Lie to me

I got very confused about Wii Fit. On one hand it's a game - it's previewed and reviewed on all the gaming sites and magazines. It's written about in gaming blogs and promoted at games events. It's got "Nintendo" written on it. So it's a game. But it's not a game. It really isn't anything like a game. It's an interactive exercise video. No amount of cute 3D avatars speaking in impossibly high-pitched voices is going to make it a game. With Wii Fit these self improvement titles have finally crossed the line - they need their own category, they can't be called games.



I haven't played Brain Training but I would argue that it's still a game. In fact it's a very pure game - all games are essentially brain training. Whether you're training your brain to spot the tree-coloured bad guy against a background of trees or training your slow human fingers to react with robotic speed to visual cues - it's all brain training. I see no difference between Dr Kawishima telling me my reaction speed is getting better and getting 5 stars in Guitar Hero. Brain Training is just spectacularly unimaginitive in it's premise. Or honest - depending how you look at it. Brain Training is for people who don't want plot, character or beauty alongside their brain workout.

The counter argument to this is that these self-improvement titles teach "real" skills - not like playing a fisher-price guitar, or running round a fantasy planet shooting unreal aliens in their made-up heads - those aren't "real" skills. "Dr K teaches us maths and logic skills." say these "real" people "Skills we can use in everyday life." Sorry no - real life teaches real life skills. Skills you use every day you already practice every day. You don't seem to be getting any better at them. Brain Training is like any other game -the only thing it trains you to do, is be better at Brain Training.

Half the fun of games - in fact maybe 100% of the fun - comes from the sense of achievement you get from making progress. Learning is inherently fun -this article explains why - [well it would if I could find it to link to..], supposedly we're genetically pre-disposed to enjoy solving things and remembering the solution. In a game, this sense of progress is controlled by the designer - they decide when to hand out rewards, how to achieve that delicate balance of challange and reward. To be fun, a game's learning curve must be pitched just right - so we get a genuine feeling of achievement all the way through. Brain Training games are just the same - it's just they pretend you're making progress in a "real" skill, thus increasing your sense of achievement.

But Wii Fit is different. Weight isn't an abstract concept like intelligence - it's a real measurable quantity. Which means this game can't lie. It can't pretend you're making progress -all it can do is uncomfortably squeak that sometimes it takes time for exercise to show results. But I'm a gamer! I've done what the game says I want my reward now! My brain improved with improbable swiftness, why can't my body? Wii Fit has the structure of a game - rewards, stamps, even collectibles - but it doesn't have that progress curve, the spine that games need for all the other parts to work. So it's not a game. It's real life in a game-shaped box - don't be fooled people. Stay away.