Steady, aim, ahhh...damn, the game has paused
With Christmas recently over it’s time to shed a few pounds and what better way could there be then to get fit whilst playing videogames, or so you’d think wouldn’t you?Gamercize has today unveiled the GZ Pro-Sport, a product range offering mini exercise equipment, such as steppers and cycles, as add-ons for games consoles and computers.
The programmable keypad connects, I assume, to the USB slot on your console and through that you connect your game controller and your chosen exercise machine. Once you begin the exercise routine you can play the game of your choice on the Xbox 360, PS3 or Wii. However, if you stop cycling, or ‘stepping’, your game will pause, or a message will appear on the screen telling you that your controller is unplugged. In essence, you will be punished (or motivated depending on which way you look at it) if you stop exercising.
How utterly infuriating is that? Not only will your Wii-mote be waving around all over the shop as you try and keep yourself steady to hit the ball back in Wii Sport’s Tennis or to take aim in Link’s Crossbow training, but can you imagine trying to play the likes of Halo 3 or any other shooter for that matter and being subjected to game pauses at crucial moments. Lag is bad enough!
Perhaps I’m missing something here, but I just don’t understand why anyone would want to use the GZ Pro-Sport for their consoles. I can understand the idea behind it is to motivate you to keep fit and the reward for doing that is that you can play your game to your heart’s content, but when you play almost any videogame you need to have a steady hand so moving around on an exercise machine is surely going to affect your judgment. Playing Halo 3 and cycling on an exercise bike would be like trying to pat your head and rub your stomach.
The developers have forgotten one crucial thing about their target audience; gamers are lazy, we're couch potatoes. The audience for this type of product is extremely limited. At best I can only see it being a short term fad for chubby Wii-owning housewives or for parents who, rather than exert some control over their kids and get them doing some exercise, buy this as a conscious salver while never admitting that their kids will never use it. The rest...you can forget it.
Now Wii Fit , yes, that sounds like a good way to get fit, because getting fit is the purpose of the game. GZ Pro-Sport just doesn't fit in with the game you'll be playing and therefore it will surely just ruin the game playing experience, not enhance it.
Perhaps I’ve been a little bit presumptuous with my labelling of the GZ Pro-Sport as “the most pointless gaming accessory of all time”; I haven’t actually tested it out. However, if Gamercize want to prove us wrong and offer us a GZ Pro-Sport to review we’ll gladly put it through rigorous testing and submit a formal apology if indeed it turns out to be a worthwhile product.
What do you think? Is this the most pointless accessory for next gen consoles so far?
You can check out the GZ Pro-Sport at the official site.
