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The Super Banter Bros Episode 10 | Gamifying Fitness
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Does gamifying fitness actually work? From motion controls to full fitness games, we’re talking about how gaming has tried to turn exercise into gameplay.
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Ho, ho, ho. It is a senor claws donut. Senor Donut Claws. You know what? I messed it up, but it doesn't matter. It's Senor Donut Claus. And with me as always on this rip-roaring episode is the goodest of boys, Mr. Grant Patricio.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I appreciate the compliment, um, Senor Donut Claus, but the real goodest of boys, Tango, decided to just chill on the office chair just off screen. He is the goodest of boys, and he is joining us in the ho ho holiday spirit. By the way, love the mask.
SPEAKER_00Oh, thank you. Thank you. I haven't even debuted this mask yet uh for my for my Twitch people yet. You are the first one to see this mask. Uh, but you know, by the time this episode comes out, every everyone is. Everybody will have seen it already.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, you don't.
SPEAKER_00Debut of this mask. Um my mask guy did a fantastic job, although I did ask him to redo it because there were certain things that I did not like about it. But you know, we'll see. We'll see. My mask guy is fantastic. It's just that sometimes he doesn't send me a sketch before he begins on his work, and then we have issues like this. But I digress.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, sounds like any artistic collaboration. There are such things that happen at every stage of the process. Bumps are head, and it's all fine. It's all fine.
SPEAKER_00All fine, all fine. Uh, how are you doing, Grant? Have you been naughty or nice?
SPEAKER_03I'd like to think I've been at least fairly nice. Um, to stay.
SPEAKER_00Did your boyfriend think you were naughty?
SPEAKER_03Oh ho. Sorry. That is that is a question not to be answered on this show. Anyway, anyway. Um, I guess naughty in the right ways. Hey. Anyway. Um, uh, how about you, Senior Donut Claws? Everybody in that household on the nice list?
SPEAKER_00Everyone except for my little mini donut. He's a good boy, he's great, but man, some of the times, some of the things he does just, you know, drives me up the wall. Like, even to the point where uh Senorita Donut has been like, you know, I want to yeet our child sometimes. I know it's it's crazy. It's crazy. Senorita Donut is the most patient person I've ever met in my life. And the fact that even she is like, you know what? I could, I could definitely see how people want to yeet their child, you know, and I'm like, inside, I'm like, damn, that's crazy that even she would be like that. But also on the inside, I'm like, good, it's not just me. I guess this is parenting, though. You know, every parent goes through that uh that bit.
SPEAKER_03Um I didn't realize parenting had a phase where you're internally heating your children, but this is good to know.
SPEAKER_00I'm sure, I'm sure you felt that way sometimes with Tango, where you're just like, Tango, why did you do that? Or you're frustrated at Tango and you're like, ah, you know.
SPEAKER_03I mean, he did have a really silly moment earlier today. Uh, I keep a bunch of like uh filtered water, big big jugs of it in the fridge because I drink a lot of water. And I should hydration is key. But I took two of Hydro hashtag hydro homies. Anyway, um I took two of the jugs out to fill them up before we started recording. And what tell me why he thought it was a good idea to be like, I am claiming the refrigerator as my hangout.
SPEAKER_00Like he literally jumped in the fridge.
SPEAKER_03He jumped in the fridge. And I'm just like I'm just like, dude, no, you will become an orange creamsickle cat. Let's get you out of here. No. And then, you know, after I did that and put the jugs uh where they need to be to get refilled, he almost hopped in there again. What? I'm like, dude, it is cold outside. Outside is a refrigerator.
SPEAKER_02You don't need to go into one. What is happening?
SPEAKER_03But now, as a token of apology and wanting to spend time, he's just uh just off screen. So yeah. That that's the thing with my little boy. He knows how to apologize in his own feline way once he realizes oh no, I I made an oops.
SPEAKER_00Oh man. Uh I so I noticed you're wearing a Dragon Ball Z shirt.
SPEAKER_03Yes. Uh Boyfriend got this for me a while back.
SPEAKER_00Amazing, first of all. But uh I I believe I've told you before that uh I've been trying to get my my son into anime, and I've failed multiple times with different animes that I thought he would enjoy. Like I tried Dragon Ball, I tried uh uh I there was this cat anime that he really liked um because they're super short and they're cute.
SPEAKER_02Um but and it wasn't samurai pizza cats?
SPEAKER_00No, it was not samurai pizza cats. It I forget exactly what it was called. Um hate to interrupt, senor ho ho donut, but your beard's falling off. Oh no, I didn't even notice it fall off. My goodness. Where's my where's my donut? Uh there it is. Okay. There it is. There we go. It's on now. Damn, I was outed as not being Santa Claus immediately. Oh my goodness. Dude, I'm sure I would have never noticed it and we would have recorded this whole episode with half my beard hanging off. Oh my goodness. Um, but yeah, I've I've tried different animes and everything, and it's just he's he's not in anything with conflict, he doesn't enjoy. He immediately covers his ears and he's like, Dad, I don't like this. And I'm like, Okay. And I've I've gotten so sad because I want to introduce anime to him, right? And uh he's gotten into soccer recently. So because we've signed him up for like a soccer thing after school, and he goes on Mondays and whatever, and uh he's been having a great time. And I was like, Okay, soccer, hmm, there are some soccer animes. So I decided to show him Captain Subasa. Um and he really enjoys the anime, and as soon as I put it on for him, and like he was like, Daddy, I like this, and he's like mimicking like you know, the shots and the poses and everything, and I'm just like tiny tears start to go down my eyes because I finally found an anime that he can enjoy. And this is like Captain Tsubasa is his gateway into the world of anime. I'm just waiting, waiting for the day that he comes up to me on his own volition and he's like, Hey dad, I found this anime called Hajime no Ipo. It's really cool.
