Written by Ashley Boyd

Staff writer and forum admin Ashley Boyd puts his degree to the test once again, as his next target for academic analysis is Wii Fit and "virtual" fitness...

Video games, it seems, are constantly facing an uphill struggle. Despite the increased popularity since the advent of the home consoles in the 1980s, the idea that kids should still be playing outside has remained. It's understandable that some parents may wish for their children to go out and learn to play tennis rather than just sit in doors in front of Smash Court Tennis. However, with Wii Fit, and to some extent Wii Sports, parents are facing a new problem; a game that simulates actual exercise. Whether or not Wii Fit is an adequate replacement for real-life exercise was discussed on the forums shortly after Wii Fit came out, and shall be discussed in further depth here.

For anyone who has yet to play Wii Fit, the game offers a variety of different exercises and activities to keep you exercising and, with enough dedication, hopefully keep you healthy. As well as a variety of muscle exercises that focus on different areas of the body there are yoga exercises, which again focus on a variety of body areas and also a range of game-style activities, such as a football header game, a ski jump game and a hula-hoop game. As well as this Wii Fit offers the ability to jog for a set period of time anywhere between six minutes and thirty, as an ideal method to burn calories. The jogging activity shall form the basis of this comparison between the benefits of Wii Fit compared to its real-life counterpart, jogging.

Better than the real thing?

A large benefit, I feel, of jogging offered in Wii Fit is the fact it is simulated which offers a variety of advantages over putting on your finest tracksuit and heading out into the real world. As I write this the world outside me is not one you would want to go run around in; heavy rain, strong wind and a grey sky certainly put me off going for a jog at least. On Wiifitty Island (the name of the simulated island Mii characters jog around) the sun is always shining and the scenery is always stunning, be it in the lush woods, the perfectly blue lake or the calm sandy beach. While I am perfectly aware that this is indeed a simulated world and of course it is going to look picture-esque, it's certainly nicer to look at than road kill and McDonald's wrappers.

This was not the only benefit that was discussed on the forums, as even during an unconventionally beautiful day, in the UK at least, people would still rather jog around Wiifitty Island for a variety of other reasons. While on your jog you may get overtaken and waved at by your friend, you may see Mike Tyson standing around cheering you on and it's highly unlikely, as one forum member put it, you will get mugged or chased by a chav. It appears that the simulated world offers more desirable circumstances to jog than the real one, but is this necessarily a good thing?

French philosopher and cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard argued that in the postmodern society in which we live, the simulation of reality, in this case Wiifitty Island, has come to replace reality as the representation of reality has become more real than reality itself. While this may sound complex it can basically be summed up with the idea that when a simulation becomes a more desirable version of reality, so when people would rather jog around Wiifitty Island than their local park, the reality becomes superseded by simulation.

In our day we were still using jumpers for goalposts.

This idea could be applied to the Wii in a wider manner. When the Wii was first unveiled, Nintendo offered gamers, and particularly families, all sorts of benefits. If mum wants to inform the children that dinner is in the microwave she can leave a message on the Wii itself, if she feels that they will look there rather than the family noteboard for example. Similarly with Wii Fit itself the Wii Balance Board (which in itself is a peculiar item as Nintendo seems to have wanted to give it a life and personality to make it more relatable, fitting in with their Mii characters) asks you what you feel of your father's posture, or how healthy you feel your friend is. You are being encouraged to interact with your friends and family through simulation. While it is certainly possible for you to say to imitate the Wii Fit trainers and say to your friends "your posture is fantastic!" it is highly unlikely this would just come out in general conversation; therefore it is through encouragement from the simulated world that interactions within the real occur.

In spite of this I am certainly not advocating staying in and just relying on Wii Fit to get you in shape. As Wii Fit itself states, you need a healthy, well-balanced diet and other exercise to achieve this. While you could take Miyamoto's lead and use both Wii Fit and the gym to stay in shape just simple exercise, such as choosing to walk to town rather than drive, is arguably necessary. Hyper-reality hasn't quite replaced reality yet, and while Wii Fit offers an enjoyable hyper-reality it still won't perfectly replicate the real world. And at the very least, what better way to stay in shape than run away from all those violent chavs that are apparently out there waiting for an innocent jogger to cross their path?

Ashley Boyd
Staff Writer & Forum Admin