This is an amazing thing I read about in today's news... Apparently kids who play DDR are actually losing weight at it, making it one of the least protestable video-games on the market today. One kid who weighed 350 pounds droppped, with help from a proper diet, to 200 pounds thanks to DDR, which makes exercise fun.
I'm pretty certain that some of you folks around here play DDR, so what's your take? Does this add to the appeal of the game, or is it just a nifty little perk of playing it? Have any of you gone from overweight to a reasonable weight thanks to DDR? My curiosity must be sated, so please, answer if you can!
Also, if you don't have DDR, would you consider buying it, knowing about this benefit?
What?! A game that helps you lose weight? Where do I sign up?
(DDR is Dance Dance Revolution... I think.)
That's the hard way to lose weight. I lost weight the easy way, with a diet of my own design, a diet without exercise. I lost over 60 pounds. If anybody is serious and wants to know how, just PM me. I should warn you in advance, my diet is not recommended for smokers, and guys who have found relationships despite being overweight.
Oh, what're you guys worried about? :) I absolutely LOVE the game! I'll be happy to explain it for those who seem to be unfamiliar with it. On the main topic, yeah, it's really been revolutionary for gaming. While the exercise has not been a very celebrated factor of it, it's still quite large. I even saw a DDR game on Playstation (it has a home version and special dance pads for it) with an exercise mode, actually tracking the calories you're burning as you play.
For the uninformed, here's what goes on in the game. Obviously, there will be music playing in the background for you to dance to, which you can usually choose. As you play, there will be up, down, left, and right arrows scrolling upward to a bar on top of the screen (the bar is grey arrows to show when the steps are supposed to happen). As soon as an arrow reaches the bar, you have to step in that direction. Sometimes, two will come up at once, so you'll basically have to do a small jump. Sometimes, when you see a green arrow coming, you'll have to hold your foot there until the green arrow is gone. In the easier levels, there'll be a good enough space between steps that you can regain your position and ready yourself for another step, but as it gets harder, they'll connect more and more until it's as close to a dance as you could imagine for having just 4 step directions to use. It also has an option where you can use both pads at once, so instead of using just 4, you use all 8 (it sounds a lot harder than it really is). Depending on how close your step was to where it's supposed to be, it'll be judged perfect, great, good, boo, or miss (totally off). A bar will be on top of the screen to show your progress, and if it runs out (too many bad steps without good ones), you fail. Perfect and great make it go up, boo and miss hurt it (more than the good stuff), and good just keeps it as is.
When people start playing it for a while, they start to like it a lot, but I haven't seen a single person think it's good before they start. Some even think it's a girl's game because "dancing's for girls." Seriously, it's NOTHING like that. I see a lot more guys than girls playing this game, though I do see more girls playing this game than most (like saying the Buffy CCG had the highest female player percentage among CCGs, though that's only 40%). It's got stuff that definitely appeals to both genders very well, especially the extremely hard stuff. I don't want to sound like an ad, but if you haven't tried this game, I strongly urge you to.
I'm pretty skilled at it, but not an expert. There are 3 main difficulties: light, standard, and heavy, but those are just guidelines. Really, there are 10 levels, which people call steps, since when you're choosing songs, it shows the difficulty in the number of feet on it. Most new players can do level 1 or 2 on their first time, since DDR strangely has its own rythm you need to get accustomed to, and that's fine. Believe me, if you saw me dancing at the level I'm at, you'd think that I just ate a pound of raw sugar. I've seen someone go almost perfectly through the biggest level 10 song on the latest machine, and seriously, even though I saw it, I still literally cannot imagine a human body moving at that speed with a plan behind it.
Wrapping it up to relate to the topic, it does feel a lot like exercise, but it's fun doing it. In essence, it's the almost same thing as jazzercise, but this has a video game feel to it that keeps you entertained. Because it has a scoring feature, some people like to get competitive and try to beat other people's scores, but it judges your performance on several levels. I know that when I get done with some serious stuff, I'm panting at the end, so I get a good workout when I'm through. :)
Actually, all dances (ballet, waltz, tango, hip-hop, et al) only have four directions to move or step (forward, backward, left, and right), you just combine them smoothly to look good. So DDR really is dancing, not just like dancing.
Wise: The easy way to lose weight is to exercise instead of limiting what you eat, and the easiest way to do that is to actually have fun so you want to exercise, and so it doesn't just turn into another thing I have to do in the morning and afternoon. Dieting of any kind is the hard way, because it limits your eating in a way you aren't use to.
I love DDR. I started playing it last spring, and though I don't get to play it as much as I'd like to these days (though that should change in a couple of months), I still do it as often as I can.
I don't have a weight problem or anything, but I definitely wasn't getting enough exercize. Rather, I was sitting on my ass all day long, surfing the internet, and enjoying hentai and bondage pr0n all day long. Yeah, things were not really looking up for me, but then I finally got DDR Konamix and a dance pad for my PS2, and then I was finally able to whip myself into shape. Not only was I getting a decent amount of exercize, but it helped control my hormones too (so I didn't feel like I had to go jerk off every 4 hours). Yeah, too much information, I know, but I swear by this method for everyone who might be worrying that they're spending a little too much time with themselves.
I'm getting the PS2 version this summer, and when I finally move out of the shitty apartment I've been living in for the past year, I'm going to get back to playing it. I've actually met a few people at work that enjoy playing it, so that gives me motivation to get better, because right now they're a lot better than I am.
So, I've never really lost weight playing it (though I know people who have), but I have benefitted from it health-wise. Eating smart and making sure you get enough fresh air every day goes a long way towards helping too, but DDR is a really good start. It's never too late to get in on it.
Hehe Nice! though i was the only loser who played ddr here.
Yeah i can vouche for losing weight while playing this game, although thats not my reason for playing it, i just think its a fun game. I'm like 5'11 and 158 pounds, and 3-4 months ago before i started playing ddr i weighed around 170. I was never fat and losing weight wasn't my intention but it just happend.
And I was going to post on how DDR is good for you. Oh well, early bird...
I've got it on PC and PS2 and I play 3 hours a day every day. I'm getting good enough to pull off some funky moves but only with the light songs. On standard, I'm just not fast enough but I do have this cool muscle on my calves. I've also lost about 4 pounds in the past two days alone.
Question: Is it just me or are the faster songs (+150 BPM) a whole lot easier than the slower ones?
zarima: angel of blood Wrote:Question: Is it just me or are the faster songs (+150 BPM) a whole lot easier than the slower ones?
Sometimes the really slow songs frustrate me. I find it easier to stay on-beat in the faster songs. In the slower ones I often get stuck stepping too early.