SPEAKER_03I love Hajime no Ipo, boyfriend and I watch that one.
SPEAKER_00My favorite anime, favorite anime, if he starts watching that of his own volition, it's I swear it's gonna be like crying, big hugs, everything. Like I love my kid, and I'll always give him big hugs, even though he's not really a hugger. Um, but man, when he tells me, if he ever tells me that that's like a really good anime, it's just gonna be like full-on ugly crying, thanking the heavens finally for this mana from heaven. Um, just yeah, uh I just I want to like okay, so here it is. As a parent, you want to share your loves with your child, but you don't want to burden them with what you love. Right. You want them to just kind of come to it naturally. And then, you know, if they like it, you can bond over that. But if if he likes something else, I'm gonna have to like that and bond with him over that, you know? Um, so it's weird, man. Like this whole like being a parent and like trying to not not influence your child's likes, but also give them space to grow and you know, find out about life on their own, but protecting them at the same time from the horrors of life. It's just like, man, there's it really is a balancing act. It a hundred percent is a balancing act. Um, but I did I did find a way to slightly introduce him into Dragon Ball Z. Oh, yeah? There is a Dragon Ball Z advent calendar that I got years ago. And I I think somebody gave it to me. Um, but I I put all the figures, like as soon as I opened them and found them out, I put all the figures back in the box the same way that they were ordered, because I was like, okay, I mean, I don't have anywhere to put them really. I can't display them or I don't have a desk to do so. So I put them all in the box, not knowing years later. Actually, no, it was a it was a conscious effort because I was like, years later, when I have my first kid, I'm gonna do this for him, and he's gonna look at these figures and be like, oh, and have adventures with all of them. So he's pulling open the days of the advent calendar, finding out about Dragon Ball characters. The other day I heard him, I heard him say, Ka May Ha May Ha.
SPEAKER_02He fired a Kamehameha! Uncle Grant is so proud.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god. I was in, I was like just smiling, nodding my head. It was great, fantastic.
SPEAKER_04Oh my god.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, yeah. I'm trying to get him into Dragon Ball Z uh by showing him the characters and then talking a little bit about them so that he understands a little bit. And maybe when he actually starts watching it, he'll be like, oh, it's this guy from so and so. Uh, but we'll see, we'll see what happens.
SPEAKER_03We'll see. I mean, firing Kamehameha's is already a good start. Right? I would say. I would say amazing.
SPEAKER_00Anyways, uh, I've I've blathered on for far too long.
SPEAKER_03Oh, oh fuff. It's been a minute since we sat down. It's good to get.
SPEAKER_00It's good to get it. It has been. Uh last time we recorded Grants. Do you remember what we did last time at the end of the episode?
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah. We uh we opened some packs to see uh uh to see who got the higher value pack.
SPEAKER_00Not just the higher value pack, but also the higher value card.
SPEAKER_03Right. We did. Uh want to tell them or should I? I I have been talking for far too long, Rand. Please. Okay. Um, well, the the short answer is you kicked my butt. That's right. That's what I'm talking about. You kicked my butt to hear the to the shadow realm and back. You kicked it that hard. You're from uh from our esteemed editor and card value researcher. Thank you again for doing this for us, buddy. Uh, you got the highest value card being Monstro at eight dollars, and that was also just generally your highest value pack. Yeah. Um I didn't even bother to remember the name of the card that was my highest value, because it was something with a very convoluted name, like many of Yu-Gi-Oh!'s more modern cards, and it was only $1.50. So that you won by a landslide, good sir. A landslide.
SPEAKER_00Um I'm I'm kind of surprised by that because I'm not. Really? Because I mean, Yu-Gi-Oh!'s been around for so much longer than Lorcana has. It has a storied history, has uh, you know, memorable characters, memorable monsters. Um, none of which you pulled, I believe.
SPEAKER_03Uh uh, I I think I got like one thing related to something from a more modern anime season, but like I was looking for a retrain of the Dark Magician Girl, and I didn't even get anywhere close to that realm, that series, even in any of the things I pulled.
SPEAKER_00So I I didn't even pull uh a legendary card. The I think I think I pulled a the card that was that I pulled that was super uh expensive, uh in in you know relative terms to what you pulled, was a foil monstro card that is rare, not even super rare, just a rare card that is foil. I didn't even know um that that card was so uh so much. And like we were talking about during the episode, the value of cards really depends on the current meta of the game.
SPEAKER_03Exactly.
