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• Wii Fit Does Like Jesus

  Thousands of years ago, crippled individuals had to ask for some hocus-pocus from a Jewish carpenter. A bit later down the line, medical science filled in for the J-Man (who did an awesome job but had a sketchy schedule). Now, video games are lending a hand to heal the unsteady. In Ireland, a girl took her first steps in four years thanks in part to the yoga and balance games in Wii Fit. I'm intrigued by this story not only because it's yet another example of how video games can benefit us aside from making sure our shooting stays sharp for the inevitable alien invasion: I went through knee surgery some years ago and I wish I'd had something as interesting as Wii Fit to help me through the monotony of physiotherapy. Read More... Posted Jan 22 2009, 11:03 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with no comments Filed under: wii, wii fit, nadia oxford, health, physiotherapy, ireland

• Surf the Globe with the Wii Balance Board

  An industrious google engineer figured out a way to program the Wii Balance Board (or, "Beam", as the engineer calls it) to control a truck rolling around Google Earth. And all he had to do was decode the Bluetooth thingy. Easy peasy! Read More... Posted Jan 09 2009, 12:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with no comments Filed under: wii fit, cole stryker, google, pilotwings

• Xbox 360 Parties: The New Tupperware Parties

  I am endlessly amused by the industry's attempts to court moms. It's been semi-successful over the last few years, with Wii advertising the DS and Wii Fit in womens magazines and such. Most times it just feels so awkward and contrived. It looks like Microsoft is now trying to get a piece of the pie. USA Today reports that Microsoft is paying women to invite friends over for gaming night: Read More... Posted Dec 23 2008, 05:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo ds, xbox 360, wii fit, cole stryker, women, girl gamers, scene it?, moms

• 10 Games Nadia Played in 2008 Instead of Working: Wii Fit

  I'm not speaking to Wii Fit today, as it told me I gained two pounds over the course of 24 hours. But Wii Fit has done so much for me, I can't stay mad at it forever. (Don't tell Wii Fit I said that. I want it to learn a lesson.) Of all the games I've played this year, I have to say that Wii Fit has captured most of my time. You might say, “Well, that's because it's a fitness game and you want to get fit, stupid.” So true, but think about it. Why do people turn their exercise bikes into towel racks by week three? Because there's little motivation to hop on the contraption. You can't feel your ass grow, so you don't have too many reasons to go through the tedium of a daily “ride.” Wii Fit combines three factors that keeps its faithful coming back for more: motivation (through a graph that traces your weight loss, or in my case, gain), variety and timed exercises. It's satisfying to see the minutes you spend on yoga, aerobics and muscle toning get added up in your little piggybank. After thirty minutes have been stored up, the little piggybank does a dance, signifying that you have exercised an adequate amount for the day and may reward yourself by stuffing a cheeseburger in your face. Read More... Posted Dec 15 2008, 11:21 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo, wii, wii fit, nadia oxford, casual gaming, fitness, top 10

• Joe’s Top Ten Games of 2008 – Special Jury Prizes

  The official mandate has come down from the top, as you have seen—that it is December, and we all write about games, so we all have to pick some arbitrary number of them that we enjoyed above all others this year. This is an arduous task that we have all figured out ways to cheat at, and I am no different. Though I will pick ten games, exactly, and present them in order from #10 to the best game of the year, I will not be starting that list today. Instead, here are my special jury prizes for the year. These games would have made it into my top twenty. They all did one or two things pretty well, and many deserve more recognition than they ended up getting.   Best Games to get Your Girlfriend to Play Games – Wii Fit and Echochrome: A tie here, for two otherwise incomparable games. Wii Fit is an obvious one, as it has been specifically targeted at women and is barely a game at all—it’s really just a charmingly presented tool. Echochrome is much more interesting, because it’s a gamer’s game through and through. Despite being maybe the most abstract game released this year, it’s actually surprisingly easy to get the layperson to understand it—“the M.C. Escher game” is a fully illuminating description that almost anyone is at least intrigued by. That both of these games were technically ambitious (Wii Fit in hardware, Echochrome in software) is not a coincidence, as this is the kind of lateral thinking that grows the scope of the medium. Read More... Posted Dec 10 2008, 04:00 PM by Joe Keiser with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: wii fit, dynasty warriors, echochrome, yakuza 2, joe keiser, top ten of 2008, top 10, viking

