Just Dance (and Pant! And Sweat!)

Back in May of 2008, when this blog was very young, I made a post about a video game called Wii Fit, and how much I was looking forward to the game because I was hoping that it would get my children up and exercising a little bit. I gave the game a glowing review, and indeed, we played the game for hours. The following year we even purchased the follow up called Wii Fit Plus.

But here's the thing about the Wii Fit: as much fun as it is to play, it doesn't really provide a very strenuous workout. The best thing about it is that the Wii Balance Board IS a really accurate scale that keeps track of your previous weigh ins, so I weigh myself each Saturday morning. But it never really provided anything any more than a very, VERY light workout. We also purchased and played a video game called Dance, Dance Revolution (or DDR, as fans sometimes call it), and it provided a bit more of an aerobic workout, but still, if you were in any kind of shape at all, the game wasn't much of a strain. You were more likely to wear out your knees before you'd break into a sweat. I'd just about given up on the idea of using a video game to exercise.

Until this week. I bought a birthday present for myself (This is my second year in a row of doing this) this weekend. It's a video game called Just Dance 2. It's the number one selling video game on any platform right now, and since my younger daughter and I liked the DDR games, I thought I'd try it out (I also figured--correctly--that it wouldn't matter whether or not I'd played the original Just Dance game).

And I have to tell you this: This game provides a TREMENDOUS workout!

Whereas I could play Wii Fit probably literally all day and not get tired, and I could play DDR for an hour and hardly feel it, I'm definitely winded after just ONE SONG. After two or three songs I'm actually starting to sweat a little.

Unlike DDR, which basically just has you tapping a mat with your feet to the rhythm of a song, JUST DANCE has you actually DANCE to a song! Full bodied movement of your arms and your legs. It's exhausting!

The only complaint I have is that I'm not sure how accurate the controls actually are. With DDR, they're dead on: tap the right spot on the mat at the right time, and you'll get a "Perfect." Miss it, and the program knows that, too. With JUST DANCE, I'd say the accuracy is only about 80% or so. Lots of times I would not be doing the dance move at all and the program would register my standing still as "Perfect." And sometimes I'd KNOW I'd just nailed the dance move and it would register a big red "X," which meant that I hadn't done anything. Still,  though, the game is so much fun (and work!) that I doubt that you'll even notice the occasional inaccuracy.

One other complaint, though it's just a personal thing, is that--as I just said--the program wants you to actually dance. And I can't. I mean, I'm really really really really really really bad at it. This game just makes a point of it. Of the four of us in my house, I'm easily the worst dancer, and it shows in the game. In head to head competition I get CREAMED by everyone else. The others all can't wait to play against me because they all know that they're basically playing against no one--they're guaranteed a sure win. After four days of playing the ONLY time I've ever won the game was when the dance we were doing basically called for the dancers to gyrate wildly throughout. Apparently I'm pretty good at that. Even so, once the song was over, all three of the other members of my beloved family said the same thing at almost the same time: "Dad WON?!?"

I guess I shouldn't complain. I should look at it this way: I'm raising the self-esteem of everyone else in the family with my crummy play.

Again, though, that's a personal complaint. Overall, the game is fun, and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to either laugh or get some REAL exercise while playing a video game.