'Healthy' video games will help kids

Kids (and adults) who play video games regularly no longer have to be fat, unfit couch potatoes. Several new products allow you to get up and workout while you're playing a game. They promise to make exercise more fun for the millions of kids who shut themselves up inside the house and play video games for hours on end (something many experts consider to be a major cause of our childhood obesity problem).

One of the most innovative products is a device called the Kilowatt Intensity Gaming System from PowerGrid Fitness. According to the company it "fuses the addictive fun of computer games with the physicality of sport."

The Kilowatt System looks like a machine you might see at a gym. There is a single shoulder-high joystick for your controller and a back brace to push against. When you push, sensors measure the strain you are placing on an alloy metal resistance rod and a microprocessor calculates how hard you're pushing. The more you push, the more "power" you have while playing a video game.

Another big stride in fitness-friendly video gaming has been made by the "dance game" makers. Here's a great article regarding these games from CNN.com:

New video games exercise more than thumbs

Behold: It teaches rhythm and timing. It gets kids exercising and encourages them to hang out and jaw with their pals. Do not be afraid. It is a video game.

Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix, the fifth in the DDR line from Konami and first for the Xbox, is a video game so unlike any other it deserves to be called something entirely different.

"Ultramix" works like this: You choose a song to dance to, then follow a scrolling series of arrows which tell you whether to press left, right, forward or back on the included dance pad, a psychotic, devious and beguilingly simple version of the "Twister" game mat. Get used to the thing. In the hours and days ahead, it will cause you furious rage and the most satisfying ecstasy.

Ultramix's trick is that, as a song gets going, the best way to dance won't necessarily be to put your left foot left or your right foot right. Depending on what's coming first, you may have to turn 90 degrees while spinning or stepping back. Standing there and trying to jab out at the touch pads, feels like a game of bop the gopher -- but the gopher is on steroids.

The rewards -- and the depth -- come after hours and hours of practice, when you've got a song's dance moves memorized, and magically the dancing becomes instinct. It's an almost spiritual moment, when you look down and realize your feet are doing something you are only mildly aware of telling them to do.

Ultramix, however, provides almost no guidance for beginners. In the manual, the game tells you such helpful hints as, "Practice practice practice!! At first you may feel discouraged by failing easy level songs, but eventually you will succeed." Or "Remember to play Dance Dance Revolution in the arcades to gain experience in playing both versions of the game."

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