• Derrick's Top 13 Games of 2008 - Part 1

  Yes, it's that most wonderful time of the year, when we make our lists and check them twice. As Bob and Cole have already pointed out, annual Top 10 game lists are popping up all over the place. I started organizing my own list over a month ago and had a very hard time leaving a few games out (come on, it was a pretty damn good year for games), and since thirteen has been my lucky number since the third grade I am now proud to present my own personal Top 13 Games of 2008, brought to you in three managable installments. Hopefully there'll be a little something for everyone. Let's get this party started: 13 - rRootage (iPhone/iPod Touch, ported from PC): You know what I always loved about the classic top-down shooters? Those huge, insane, too-many-flying-objects-on-screen-at-once boss fights. Wouldn't it be great if someone made a game that was just that? Oh, and if it were portable - fit right in my pocket. And it would be so sweet if I could play it with just one or two fingers and listen to whatever music I wanted to while I played. Yeah, that sure would be a dream. Oh wait... somebody made that game? And it's free? Woah... Read More... Posted Dec 09 2008, 01:00 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo ds, derrick sanskrit, no more heroes, wii, top ten, wii fit, ace attorney, iphone, goichi suda, top ten of 2008, 2008, rRootage

• A Stretch on the WiiRack

  I'm still pretty loyal to WiiFit. Take that, lazy gamer stereotype. I haven't dropped much weight. Actually, it seems like I've barely dropped any; I'm really up and down. At the same time, I must be seeing some kind of benefit because my muscles are definitely firmer and my waistline is smaller. Also--and this comes as a pleasant surprise--I don't feel like an old woman when I pour myself out of bed in the mornings anymore. I used to experience a lot of morning soreness (or afternoon soreness as it were--God bless the crazy hours of the freelancer) because I fight dragons in my sleep. Some fellow idolterers at the altar of the Wii Balance Board noted that Wii Fit's yoga regimen has left them feeling as tender and supple as new veal. Maybe not quite as delicious, but the absence of aches and pains is pretty nice either way. I wasn't expecting to get so much from Wii Fit's yoga. I had initially planned to mostly ignore it in favour of muscle-building and fat-burning, which would have been a shame. I know the Internet regularly says "Yoga ROCKS!!!" and that I should listen to everything the Internet tells me, but I thought doing yoga would make me look like a three-legged Shetland pony balanced on a beachball. It does, to be honest, but it also feels really good. I dare say it's done more for tightening certain creases and folds than the cardio or muscle toning. Read More... Posted Dec 08 2008, 07:16 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo, wii, wii fit, nadia oxford, exercise, lazy gamer, yoga

• Videogame, Non-Game, Old Game, New Game: The Miyamoto Rule

  To the internet-list aficionado, the end of the calendar year is the time of greatest bounty. You like lists, chances are you like pop culture, and nothing gets the pop junkie going like ranking all the crap that came out in the past twelve months. Top ten movies, top ten books, top ten celebrity nip-slips, top ten Billy Mays products, and, yeah, top ten games of the year. We are no stranger to the list here at 61FPS, as you well know from reading our scintillating, thought provoking top tens, and you can imagine how we’re gearing up to deliver all sorts of meaningless judgments on the year known broadly as 2008 (4706, 4705, or 4645 to the Chinese. They seem to be confused.) Over the past few weeks, Derrick and I have had a number of conversations about our mutual contenders, but these dialogues have always ended in a conundrum: what counts as a videogame? Derrick’s smitten with Wii Fit, but is it anything more than a Nintendo-upped Sweatin’ to the Oldies that comes with a snazzy scale? We’re both fans of the Korg DS-10, but, even though you play it on a videogame system, it is an actual musical instrument, not a new sequel-ready game franchise. Does an instrument go on a top ten games list? My personal definition of a videogame has been a work of interactive digital media wherein you follow a set of rules to achieve a goal. Wii Fit, Korg DS-10, and the many other games like them belong in the broader videogame discussion at this point and this is making me re-evaluate just what a game is. Leave it to Shigeru Miyamoto to lay down the single best definition of videogame I’ve heard to date. Read More... Posted Dec 01 2008, 07:45 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, wii fit, shigeru miyamoto, korg ds-10, wii music

• Nintendo's Paint Change, Part 2

  I was pretty much ready to leave this alone after its brief mention last week, but then the internet had to go and spark my curiosity. MTV Multiplayer's Stephen Totilo wrote last week that Nintendo of America's executive vice president of sales and marketing Cammie Dunaway told him that the Nintendo logo had been gray in America for "a couple of years." Now, maybe it's just my past in high school model congress and an inherent desire to prove people wrong, but this inspired me to do some research. Thankfully, I didn't have to go much farther than my game shelf. The most recent games in my collection to feature the classic red Nintendo logo are August 2007's Metroid Prime 3: Corruption for Wii and and October 2007's Chibi-Robo: Park Patrol and The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for the DS, but a quick search on several popular online retailers' websites confirmed that the red logo was featured as late on North American packaging as November 11th, 2007's Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn for Wii and November 19th, 2007's Mario Party DS. That's not "a couple of years." That's one year, almost exactly, from when Ms. Dunaway's statement was made. Read More... Posted Dec 01 2008, 10:00 AM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with 9 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo, derrick sanskrit, wii, wii fit, animal crossing, mario party, cammie dunaway