SPEAKER_00So, you know, you could have a super rare card, but it's not like Pokemon, where whatever rare cards are the ones that are gonna fetch high prices. That game isn't about meta and prices, that game is about whatever shiny, you know, epic cards you can pull. Um, and that's that's the difference between these games that we were talking about during our uh TCG episode. Uh but I think I think moving forward, we're gonna do a couple of uh you know YouTube shorts uh uh on our polls and see who gets what.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, uh it'll give me more reasons to actually hunt the cards that I'm looking for to make my Dark Magician deck a little bit more meta viable, because that's really why I pull the cards to make decks that I have stronger. And it's uh I am getting another sizable collection of a bunch of things that I either know or don't, because again, Yu-Gi-Oh! card names for the modern archetypes belong on a Kingdom Hearts title screen. But uh yeah. We um there will be more polls, they may come up as shorts or TikToks. We haven't decided the full logistics yet, but that does sound like fun.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. So, Grant, we start every episode with a what have you been playing? So uh let's let's go back to our tradition. Let's let's open up uh that can of worms and what have you been playing, Grant?
SPEAKER_03Uh I actually got inspired by a certain beard-toting holiday donut to pick up a couple of games that I had seen them play. By them, I mean you, I hope you know. Um Kirby Air Riders.
SPEAKER_00Who else you know that has a donut mask?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I figured I figured make it clear this time. Um uh Kirby Air Riders, uh Claire Obscure 33. Really? I did pick that up. Wow. Uh I saw a post online where it was nominated for several uh best voice acting performances, and I'm just like, okay, I've gotta see what this game is about now. I remember seeing Donut stream it. It's a turn-based RPG. I gotta see what it's like. So that's why I picked that one up. Uh picked up Kirby Air Riders just because it was about time. And yes, Kirby. Um, and I also picked up like it was a $30 game. Okay. Uh, Dogman Mission Impossible. And yes, possible was spelled PAW hyphen Sybil.
SPEAKER_00Um don't you don't you read those books for your voice acting gig?
SPEAKER_03And that's why I picked it up when I saw it. Because it's like, wow, I didn't even know this game existed. I I'm kind of attached to the series in one form or another. Let's see what it's like. I actually streamed the first like world and a half of it on Thursday of last week, and it's a fun little platformer. It's uh, you know, you learn new abilities as you go, you play as the main heroes, and right now it's a mystery of why all of their previous villains are sort of being villains again.
SPEAKER_00Um do they do they not turn to sorry, do they have like a redemption arc and go good?
SPEAKER_03And one of them did. The first villain did. Um Petey the cat had a redemption arc after literally Dr. Eviling a smaller cloned version of himself, which started calling him Papa. Uh Lil Petey.
SPEAKER_01Um so basically the dynamic is Lil Petey comes out as a clone and tries to influence Petey to be good. And Petey is just like, I I am a villain, don't you get uh I I have to he's my son.
SPEAKER_03I have to raise him right. I have to be good now. It's so hard though. Um Grandpa Petey is uh still a villain though, and we briefly saw him in the opening cutscene. Um but all we know is that some villains have been let out of jail, other villains are you know being resuscitated somehow, we don't know how yet. Um, and it's basically up to the super buddies with Dogman, Lil Petey, and their robot named 80-HD, or when red, 80 H D. Um, that's clever.
SPEAKER_00I love that.
SPEAKER_03Mm-hmm. It's up to those three in their super team to basically save the city from this uh recur this uh renewed batch of villainy from all their past foes. Wow. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00How how how would it play? How is it?
SPEAKER_03It's like it's a fun little platformer. You have to give the characters a little bit of space to do a run-up, start a running start to make some of the jumps. It's got that it's got those sorts of physics. It's not like sense, yeah. It it's not just Mario where you start at full tilt and then when you run or hold the run button, you run at full tilt. You have to give them a little bit of a wind up in the running animation.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_03Um I unlocked digging and a grappling hook for dog man. I've unlocked wall jumping for little Petey, and ADHD um has the ability to push and pull heavy objects. I'm sure I'll be getting more abilities through each level, but right now it's just a fun little game with a quirky little story that really only progresses when you get to bosses.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so uh it sounded for a second like you have upgrades that you can purchase. Is that like through a skill tree or just through story?
SPEAKER_03It's not a it's just through the story of the game. Uh, you get to certain rooms where it's like collect cogs to build a super gadget, and you collect the cogs and you get the new ability, and then it's just permanently added to your arsenal.
SPEAKER_00It sounds very Metroidvania-like almost, where you you know collect things uh by you know moving through rooms or whatever.
SPEAKER_03It it does have those design elements, but it is also a very straightforward platformer.
SPEAKER_00It is made for kids, right?
SPEAKER_03So Right, of course. But it's not like you it's Metroidvania in the sense that you go through rooms and each room is on its own screen, and they're like alternate pathways to get collectibles, but each level has a start and an end point. It's not just like exp exploring the entire city and doing the the quests and stuff as they happen. It's start point, endpoint of a stage, get taken back to a world map to select the next stage, etc. etc. etc.
SPEAKER_00Gotcha. Okay.
