Let Me Rephrase That…

I was just checking through the RSS feeds on my Netvibes tab of Firefox before heading off to the land where anything is possible – sleep, not Disney…or Hollywood for that matter – when I noticed this article in my Engadget feed.

Strangely, Stephen Fry had just mentioned his idea for a treadmill with a built-in games console of sorts. Something to involve you, mentally, with the actual chore of exercising and get you doing something as well as the running itself. Some sources say the Wii is a credible and good form of exercise. However, according to Nintendo’s UK marketing division, it isn’t.

Now, I can’t help but feel the subjects playing the Boxing, Tennis and Bowling games weren’t really giving it their all, or quite getting into the spirit of the games. Either that or when they played Project Gotham 3 they were getting FAR too into the game.

I know from experience that I’m usually pretty relaxed when I play Forza Motorsport 2 on the XBOX 360 – obviously, there are some engaging races where I come over all Clarksonish and start shouting “POWEEERRR!!!!” with gay abandon, perhaps with a dash of “SLIIIIIIDE!!!!!” thrown in afterwards – but on the whole, I’m as calm as a Koala on diazepam.

With this in mind, if I were to be up and enthusiastically shadow-boxing towards my TV screen for a reasonable amount of time (this is important for fat burning, remember!) surely I would be burning more calories than being partially comatose in my comfortable leather office chair?

So let’s switch it up then. Instead of bringing the exercise to the console, we shall bring the console to the exercise.

I’m with Stephen when he said he’d like “an adventure in which you chase villains, rescue damsels or solve puzzles” while on a treadmill.

There you go then; I and Mr. Fry implore all you clever game designers, programmers, engineers and suchlike to get this project up and running (I’m sorry, it was too easy).

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