• A Change of Paint For Nintendo

  Industry leader Nintendo has made a lot of changes recently, many for the better from a financial standpoint. Their current handheld, the Nintendo DS, introduced the radical concept of two screens (DS does stand for Dual-Screen, after all), one of which was touch-sensative. Their current home console, the Wii, did away with excessive cords and buttons in favor of a wireless motion-enabled controller. Both are decidedly less-powerful than their competitors' machines. Both introduced methods of play entirely unseen before in mainstream gaming. Both were initially scoffed at as risky gambles and almost certain failures. Both have ushered in a whole new demographic of casual gamers of all ages. Both have been outselling all competition for a long, long time. And so with all of this innovation and family-friendliness coming from Nintendo and not its rivals, it seems a minor facelift was in order for Nintendo as a corporation. Read More... Posted Nov 26 2008, 11:00 AM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo, nintendo ds, wii, mario kart, wii fit, brain age, wii sports, nintendogs

• Wii Do Not Fit Into One Category

  I'm still plugging away at Wii Fit and enjoying it. The game succeeds in one key area where exercise videos and dieting fails: the automatic recording of your progress goes a long way to keeping you on the wagon. When you begin your training session, you're asked to set a goal and a reasonable timeframe for that goal. Watching yourself inch towards that goal is heartening. Even though I've always been conscious about moving my body to some small degree every day, I've always had a tendency to ignore at least one vital area of fitness. Wii Fit really does offer a variety of exercises across the board. I can do ten minutes of Yoga, ten minutes of strength training and ten minutes of cardio. I know that's not exactly intensive and I'm not going to become Wonder Woman in a matter of days, but thirty minutes of balanced activity every day has made me feel pretty good. I do feel more flexible. My abs are tougher, but don't go throwing a baseball into them. I can't say my posture is any less horrid, but I'm more aware about my body positioning. Wii Fit does have one major flaw though: it fails to communicate clearly with the user on some vital levels. The title measures your BMI, which is rapidly becoming an outdated means of measuring general health. Even my doctor has abandoned it. Even so, it's just not a good idea to be too heavy, right? Very true, but Wii Fit forgets to take into account that strength training will inevitably build muscle--and muscle weighs quite a bit. So you work out faithfully every day and get scolded by the on-screen Balance Board mascot for gaining weight. Have you ever been dressed-down by a Balance Board? It hurts. Read More... Posted Nov 18 2008, 05:28 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo, wii, wii fit, nadia oxford, balance, health, fitness

• Whatcha Playing: Wii Fit

  Oh oh. I am officially one of those people. You know, the industry-wreckers. When the time is right, count on me to infiltrate your homes, break your copies of Gears of War 2 over my knee and throw the pieces like shurikens into your pug dog's heart. In the meantime, I'm going to bulk up for the mission. Wii Fit was kind of a sudden buy. "Oh my God is that Wii Fit? This isn't a mirage? Grab that shit, yo!" After that, the balance board incubated in its box for some weeks before we took it out and subjected it to fat torture. At five feet, I'm not a willowy beauty and I know it might be a while until God gets off his arse and bestows upon me the seven inches of height I wholly deserve. I will forever be shaped like a heavy-duty dog-chew toy (slightly used), but I'm starting to come to peace with that. My other option is to simply stop eating, and that's not going to happen because I'm fond of living and digesting. That said, I'm still realistic. I've made major dietary adjustments in my life partially because I know keeping healthy is not about dieting, but about lifestyle changes that you can realistically stick to. Also, I'm getting old and my stomach hates everything these days. It's not hard to get away from fried food when it goes down as french fries and comes up as Acidsaurus Rex Kool-Aid. That leads this anecdote to exercise, which leads me back to Wii Fit. I figured it won't be long before winter chases us Canadians back indoors, so I may as well get used to indoor activities again. Read More... Posted Nov 03 2008, 11:00 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: wii, wii fit, nadia oxford, gears of war 2, exercise, lifestyle

• Wii Music: A Rare Miss For Miyamoto?

