Game Review: Active Life: Extreme Challenge
Stars and Stripes
Feb 09, 2010
The last time I spread a mat across the floor to play a video
game was 20 years ago. I was "Cheetah," racing against some other guy
named for an animal using the Power Pad in a game of "World Class Track
Meet" on the NES. Well, judging by the popularity of "Wii Fit,"
Nintendo knew what they were doing in revisiting the full-body game
play concept.
"Active Life: Extreme Challenge" plays to the ESPN X-Games crowd. Among the challenges are skateboarding, street luge, wakeboarding and base jumping. There are 15 in all, each played using the eight-button mat in various fashions, some in conjunction with the Wii remote.
Give credit to Namco Bandai. They must've been around to see kids cheating on the Power Pad by using their hands instead of their feet. There's plenty to appease those hands people in "Extreme." In rock climbing, for example, you're kneeling in front of the pad and reaching up to hit buttons with your hands as if reaching for the next ledge.
Other games, such as wakeboarding and BMX flatland, have you standing on the pad while holding your Wii remote to mimic being pulled by the rope or using handlebars to steer.
Not every game is extremely enjoyable, and the pad frustrates at times with its lazy responses to your commands. In flatland, for example, you mimic pedaling by alternating stepping from the middle left to the middle right buttons. Jumping is supposed to follow the action of your jumping. Instead, it seems to follow the action of your pedaling.
The best bet is to stick to the tricks-oriented games and ignore the speed ones. These challenges are a lot more interactive - requiring much more button-pressing on your part.
Ironically, it's in these games that the pad response is truest. The best is probably kite surfing. You stand on the mat while holding the Wii remote and nunchuck in each hand to steer and catch gusts of wind. As you hit the jumps and catch air, you get points for doing tricks, accomplished by jumping around the mat and getting back to your set position to land safely on the water.
Graphically, the game is rather annoying in its brightness. It'd be more appropriate if the colors and characters, which look like smiling Lego guys in backwards hats, had more edginess to them. Extreme follows the "Wii Sports" formula, only brighter.
While many of Extreme's games can get old quick (double dutch, anyone?), the workout aspect is pretty considerable. While I'm more of a traditional sports guy, my "Grand Slam Tennis" game has nothing on "Extreme" in terms of inducing sweat. Truly, playing this in jeans or, in my case, with a headache, is not a good idea. But it's that fitness quality that makes the game much better than it would be otherwise.
Basically, all this is is hitting buttons when you're supposed to. But it's impressive to have to take time out from your video game to take a water break.
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