Fanboys Blog Post: For You And Me!
So here’s the deal. I’m going to take some time away from my busy schedule of blowing up people in space (although I swore under oath to Congress that Columbus was not my fault) and doing whatever menial tasks Dr. Wily can come up with (he writes the spec sheet on the robot or else he … well you don’t want to know) and give out a written version of a rant I’ve been boiling over like a bad English dish.
The issue at hand is the Wii Fit, though my complaints don’t lie with the system itself. Seeing as I don’t own the damn thing, that makes it particularly hard to critique the Wii Fit/balance board/most expensive scale you’ll ever own unless you’re a Hollywood actress and you have to have the one blessed by Tibetan monks because it’ll make you feel that much better and that will actually equate to losing fucking weight. In the end you just throw up or get surgery so fuck it.
But let’s get back on track before this becomes something completely different and very scary. The real beef I have with the Wii Fit are with the producers and the consumers. Yes, you, Shigeru Miyamoto, aka god to some (Tim Curry?), and yes you, the people that are actually reading this because you can (hopefully) find humor while turning your inner eye towards the proverbial mirror to look at one’s self with an unbiased point of view. For all you others, I’ll let you stir over the concept that I might actually critique the people that would read this rant of mine while I go on to the aforementioned.
Shigeru Miyamoto is the game designer whose crackpot idea it was to create a white piece of plastic for people to stand on as they play a game. When talk first started about the Wii Fit, all Miyamoto would tell gamers, in a nut shell, is that Fit is great and that you should own it. What? Who are your frackin’ advertising writers and why the frack are they not fired already?! You completely missed the biggest frackin’ selling point of Wii Fit. This is a system that utilizes weight balancing so that in combination with motion sensoring from the game controllers, you can utilize your full body to play a game to the extent that 80’s to early 90’s movies and the gaming glove had us dreaming over all those years ago without the bulky as hell suits to wear, though I’m still waiting to be able to be scanned into my games (thank you, Tron).
Nintendo completely missed the point that they have created an accessory to the Wii that makes it fully interactive. Like full body interactive (let the vibration and sensory feedback jokes commence). If you want to ski or snowboard but live in Houston, Texas (sigh), then you can pick up a Wii Fit and Wii Ski all for about a quarter of the price of plane tickets to Keystone, equipment rental costs, lift tickets, and a collection of earmuffs and mittens that will only serve to compete with socks for drawer space once you get back home. Not to mention that you don’t have to deal with waiting in lines and if you epically fail, which you will, you don’t have to worry about the inevitable group of 20 something girls skiing past you and giggling as you’re sprawled frame writhes across the slope in agony (this is not autobiographical… I swear).
Miyamoto and Nintendo, in their infinite and questionable wisdom, instead decide to cock tease us with the point of how the game will make people get off their fat asses when they game and learn how to exercise on a regular basis, which, don’t get me wrong, is great. But if that’s your goal, then just go ahead and fucking say it. Don’t make these blanket statements for the sake of not being sued later that the Wii Fit will not make you fit. Of course it won’t if you don’t work at it. Buying a gym membership doesn’t mean you will lose twenty pounds. At the same time I’m not saying that the Wii Fit is going to be a miracle sent down from the heavens to cure obesity across America (although I figure that if I try hard enough I could be the next ‘Jered’ for Wii Fit). All I’m saying is that if you want to put “Fit” in the name but you are saying it doesn’t make people fit then just call it the Wii white plastic board of fun (iBoard and iFun were already taken and iWhite was deemed not PC).
This leads me to the second partition of this Wii rant. I’m talking to you gamers. Yes you, the people that sit around drinking Balls and Game Fuel and yelling about how stupid the Wii Fit is. What the hell is wrong with getting up and doing some yoga or stretching or running in place? Are you really that afraid that it will lead to the eventual and horribly despised regular workout routine, trips outside, hiking, biking, or the like? Even if you want to stick to your house, at least you are moving the atrophied arms AND legs a bit and getting your heart beating beyond 90 bpm for something other than walking across the room for a Mountain Dew or yelling at the fucked up and overly sensitive controls for Mario Kart Wii (see my review to come in our first episode of Fanboys).
Revel in the concept that if you really want, you can be a Fanboy (or Fangirl, but I’m going to make the vastly short leap of logic that this does not apply so much to them) and be somewhat healthy without having to choose between one state of being and the other. Also, this is a gaming system to be used by everyone. I’m sure we’ve all met with a group at someone’s house to play some Wii Sports. It’s fun. This makes it even more fun, which then equates to the greater chance of interaction with other peoples. And no, Xbox Live is not interaction. Sitting around with a headset for hours on end yelling obscenities and digitally tea bagging people is not interaction. And I’m not going to even get started on the god damn teenie-bopper, gamer hybrid wannabies that are out there for the sole purpose of annoying the crap out of me and making my times on Xbox Live a living fucking hell.
What the Wii Fit does is give you an even greater opportunity to invite some friends (that you can actually touch and aren’t made of plastic) and others over to have a few drinks and continue to enjoy the Wii. Hell, you could get social kudos for owning this damn thing from people besides your group of gaming buddies that you meet at Taco Bell to eat all but confirmed artificially flavored Styrofoam and discuss strategies with. Use it to start a conversation. Meet women. For gosh sakes you guys, meet some god damn women before you turn 35 and you miss out on the good times because at that point it pretty much becomes socially mandatory to marry someone and you end up getting women that either walk all over you, you don’t really get along with, or you mom ends up giving you the hookup with (once again, not autobiographical). There is nothing wrong with inviting members of the opposite sex to your place, particularly if you have a Wii Fit to entice them. You should be thanking Nintendo for inventing gaming that all people can enjoy. Just don’t get so involved with the damn games that you shun the women away.
So now that this monstrous dish has cooled to a semi-edible temperature level (290 degrees Kelvin?), I’ll put my soapbox back into my closet. Other issues warrant my attention and I need to get back to accomplishing my quasi-evil and utterly meaningless deeds.
Have a great weekend.