  The reviews for Wii Music are trickling in and the verdict overall seems to be "Meh." Wii Music doesn't look like it's on course to become the holiday item worth garroting fellow shoppers over. Most damning is What They Play's test play, featuring real live children. The game apparently didn't go over much better than homework. I don't often feel bad when a hyped game flatlines, but I kind of feel sadface about Wii Music's lukewarm reception just because Shigeru Miyamoto is so excited about it. I know some gamers put their hands on their hips and say, "Well, it's about time he was taken down a peg" when one of Miyamoto's projects is a notch below stellar, but I still have mad respect for the guy. He is one of my heroes (Nadia Trivia Bonus: another hero is Terry Fox and another is the inventor of cookies). I haven't seen any Wii Music-related scorn directed towards Miyamoto yet, but I'm sure it's out there, or it will be. The Wii has opened up video games for a whole new audience; even though it's easy to get mad and decide that Nintendo has abandoned hardcore gamers, I can't fault Nintendo for thinking Wii Music will be a runaway hit with the Wii Sports/Wii Fit crowd. But if Wii Music fails to sell, what will it mean for Shigeru Miyamoto? Read More... Posted Oct 21 2008, 06:08 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: wii, wii fit, shigeru miyamoto, wii music, wii sports, nadia oxford, holiday, creative process

• Miyamoto Says, "It Would Be Great If Music Education Started With Wii Music."

  As if I didn't already have to listen to my father go on about "these goddamn kids today who don't want to learn real guitar 'cause of Guitar Hero," now we have Shigeru Miyamoto himself talking about how awesome the world would be if music education started with Wii Music. Iwata and Miyamoto discussed Wii Music on "Creator's Voice," a developer session hosted on Nintendo's web site. Iwata: Well, there, with Wii Music, there's a strong possibility of raising people's basic level of music education. Miyamoto: Yes. Thus, from now, I've even thought it would it would be great if kindergartens or elementary schools got Wii Music and began kid's music education with that... My first school-related music experience involved garbage bags stretched over tin cans and held in place with rubber bands. How can we even think of replacing real instruments with such false, plastic alternatives? Read More... Posted Sep 25 2008, 03:56 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: wii fit, super mario bros, shigeru miyamoto, wii music, nadia oxford, education

• No Alternate Soundtrack: Donkey Kong Jungle Beat

  Nearly a full year before the first Guitar Hero introduced gamers to the now all-too familiar concept of game controllers shaped like musical instruments, Nintendo released Donkey Kong Jungle Beat for the Gamecube worldwide. The game was a platformer in the vein of Donkey Kong Country that overlooked the Gamecube controller in favor of the DK Bongo peripheral used earlier for Donkey Konga, a rhythm game that aped (oh god, sorry about that) its own development team's Taiko Drum Master series of games. Rather than come off as gimmicky as a result of this peripheral use, though, Jungle Beat felt fresh and intuitive and was praised by critics for its innovation. Years before the Wii would get gamers off their butts, Jungle Beat was moving players and causing them to work up a sweat, all while playing a traditional platformer. Read More... Posted Aug 26 2008, 11:00 AM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo, alternate soundtrack, derrick sanskrit, wii, guitar hero, wii fit, donkey kong, taiko drum master, gamecube, super mario galaxy, wii sports, bongos, jungle beat

• It's My Tetris Party And I Can Waggle If I Want To

  Named by Entertainment Weekly as the number 1 "new classic" video game of the past twenty-five years (almost all of video game history), it was never a question of if Tetris would grace Nintendo's wildly popular WiiWare digital distribution service, but when. While we still don't have a precise date, Official Nintendo Magazine has confirmed that the Hudson Soft developed Tetris Party will be released this autumn with a slew of Wii-specific features. Read More... Posted Jul 30 2008, 04:00 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo, nintendo ds, derrick sanskrit, wii, wii fit, wiiware, tetris, dr mario

• NSFW: The Top Five Game-Based Pornos

  Seriously. Not safe for work. As they used to say back on the farm, if it exists on this here planet, you can be cocksure there’s a porno based on it. Okay, you caught me. I didn’t grow up on a farm. I grew up in the middle of a lot of farms though, and I’m telling you, people on those farms used to say this all the time. The past twelve years of browsing the internet have taught me that this age-old maxim is absolutely true. Hollywood movie parodies have been a rich and lasting resource for triple-x features forever, birthing immortal classics like Edward Penishands, so videogames seem like a no-brainer. That’s not even taking into consideration modern gaming’s largely Japanese origins and that country’s penchant for all manner of costume-related perversions. We at 61 Frames Per Second, being the powerful cultural critics we are, have compiled this list of the top five Game-Based Pornos from east and west. Be warned: continuing to read may cause embarrassment for humanity, uncontrollable laughter, and occasional revulsion. Read More... Posted Jul 14 2008, 03:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, nintendo, world of warcraft, final fantasy, wii fit, brain age, super mario bros, porn