SPEAKER_03That sounds fun. It is, it was it was a nice, quaint little game. And when bigger projects aren't going on, I might be uh jumping back into that one every so often. Nice. Using the voices I use in the audiobooks were relevant.
SPEAKER_00How many characters uh well, I mean, you must do all the characters because you read the book, right?
SPEAKER_03I do, that's right. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00And you why didn't they hire you for the game?
SPEAKER_03Ah, that's a good question. I just don't think they wanted voice acting in the game because aside from a few like stock sound effects, there isn't any. Oh, okay. Um, I have been asked why I wasn't hired for the movie. And to that I don't have an answer.
SPEAKER_00Because Hollywood wants big names attached to things, that's why. Yeah, and probably got Chris Pratt as Mario.
SPEAKER_02Moving on. Ben Schwartz's Sonic was good. Chris Pratt is Mario. Moving on.
SPEAKER_00Oh my goodness. Um what else are you playing?
SPEAKER_03I I uh though honestly, those three are really it. Um, just mostly because I've been preparing for the Pokemon Legends ZA DLC dropping this week. And uh once that drops, I'm gonna be playing that on my Thursdays again on stream. And uh it the second I heard that in the DLC Pokemon can actually be over level 100 for your encounters, I'm just like, that is a first in series history. I need to be prepared. I am going full childhood mode and raising all of the legendaries I got in the game, all five of them, to level 100 just to try and survive.
SPEAKER_00So you can raise them to level 100 or even over that?
SPEAKER_03You can raise your Pokemon to level 100. The wild encounters will be over level 100. That's all we know. Okay, interesting. Like if you uh and this is dating myself horrendously, if you ever pulled the Missigno glitch back in the original red and blue, you could actually catch Pokemon that were over level 100. And then when you battled with them, they would revert to their level 100 level and stats. So I remember seeing like a level 145 Kangaskhan, a level 126 Pidgey, and things like that, depending on because the missing no the missing no exploit? It's not a code, but uh the missing no exploit, I guess I'll call it, um just pulls from random data from your gameplay of red and blue, depending on when you activate it. Um so yeah, it could be a bunch of different Pokemon in those positions or like on that one little uh strip of Cinnabar Island's coastline, and it really depends on the last area you were in. That dictates your wild encounters.
SPEAKER_00Interesting.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Man, I'd be terrified if I was strolling down Pokemon World and all of a sudden there's like a level 151, you know, Pidgey just chilling, staring down at me.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, just the buffest bird. Oh my god. Buffest bird. But that's the kind of fear we're going to experience in the Legends EA DLC dropping this week. Because who knows how high these levels are going to be. Like, apparently, one of the trailers showed something at level 200, and I'm like, how does that even work? How does that even work?
SPEAKER_00Genetically enhanced Pokemon out in the wild.
SPEAKER_03I mean, one of the side missions you can get from DL from a free download is literal genetically enhanced Pokemon Mewtwo.
SPEAKER_00Literally.
SPEAKER_03In an alternate version of Lumeo City, brought about by a little genie that can summon warp rings by virtue of um eating donuts. What? I'm sorry, what now? Uh exactly. Um, just just know that he uh they have ring powers, and uh that is how you get to the area where these level uh over a hundreds are.
SPEAKER_00We're gonna we're gonna come back to that one day, but not right now.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. Not right now. Um, but that's really all I've been playing uh on the main front. How about you? What have you been up to?
SPEAKER_00So uh this past week, I tried to start an all-endings run of Chrono Trigger. Ooh. Because it's something that I've never done, and I wanted to give it a shot. I wanted to play Chrono Trigger, get every single ending, uh, so that I can say that I've I did it, right? So I booted up my PC copy of Chrono Trigger, and four times, four times in 30 minutes, the game crashed on me. What? Yeah, I and I don't even know why. Like I have a uh I mean I built my PC, it's very strong. It has a you know 40, 90, you know, RTX card, it has 64 gigabytes of RAM, it has uh, you know, which is like worth thousands of dollars now, apparently. Um, I have uh, you know, uh fantastic motherboard. It is it is top of the line PC, and the game crashed four times within 30 minutes. So I had to stop and pivot and play something else. Uh I ended up trying out Hi-Fi Rush, uh, which is a very um like when it came out, it was uh it was claimed to be a very fun, uh energetic uh game. So I was like, okay, I'm I've been waiting to try this one out. Maybe I'll try it out now. Uh I tried it out and it it looks fantastic. I love the the cell shading uh you know animation of it. Uh, but I I'm not sure if I'm getting a grasp on the combat just because of timing and whatnot, because it's a musical rhythm game, and you and I I think of myself as pretty musically timed in terms of like, hey, exactly, exactly. Um, but this game was giving me trouble. Uh and I think I might have to go into the settings and fix the latency of when I'm doing button presses because they do have a setting that you can alter to make sure that you are, you know, hitting things correctly, that your your input is picking up at the right time. So uh we'll we'll have to try that off stream to see if I can fix it in time to maybe continue the game because it is it is pretty fun.
