Get a Move On

'Screen Time'

Of course, the home market is the bread and butter of the video game industry, and that industry has been taking plenty of hits lately from those who blame it for helping turn a generation of children into doughy sofa-sloths. What degree of blame they actually deserve for the runaway rise in obesity rates and attendant health problems in this country is a matter for the sociologists to debate. Nevertheless, as any parent of the under-20 set knows, onscreen games are a ubiquitous feature of the modern American childhood.

So when I -- armed with a selection of exergames -- went in search of the appropriate gaming platforms to try them on and a requisite selection of test subjects -- that would be the under-20 set -- it didn't take me long to find either.

"Four years ago, we didn't even own a TV," says Anne Westrick, a Hanover, Va., mom whose oldest child of four is a college sophomore. Now, surveying a den equipped with a large-screen TV, Xbox, PlayStation 2, GameCube, two well-worn "DDR" mats and a stack of games, she admits, "It's a slippery slope. We got the TV so we could play 'Dance Dance.' I tell my kids they can have an hour of 'screen time' a day, and they say, 'But, Mom, 'DDR' is exercise, not screen time.' " Ted (14) and Sam (12) Westrick; their friends Daniel Lehman (16) and Dane (12) and Ellen (10) Orie; and my son, who would never have spoken another word to me in this or any future lifetimes if he hadn't been included in this research project, crowded into the den, where Ted and Sam were introducing us to "DDR" in a dizzying blur of synchronized footwork. By the final beat they were flush-faced and panting from exertion. Exercise? Check.

Conceptually simple, "DDR" is maddeningly, addictively, entertainingly difficult in practice. The floor mat has four touch-sensitive arrows on it: right, left, forward and back. Standing on the pad, you follow a scrolling step pattern of arrows displayed onscreen and varyingly timed to the beat of one of the game's selection of catchy dance hits. If your feet and your timing are on target, you're rewarded with onscreen encouragement ("GREAT" "PERFECT") and a higher score. But if you don't step on the correct spot on the correct arrow at just the right time, you get a "BOO," miss multiple steps and a chorus of boos follows your spiral into the depths. Short of a perfect score, when the song comes to an end -- well, it takes a stronger person than I to fight off the urge to say, "Just one more time." When I tell you that my father-in-law, whose knees have not forgiven him those Army parachuting days, tried soft-shoeing it to "Play That Funky Music," you get the idea that Konami is definitely on to something.

Four levels of difficulty -- beginner, light, standard and heavy -- add increasing speed and complexity to the steps. Each version of the game (I've been playing "Dance Dance Revolution Extreme 2" for PlayStation 2) has brought new features and music; "DDR Extreme 2" includes a workout mode and songs ranging from a relatively funereally paced cover of "Oops! . . . I Did It Again" to the panic-speed "Butterfly (Upswing Mix)." Having been thoroughly flummoxed in "light" mode, I reel at the prospect of a fast song set on "heavy" -- surely pure Savion Glover.

At the Westricks', the boys obligingly slowed an already leisurely song to nearly comatose speed (if you ask me how they did this, the answer is I have no idea, but "DDR" comes with an instruction booklet) for my first turn on the dance pad. It wasn't pretty, but it was enough. I was caught immediately and inescapably in the grip of "DDR" madness.

Which I had to wrestle into temporary submission, because the kids were on to the next thing, the Qmotions-Xboard.

Inter-Action

A new product from the company Qmotions, which also has interactive baseball and golf systems on the market, the Xboard is a skateboard-size platform balanced on a shorter and narrower block of slightly giving foam and attached to a game controller. Using a snowboard, skateboard, surfing or windsurfing game, you control the motion of your onscreen board by tilting the angle of the board beneath your feet.

The Xboard we tried was a prototype. (Qmotions says the product will be available sometime in May in PlayStation 2 and Xbox formats and will cost about $100.) It came without instructions, not that your average video-game-conversant kid bothers with those anyway. Before I could offer more than an "Um, I think you're supposed to connect . . .," the boys had the Xboard plugged in, the snowboarding game "SSX 3" powered up and Ted was wobbling unsteadily on the board while the others offered suggestions and critiques.

After cycling through several players and a steady procession of wipeouts and off-course flounderings, it became clear that Xboarding called for a certain degree of subtlety and finesse. It was not, you might say, child's play.

"These products are not toys, they are simulators," says Amro Albanna, founder and chief executive of California-based Qmotions. "We are making video games a lot closer to the actual sport and giving video gamers a new way to play the game."

It was more balance work than workout, but then again balance is an important part of a well-rounded fitness regimen. And certainly it's a more active and demanding way to play games that otherwise exercise nothing more than your fingers. For the fun factor, I thought the Xboard added challenge to the game and an enjoyable element of authenticity; although I doubt that I represent the marketing demographic the Xboard is aiming for. If we had one of these in our house, I might actually try playing those games that, with a hand controller only, have never much piqued my interest.