• Whatcha Playing: Fallout (Metaphorically Speaking)

  Truth to tell, I’ve never played a Fallout game. The vast majority of my gaming career has been spent in front of a television, not a monitor, my hands clutching a controller instead of hovering over a keyboard. It’s not a point of pride, let me tell you. Not gaming on a PC throughout the ‘90s meant you were perpetually on the outside of the cutting edge, waiting for advancements to come to Nintendo, Sony, or whoever else’s systems sometimes years later. Deus Ex, Half-Life, Diablo, even Sierra’s King’s Quest V, all games I’ve gotten to try my hand at, eventually, when they were ported to a console, shadows of their former selves. It’s even kept me from really experiencing whole genres; I’ve never played a real-time strategy game for more than a few minutes and my aging laptop could barely run World of Warcraft when I tried it out in 2005. Since that year, though, consoles have started gaining on PCs as the place where developers make their greatest strides. It’s not too surprising. Consoles have turned into high-end computers themselves. Read More... Posted Jun 26 2008, 03:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, the world ends with you, whatcha playing, wii fit, rock band, mega man, grand theft auto, final fantast vii, metal gear, diablo, deus ex

• Sweating it Out: How Fitness is Changing the Public’s Opinion of Games

  Image courtesy of San Francisco Chronicle The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, “the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all Americans”, announced today that they will be awarding $2 million in grants to twelve research teams across the United States to support research proving the benefits of health and fitness based videogames. It’s obvious that the recent surge of interest in fitness gaming has more than a little to do with the popularity of Nintendo’s Wii and the monolithic marketing blitz surrounding Wii Fit. But gaming as a method to curb obesity in the US has been gaining momentum since early 2006, when West Virginia began working with Konami to outfit public school gym classes with Dance Dance Revolution machines. While videogames are still an easy target for news media controversy, the tide is changing in a big way. Read More... Posted May 29 2008, 02:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, wii, konami, wii fit, grand theft childhood, dance dance revolution

• Whatcha Playing: A Little Singin’, a Little Dancin’

  Last Saturday, I woke up, put on the coffee, and sat down on the couch with the full intention of finishing off the remaining story missions in Grand Theft Auto 4. As the day wore on, though, I found myself continuing to ignore the controller, unable to muster the enthusiasm to play at being a hardened criminal. A whole Saturday was passing me by, gameless. It wasn’t until around nine o’clock that my roommate and I decided to bust out Rock Band that I got to gaming. I’ve been fairly indifferent to the music game revolution of the passed two years for one very specific reason: I suck at Guitar Hero. My finger dexterity simply doesn’t match my thumb dexterity. But, since a friend loaned his copy of Rock Band to my apartment full of twenty-something ne’er-do-wells, I’ve come to see the light, and it’s all thanks to singing. Karaoke videogames are too laden with pop and karaoke bars are simply too expensive for a man of my meager means. Rock Band lets me be Ozzy, Kurt, Shirley Manson, and Ad-Rock and the experience has been eye opening. Even more so than the Wii, Rock Band has proven to me the opportunity offered by alternative forms of control in games. And rest assured, Rock Band is a game, a clearly defined set of rules adhered to in order to achieve a specific goal. I just never thought my drunken rendition of “Say It Ain’t So” would ever be the route to the highest score or the next level. Read More... Posted May 23 2008, 10:00 AM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, whatcha playing, Grand theft auto 4, wii fit, rock band

• The 61FPS Review: Wii Fit Part 1

  Written by Derrick Sanskrit I found myself cycling through all the photos on my hard drive this past weekend, remembering all the good times I had in college and the wacky stuff I've done in the years since. What I didn't expect to see, though, was the radical change in my appearance. I am in no way obese but I'm noticeably lumpier than my sleek and slim sophomore self. My nightly routine of sit-ups was replaced by senior thesis work. Then came the workaday world of sitting on my ass and eating greasy food. I'm not looking to lose a lot of weight or have rippling biceps, and I sure as heck don't have the time or energy to go join a gym. I want an easy way to define my body a little better and have fun doing it. Read More... Posted May 21 2008, 01:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: nintendo, nintendo ds, derrick sanskrit, wii, 61fps review, wii fit, brain age

• What Are All These People Waiting For?

  (Don't look at the filename, cheater.) Read More... Posted May 21 2008, 12:00 PM by Peter Smith with | with no comments Filed under: wii fit, handbags, crankiness, soho, um don't look at the tags either