm on a treadmill determines its speed, which in turn drives up the speed of the pictures. After every film fragment, you can choose between two more short films by turning left or right. Running through the deserted streets, metro stations, or railway tracks in the night, gives you the feeling to being chased.
Through an opening in the screen, a laser scanner identifies your position relative to the screen. When you change position, the speed of the treadmill and the pictures is adapted.
What if game companies took a chase scene and made them a lot more interactive within a overall story. Someone is chasing you in a strange city but you can duck around corners and ask passerbys to give you directions. You stop at a red light to avoid traffic and the treadmill slows down in response. What of reproducing famous chase scenes from movies like the Marathon Man, designating you as the main character. Freddie Kruger or Jason Voorhees after your ass with a bloody chainsaw can be incorporated into a survival horror running game. Cars chasing you, aliens in spaceships chasing you, cliched ginormous EXPLODING fireballs in the background sparking up the night! OK, I’ll stop.{embed="video-games/dpadz-ads"}
This piece made me wonder about the whole exergaming “trend” of incorporating exercise with video gaming which IMHO is nothing but hype. Exercise and games are not “gaining traction” as another blog declares. It’s not a “new niche”. popular Wired’s news story during this year’s CES and regurgitated all over the web crows about the popularity of the Cardio PlayZone dedicated to this category and the six exhibitors displaying products.
Being the cynical, snarky SOB that I am, I decided to check out who these six exhibitors were. (Check it out yourself by clicking here and choosing Cardio Play Zone)
Let’s see, first up Electric-Spin Corp. with their USB golf controller which hooks up to your PC sim like Tiger Woods golf. You can use your own clubs, a nice difference from past games and controllers of this ilk that used a shortened club with a built in sensor. Canadian too, eh? Yes, this is exercise but this type of golfing accessory has been around for years. I remember selling parts to a startup doing almost the same thing in Burnaby in the early 90’s. Except back then they used the parallel port.
Who’s next. Empower Technologies, Another Canadian company eh?
Empower displayed an Xbox surround sound system embedded in a chair. How exactly that entails fitness is a question I leave to you. Their websites does not mention this product, information gleened show Linux PDA development, PDA devices and related services.
How about HotSeat Chassis then? According to Popular Mechanics
The Hotseat Solo is a race car-styled gaming chair with a built-in six-speaker 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound system. Works with XBox, PS2, PS1, Gamecube as well as DVD players and PCs. It makes gaming a 3D experience by putting you right in the middle of the game. And it’s as comfortable as any full-size lounge chair.
So it’s just another chair with a big ass surround sound speaker system built in. So that’s what constitutes cardio to these people. No wonder the guy on their web site looks obese.
Konami showed off their Dance Dance Revolution. What’s new here? The game and various incarnations have been in the arcades and home for years now. Ebgames has about eight different pads you can buy for various consoles. According to this DDR fan site “This game first appeared in Japan in October of 1998, and since then has spawned 7 major releases and about 10 other mixes.” A 7 year old game signifies a new concept in video gaming exercise? What kind of crack is Wired on these days?
Strolling down the virtual CES displays imagined from the CES page we come across MIT showed off their Cyclescore. Well, looks like the brainiacs have something here, a cycle linked up to games designed specifically for the setup. “CycleScore’s Balloon Game connect a recumbent bike to a motivational game and uses interactive feedback to provide an exercise experience that takes the user’s mind off of the exercise and is fun.” OK, I’ll buy that. The Cyclescore project has been around since 2003, possibly earlier.
Finally, saving the best for last we have the Kilowatt from Powergrid Fitness. Kilowatt is an isometric device that looks somewhat like a cross between a treadmill with a recumbent bike’s handles attached in front and an ass support er behind. Think of it as a giant game controller you stand on. The Kilowatt is the only product of the bunch that really qualifies as a new and unique exercise machine for gaming. Introduced in early 2004 it has won notice in the press and garnered a CEA “best of innovations” award for the latest model. I’m not qualified to judge how efficacious the Kilowatt is but on the surface it seems less useful than weights with stretching a requirement afterwards. Plus cardio is not part of the Kilowatt workout. As the gear only works with with games that support the analog sticks, that means most sports and driving games are supported but not things like Myst. So what, you can’t play video games in the gym! Starting at $800 only true diehards and people under house arrest should apply.
So in High Fidelity fashion let’s count and rank. We have a rehashed golf only peripheral, a couple of base in your ass chairs, DDR (even your grandmother has seen this and probably played it with the grandkids too), an exercise bike that only plays a few games and an isometric exerciser that appears to work a limited set of muscles.
Some game company should hire that Dutch artist. He came up with a piece of video game art that gave you a hard workout with intriguing interactivity thrown in. When was that installation first introduced? 2001.
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