SPEAKER_03Um I was in a similar boat about that game, so good to know from your experience. Because uh I'll probably have to uh I'll probably have to recalibrate things too uh once I start to try it, which I I'm honestly surprised to hear that from you because you have played a decent amount of dead as disco. Yeah. So you'd think the two are similar enough to where you'd uh I wouldn't say a full crossover of the settings from one to the other, but you'd think like have your dead as disco experience would translate to Hi-Fi Rush.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what I thought. But uh, you know, um I I I went into it cocky and uh I came out humbled. Um so you know, it was it was an interesting experience. Um, but yeah, uh that's that's what I've been doing on stream. Off stream, I have been enjoying um more megabonk. I'm going to unlock all characters, I'm going to get the highest score amongst all my friends, which I currently have. Um shout out to the Chronic Chaos and Tonka Blanks, who are beneath me on the on the record uh of highest kills. Oof.
SPEAKER_03But but I think that basically landed as shout outs to the people who suck. That's basically how that landed, Donut. Are you trying to spur them on? What's going on?
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes, I am trying to spur them on because I love competition. When uh I think when I started playing Dead as Disco, they have like a friends leaderboard as well. Yeah. So you can see, you know, what scores your friends got, and you that that drives me to be better. When I saw um, when I saw my friends' scores on certain tracks to be, you know, 20,000 points above mine. That got me going and thinking and going, like, how can I beat this? How could I do it? Until I eventually figured it out and I beat it, and I still have the top scores on that on that game and all of its tracks amongst my friends. Um, so yeah, uh Tonka Blinks, The Crown of Chaos, get up on my level.
SPEAKER_03The Donut has thrown the gauntlet, you two.
SPEAKER_00I will take off this beard and throw it down and show you. That will be my gauntlet thrown. My beard. By St.
SPEAKER_03Donut Claws' beard. In fact. Oh no, he's thrown the gauntlet! He's there.
SPEAKER_02The gauntlet beard has been thrown.
SPEAKER_00The beard has been thrown. I'm challenging you. I'm putting it back on because I like it.
SPEAKER_02So I I can't I can't throw my beard. I'm trying to do the same thing. I'm a little attached.
SPEAKER_00Um, but yeah, I've been doing the megabong thing, and I actually got into a indie game um that is a Metroidvania that is just very interesting in its music design and also it's uh its story. It plays it plays very like Metroid, honestly. Like a hundred percent, it's like a Metroid clone. Um and it's called Axiom Verge. I've heard about I've heard that name. Well yeah, there's there's two uh it actually has two games out, uh Axiom Verge. Uh, but I'm playing through it right now, it's very interesting, has very cool mechanics. Um, so I'm just I'm kind of playing that off stream. So that's kind of what I've been playing. I've also been making my own Lorcana deck finally. I organized all of my cards by set. Uh, I've even reached out to Reddit on the Lorcana subreddit and been like, hey guys, how do you organize your cards? And uh, you know, got a bunch of responses on how to organize. Uh, so I'm probably gonna look to organize my my uh card boxes even further.
SPEAKER_03Oh man.
SPEAKER_00Uh, right now I have one deck that I've built myself, and it is a racer-inspired deck. That is a red, it is a red um amber deck that is built specifically uh with the racer uh classification in mind.
SPEAKER_05Mmm.
SPEAKER_00Oh, excuse me. My I was I was getting parched. As we said earlier, hydration is key. Hydration is key. But uh we've we've been talking uh a lot about what we've been playing and everything, but there's another aspect of of us, more particularly Grant, because I'm not I'm not the gym bro uh in this relationship.
SPEAKER_03Hardy har har. I'm not a gym bro either, dude. If I was, I'd be going to the gym.
SPEAKER_00But you work out far more than I do. So it it it is that what it takes to be called a gym bro these days? I guess. I mean, I'm I'm just trying to segue and you're ruining my segue.
SPEAKER_03Um speaking of hydration being key, one other thing you need to hydrate for is when you want to get on your physical fitness jag. And what other way does video games try to catch uh capture some of this, but by releasing games and accessories of their own? The fitness game. That's that'd be what we're talking about today.
SPEAKER_00And it all goes back to the Nintendo Entertainment System with the 1988 release of the Nintendo game pad. Power pad is what it was called.
SPEAKER_03The I when you told me about this off um when we while we weren't recording, when you told me about this, it it kind of blew my mind because the furthest thing I had ever heard about, the furthest back, was those GameCube era Dance Dance Revolution pads that were released. That every console had one of their own. Uh PlayStation had one specifically for DDR, um, Nintendo fashioned some of those for their GameCube, and it was a pre-lore. Um, it was included whenever anybody bought a new copy of Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix. Like it had a dance pad with a breakdancing Mario on it, and the buttons never worked properly, so your scores stunk. But that when you told me about this power pad dating back to long before I was even born, I was just like, what that existed?
SPEAKER_00I always forget that you are like much younger than I am.
SPEAKER_03I I I am the baby of this relationship, I guess.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes, you are, because that came out in 1988 and you weren't even born yet. So nope. Uh yeah, I can see why you wouldn't know about this. On the other hand, me going, oh yeah, you didn't know about this, showing my age immediately.
SPEAKER_03Um like I said in another episode, we're getting old. So there we may forget things that even we used to love. So it's fine, it's fair. But yeah, getting back to the power pad.
