Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Fitness

Picture source: GamingUnion.net

My roommate got the Wii FitPlus for us for Christmas, and this is one of my favorite fitness games to do on it. It's the Obstacle Course.

My Mii isn't blonde like this lady's is. Mine has short, dark brown hair and wears a purple dress. My roommate's Mii wears blue and has glasses. When we're not actually working out, the Wii FitPlus tracks our weight and BMI. So far, our trends are downward.

The boxing game needs you to hold the controler with the nunchuck plugged into it, but for some reason, it doesn't record my left jabs very well, so I've given up playing that game/workout for now.

The hula hoop game, in the aerobics section, gives a good workout for the midsection, and I like to do it twice: once circling to the left and once to the right (which feels wrong, but I make myself do it anyway). When I was a kid, I was the best hula hooper in the family, but after puberty struck and changed the geometry of my body, I couldn't keep a hula hoop spinning to save my life. Now, using the Wii, I'm back in business and kicking virtual butt with it.

The ski jumping game is fun, but it's not much of a workout, because it's designed to help you improve your balance. You crouch down and lean forward as your Mii slides down the ski run, and then at just the right time, you straighten your knees and try to keep from falling over while you soar through the air and then come down for a landing. Of course, if you miscalculate and lose your balance, your Mii takes a tumble, becoming a rolling snowball and you don't get a score for that jump. I benefited from beginner's luck the first couple days, but now I can't seem to get the long jumps anymore.

They warn you, before the ski jumping game and the tightrope walking game and the obstacle course (and probably some others) that you are NOT, under ANY circumstance, to jump up off the board. You must keep your feet down and just straighten your legs in a simulation of a jump, and the game will have your Mii do the jumping for you. That's good in theory, and I can manage it pretty well on most of the games. But the obstacle course has proven to be a challenge.

You run in place on the board, and your Mii runs down the course. Pause when you get to the swinging demolition balls, or they'll knock you into the ocean and you'll have to start at the beginning of that level again. On level 3 of the beginner course, they not only have gaps to jump over (or risk falling into the ocean) like on level 2, but there are rolling logs that have to be jumped as well. Those logs have become my nemesis.

I can handle the logs that roll toward Mii just fine (most of the time, but sometimes I get flattened). It's the ones that roll from the left or right that have caused me to lose control. I wait for the current log to roll by, then pitty-pat my way as fast as I can before the next log drops and starts rolling. The adrenaline starts to flow, and then the next thing I know, the game stops, a warning message pops up telling me that I am definitely NOT to jump on the board, and it makes me start over AT THE BEGINNING OF THE LOWEST LEVEL OF THE COURSE. Stupid logs!

But tonight, after getting sent back to the beginning in shame one time, I managed to clear all the logs with my feet firmly on the board, and I made it to the end of the course with about 5 seconds to spare. Score!

For the first time in eons, I actually WANT to come home and do my workout. The Wii FitPlus is the best game I (n)ever bought.

7 comments:

janice said...

Isn't the Wii a wonderful invention?

Bekah said...

I so want one of these! I have played it at a friend's house - and I learned I'm not great at the hula hoop - and I canNOT ski. But it's still fun!

Malott said...

I predict I will not end 2010 Wiiless.

But I will still be cellphoneless.

SkyePuppy said...

Chris,

I was at Costco, talking to the guy at the cell phone booth and trying to find out which phone is most like the iPhone. My roommate is dying to get an iPhone (well, now a Droid, which works for Verizon (which she has) and the iPhone doesn't), so I thought I'd see what I could learn about the latest gadgetry. I really think it would be cool to flip through photos with my finger.

But as the conversation went on, the guy mentioned that it's $39 more a month to have the internet hooked up to the phone, and you can't have the really cool finger-flipping phone without it. He asked what I planned to do with my phone, and I said, "Answer it when it rings."

He and I both knew that I should just stick with the cell phone I had. Sometimes technology is just a waste of money. A cell phone is probably even more wasted on you than on me.

Malott said...

SP,

On average, outside of work, I talk on the phone less than ten minutes per week.

A supremely lousy investment... Until my truck breaks down on the road at 2:45 AM, or some other emergency.

I probably need to check on the cheapest plan I could get... But I'd probably end up with the iphone w/ internet.

Anonymous said...

Can I play?? Please? I'll even take a printer off your hands!

SkyePuppy said...

Cool-leen,

Yes, you can play. Your Mii is already tossing hula hoops at me...