Umm, What? Confessions of a Dangerous Game
Getting in 250 words for Friday would seem to be impossible, considering I'm starting to write at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, but there's a loophole. A friend of mine told me that as long as I write the words before I go to bed, then it totally counts for Friday. There is also a financial precedent which I am co-opting in my defense, which is that you can make a contribution to your IRA for 2008 all the way up until the 15th of this month. Who said time travel needs a De Lorean? All you need is a retroactive imagination.
Speaking of the future and time travel, check out this bit of dissonance.
So here's the thing you don't expect to see from your video game system: Dave-like judgement mixed with a condescending brand of, well, umm, I 'll let you judge for yourself.
The Nintendo Wii is brilliant in so many ways. Super Mario Kart is the latest candidate for the best game to be played while high, especially the Rainbow Road track where you are racing through loops and ethereal hyper-space jumps and down precipitous slopes, and every fifty feet it seems, you careen off the track and plummet in flames to a remarkably well-articulated Earth far below. We kept track of who was falling where; Africa, Australia, possibly Poland. The way we were racing, or more accurately, falling, Earth would be covered in more meteorites than when Kal-El came to stay.
The other game that we sampled recently was Wii Fit, which is a great concept in so many ways. Among many other games and challenges, it lets you try Yoga with on-screen coaching and feedback related to your balance, or it lets you run in place in your living room along a dirt track and grassy fields, and it is rumored that you run freely in a virtual world once you 'unlock' certain training games.
You even create a virtual you, or 'Mii", and the Wii Fit program tracks and tests your fitness, your weight, your balance, etc. It also, apparently, wants to test the strengths of your relationships.
This happened to someone I knew from back east. His girlfriend ran through several training games under her profile, and then my friend logged in to his 'Mii.' Here's the weird disconnect. Whereas when she logged in, the Wii asked how she was feeling, how she was eating, etc. When he logged in, it asked him, "Have you noticed how ------ is doing this week? Is she: a) heavier; b) slimmer; c) more toned; or d) the same?"
Bear in mind there were people in the room other than the two of them at the time the Wii dropped that stunningly bizarre moment into the conversation like a two-ton brick dropped from a three story building onto a five foot square piece of Saran Wrap. Wheee. What a fun question. How do you answer that? And why are you having to answer that to a Nintendo Wii?
Speaking of the future and time travel, check out this bit of dissonance.
So here's the thing you don't expect to see from your video game system: Dave-like judgement mixed with a condescending brand of, well, umm, I 'll let you judge for yourself.
The Nintendo Wii is brilliant in so many ways. Super Mario Kart is the latest candidate for the best game to be played while high, especially the Rainbow Road track where you are racing through loops and ethereal hyper-space jumps and down precipitous slopes, and every fifty feet it seems, you careen off the track and plummet in flames to a remarkably well-articulated Earth far below. We kept track of who was falling where; Africa, Australia, possibly Poland. The way we were racing, or more accurately, falling, Earth would be covered in more meteorites than when Kal-El came to stay.
The other game that we sampled recently was Wii Fit, which is a great concept in so many ways. Among many other games and challenges, it lets you try Yoga with on-screen coaching and feedback related to your balance, or it lets you run in place in your living room along a dirt track and grassy fields, and it is rumored that you run freely in a virtual world once you 'unlock' certain training games.
You even create a virtual you, or 'Mii", and the Wii Fit program tracks and tests your fitness, your weight, your balance, etc. It also, apparently, wants to test the strengths of your relationships.
This happened to someone I knew from back east. His girlfriend ran through several training games under her profile, and then my friend logged in to his 'Mii.' Here's the weird disconnect. Whereas when she logged in, the Wii asked how she was feeling, how she was eating, etc. When he logged in, it asked him, "Have you noticed how ------ is doing this week? Is she: a) heavier; b) slimmer; c) more toned; or d) the same?"
Bear in mind there were people in the room other than the two of them at the time the Wii dropped that stunningly bizarre moment into the conversation like a two-ton brick dropped from a three story building onto a five foot square piece of Saran Wrap. Wheee. What a fun question. How do you answer that? And why are you having to answer that to a Nintendo Wii?
posted by Devin at 12:31 AM
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