SPEAKER_00The power pad was released uh either by itself with a game, um, I think it was the Olympic track and field game, uh, or it was released as part of a special power pad um like bundle where you would get the Nintendo, the game, the zapper as well, uh, and the power pad all together. Um and that was the I guess the first foray into exercise being part of gaming.
SPEAKER_03First first one that would have first one that would exist in our era, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. What uh what was your first experience with uh with gaming uh on video game systems grant? Was it DDR?
SPEAKER_03Um my you mean exercise gaming. Uh my first my first exercise game was DDR. I played it in the arcades, which you know that did prompt me to get Mario mix for my GameCube because I like Mario, I like DDR, I figured support both. Um that's when I learned that the dance pad didn't work well, and I got super frustrated and ended up listening to the songs and seeing the final cutscenes online because for those who somehow haven't played this decade's old Mario spinoff, this was the game where Waluigi was the primary antagonist.
SPEAKER_00You know what? I could see that.
SPEAKER_03I mean, he has the he has the legs for it, so it works. Um, but yeah, that was definitely my first attempt at it. Then back on the Nintendo Wii, they had uh they had Wii Sports, uh Wii Fit, all those motion control games, uh, got a bunch of those. Mario Party 8 was infamous for a few motion controlled mini games that should have been tweaked because of their primary audience.
SPEAKER_02And I think our primary audience knows what those mini games are, so I'm not going to replicate the hand motions that were required.
SPEAKER_00Please, Grant, that's all I want to see. I just want to see an out-of-context clip of you doing this so that we can post it on the socials and be like, this is the kind of content you want?
SPEAKER_04Are you happy about this? Are you happy about this? Is this what you want?
SPEAKER_03And this is how Grant makes the donut crumble every episode.
SPEAKER_05Oh my god.
SPEAKER_03But yes, that sort of hand gesture. Um but then as you know, as things proceeded with the Wii, they also had the Wii balance board.
SPEAKER_00Which that was mostly for the the yoga poses and stuff, right?
SPEAKER_03For uh, for uh yeah, for uh for uh for Wii fit. Um it did also get some integration in games like Mar in the one of the Mario Party games, some of the Wii sports stuff, uh the Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games collections. Uh yeah, it became a kind of used fitness peripheral, or if it's like, oh, we can for sure add this in as another controller peripheral to make it a more immersive experience. Uh they incorporated it that way. But yeah, um my main fitness games were in the Wii era, and then during the pandemic, I uh I got Ring Fit Adventure to try to do the whole the whole weight loss thing for the Switch. And uh I was definitely more used to lifting weights than doing a lot of tension-based workouts. So between that and my poorly calibrated living space for the controllers and everything to properly be registered as workout moves. I I did the exercises right, but the game didn't register, so it looked like I failed the game a lot. Oh so I kind of stopped playing that due to a bad user experience. But when it did, when it did connect properly, it was it was actually a good workout, and I felt legitimate progress behind it. Um, I did also like the setting that they had where I'm not exact despite my love of Sonic the Hedgehog, I'm not exactly the running type. So to move, you would have to jog in place, and I'm just like, we're gonna turn that off real quick.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, uh, I also bought Ring Fit Adventures because of the pandemic, because I wanted to, you know, do be more active, maybe lose some weight or whatever. I still have it, but I haven't booted it up in a long time for various personal reasons. Um, but now that I am moving more often, uh being more active, I think I'm gonna pick it up again because, like you said, I was able to uh feel uh feel exercise. Uh my muscles were sore after after you know a day after the exercises. Um, it felt good. I worked up a huge sweat uh doing exercises. So I think I'm actually gonna go back to it sometime soon. I think I think that Nintendo uh have been at the forefront of incorporating activity into uh into a gamer's uh lifestyle because it realizes that hey, look, we need to make sure our our fans live longer. So we're gonna get their fat asses up and work them out so that they can buy more things and buy the next Metroid Prime game that has its music for like the desert area locked behind DLC.
SPEAKER_03Where the desert is also apparently very boring, music or otherwise.
SPEAKER_00Did you hear about that by the way?
SPEAKER_03Uh I heard that from boyfriend the other day, but I heard about the um I heard about just the general uh lack of fun that the desert provides first. So I'm just like, okay, at this point, it's like an open world metroid for the sake of being an open world metroid. If the open world, by which we mean the desert, doesn't have anything to do in it except maybe smash a few crystals and locking its music behind either paid DLC and or an amiibo. Yeah. Like, I don't get it. That's that's fucking crazy. That that'd basically be like saying, okay, for Legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom, whenever you want to explore Hyrule, you need to slot a specific amiibo in order to explore this region rather than just try to fly over it or unlock a fast travel device to get there. Right?
SPEAKER_00It's ludicrous. It speaks to Nintendo's greed. And the more that people buy into it and allow it to happen, the more it will happen.
SPEAKER_03And and it goes that in a in a humorous twist of fate goes right along with what you were just saying about Nintendo being the forefronts of including fitness and movement into games as a part of their design to make gamers healthier. If I may put on my tinfoil hat for a second, is that the plan all along? Was that the main end goal?
SPEAKER_00Bump bum bum. Yes, we will get gamers to get off their asses and work up a sweat so that they will live long enough so that when Metroid 4 Prime comes out, they will be forced to buy more and give us more money.
SPEAKER_03Wow, if Bowser had either one of our villainous laughs, um, do you think that would be used for the movie? I I mean, I mean, Jack Black does like Jack Black is the movie Bowser. There is no contesting it, but still, like, do you think movie Bowser would ever adopt that kind of laugh? Is I guess what I should have asked.
SPEAKER_00Jack Black, if you're listening, please, please, please, please use our laughs as reference for how you move forward with Bowser's evil laugh.
SPEAKER_03I mean, if he were to actually do that and let us know, I think um I think my brain would explode. So uh bro, don't even.
SPEAKER_00I'm like one of the biggest Jack Black fans. Love Jack Black, everything that he's done, Tenacious D, uh even uh even Jumanji, honestly. Oh, wow. Yeah, no, he's been fantastic in everything. Like I the only thing that I will not like that I don't really like about uh his his like whole you know discography slash you know uh movie releases, filmography, thank you, um, would be Shallow Hal. That's the only one.
SPEAKER_03It's been so long since I've seen Shallow Hal. I kind of forgot that he was in it. Uh thanks for the heads up if I ever revisit that movie.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, right. Um but but but back to our topic. So yeah, fitness games uh have been around since the NES era, and they move to arcades with Dance Dance Revolution, and then they also had this other like light sensor game where you would use your hands like like you'd be like you know, like this, and like do you remember that game? Light sensor. Was that on a home console or in an arcade? No, no, no. It was in an arcade. Okay. The arcade would have like these uh these like they looked like little mini drums, um, and they had ones on the top and the bottom, and I guess there was like a light or a laser pointing through the the the area so that when you moved your hand over it, it would register as a beat. Uh oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Like you know the the concept sounds familiar, but the the name of that game or that type of game just completely lost on me. But you did you did remind me that during the Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games craze, uh I remember seeing tons of videos where there was an arcade adaptation of that where it was just Sonic characters, and the main gameplay controller was a legitimate treadmill that you had to get on in case you were doing any of the running events, like the hundred-meter dash or the 400-meter dash or the relay or whatever, or however many of them there are. So you literally have eight stations with treadmills, each like assigned to a different Sonic character. And for any of the running in the events, you would be on this treadmill actually having to run.
SPEAKER_00That is wild to me that they would have that in an arcade.
SPEAKER_02I know, right?
SPEAKER_00A place where fat, sweaty people and you know, young couples with their significant others that are more fit, uh, you know, want to go for uh a leak. The gaming session, you know, exactly. Like, who's gonna jump on a treadmill and be like, look at me? Like the most active I've ever been at an arcade was during the light gun games, because I would be, you know, dodging, pressing on a pedal to, you know, to duck. I would be standing there repeatedly and like, you know, I'm a big guy. So like standing without like break, stepping on a pedal, dodging, uh, you know, uh loading a gun if it if it had like a load mechanic that was instead of shooting off screen, you had to like, you know, cock it or whatever, that was as much activity as I ever got. I maybe stepped foot on a DDR pad once, and it was playing the slowest game I could think of. Um, it wasn't that like ah he, ah he, you're my little butterfly, or whatever that song was. There were so many songs that uh that were just bananas. You'd see people like going all crazy, jumping around. You'd see duos like you know, going from their own pad to their partner's pad, and vice versa. Yeah, it was crazy how many people got into that game.
SPEAKER_03Um I literally remember seeing people like because with the um the arcade gray DDR pads, uh, there's literally this handlebar. Yeah, the one behind you. Yep. I literally saw people grabbing the handlebar just to let their legs do the work on the harder difficulties. And meanwhile, I could only get through Love Shine on novice barely as one of my bests.
SPEAKER_00The fact that you remember the name of the song.
SPEAKER_03Uh fitness game core memory, I guess. I guess so. Uh speaking of uh fitness gaming, uh gamifying fitness, I guess, I want to run something by you because you apparently I am the gym pro of the of the banter bros. Um good.
SPEAKER_00I'm glad you recognize that.
SPEAKER_03Uh I mostly quoting you. Anyway, apparently, um to uh to explain, I do have a bit of a home gym setup, but the main source of the workouts that I do is this standing triangular-shaped apparatus, for lack of a better phrase, uh called the uh it's made by this company called Tempo. I got it during the pandemic because before the pandemic, I was an actual gym bro because I did CrossFit four times a week. So I wanted to get the weightlifting back in because Ring Fit Adventure just was not doing that. Um I got this Tempo Gym. It came with weight plates, dumbbells, a barbell, and I had had some other weights and fitness gear from over the years. Um, what this thing does is if you connect a heart rate monitor to it via Bluetooth, it tracks your heart rate and can give you live guidance through the workout to say, hey, you should lower the intensity. Your heart rate's kind of spiking compared to your recommended range. Or if it feels like you're not doing that, it's like, hey, increase the weight on these weightlifts. You're getting through these very, very quickly, like above the recommended range. So, and of course, the workouts that you can pick from are all pre-recorded. They're adding more all the time. It is sort of a service gym where it's like 60 bucks a month for it. And yeah, you can do anything from shadow boxing to yoga to power lifting, uh, to more condensed 20-minute sets, and there's a bunch of filters in there for time length, the groups of muscles you want to work, just the whole the whole nine yards when it comes to customization.
SPEAKER_00So, what you're telling me is that you bought a uh video game uh fitness set.
SPEAKER_03That's kind of why I wanted to run it by you. Because is this like, does this count as like a fitness game in the sense of in the sense of ring fit adventure, or is it just an automated gym process, which is why you called me the gym bro?
SPEAKER_00Uh so look at it this way, okay? Uh a game is something that has, and this is just my own definition of a game. This isn't like me looking in a dictionary or online and getting somebody's perspective on it. What I believe a game is, is a system that has a set uh amount of rules to guide you through a story of some kind. Okay. So I can see where you're going with this. Your gym has set rules, it has exercises that are built into it that are you know getting added to all the time, as you say. It shows you how to do the exercises like a tutorial in a video game would, right? It keeps your high score, right? How many reps you do, your heart rate, as you were saying. Yeah, it shows you your progression in your story, right?
SPEAKER_03And it even has online leaderboards with anybody else who has the tempo gym.
SPEAKER_00So you, sir, have bought a super advanced video game fitness machine. Like, that's that's what it is. It's exactly what it is.
SPEAKER_03Well, good to know. Um, I guess to just make it more of a video game, then I need to take advantage of the heart rate monitor feature, which is a little hard for the boxing classes because I augment them with two-pound weighted gloves on my hands, where the heart the heart rate monitor goes around your wrist. So does the weighted glove just to keep itself stable. So the heart rate monitor would not what the connection would be impeded by the weighted glove, and the weighted glove would be all sliding and causing potential injury if I had to put it over the heart rate monitor.
SPEAKER_00You know what you should do instead? You should get ankle weights.
SPEAKER_03That that's fair. Um, if if I were to do kickboxing, that would be a good measurement.
SPEAKER_00But like you moving around when you're shadow boxing, yes, you're throwing out your fists, right? But you also have to work on your footwork, moving around, you know, uh changing your stance up. So that will also give you that intended benefit of working out.
SPEAKER_03I could also, because what I also am slowly revealing the qualifications and justification of the Jim Bro thing. Uh because what I could also do, um what the way I do my workouts is that it's like 15 to 30 minutes of either the boxing classes or dedicated weightlifting. And then I go on a walk. On these walks, I wear a weighted vest underneath whatever the weighted vest. That's what I was that's what I was getting to. I could just wear the weighted vest instead. And that would help with the heart rate monitor, allow me to take advantage of the features better. Um, and yeah, maybe pick maybe uh listen to their recommendations more about the classes I should take.
SPEAKER_00Look at this Jim Bro over here.
SPEAKER_03And because it can connect to Bluetooth, like I said earlier, I can pump all of the fitness-related gaming tracks out of its speaker and overwrite the music that comes preloaded on it if you want music. Um, I did that once just to see the latency with the Final Fantasy VII remakes. Um, you know the fitness mini games in remake? The uh that the song in the background of those mini games, I found an hour-long loop. And I put that in the background of one of these workouts. So where I had the the trainer for the workout just telling me what to do, and I was hearing dun dun dun dun dun the whole time. And it's like, this is the closest thing to a video game gym I've ever been to. And there once was a gym that I almost went to called Nerd Strong, which had the identity of like trying to be the nerd's gym. But then I looked into it, it was basically marketing. They didn't really, they they they're like, okay, yeah, you you gain experience points for uh doing workouts and level up and stuff. Cool. You get that with my home gym thing, you get that with companion apps and other sort of apps that let you gamify life. Uh your marketing's falling apart fast, nerd strong.
SPEAKER_00In fact, you you actually bring up another point. Uh mobile, uh, you know, Apple, uh, Android devices also have apps that can track your exercises or that can uh you know train you to go into marathon running. Like I think it's like couch to 5k or whatever. Oh wow. Yeah, there's a lot of apps out there that came out a long time ago that would that were geared uh to uh gamify your workout experience. So I mean the they have been there this entire time in the background, but it's never it's never really caught on, in my opinion. Like video games and fitness are two things that catch on with a couple of people, but not everybody.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. It's really, and maybe this is just a product of uh when we were younger, uh, because back in my day, you didn't really have the nerd jocks or the jock nerds. You had the jocks who bullied the nerds, and that was it. You didn't really have this crossover of wow, nerds can have Jim Bro hobbies. And it it that's I think that's why it never really caught on as we were growing up, even with the the wee fits and the balance boards and the DDR pads and the power pad from before I was born. Like, I I think that's just a part of it because society was not ready for nerdy jocks. Society was not ready for it, and I think it is now, and people are just like, what what do we do with this? Do we actually do this thing? It is is it okay? Where people like us are like, Yes, it is okay. Gamify your life, it makes things so much more fun.
SPEAKER_00It really does, it really does. There's I mean, they've they've moved to like gamify um you know tasks that you have chores, even, you know.
SPEAKER_03Well, I used to run on an app. Uh I for I forget the name of it, but if I did a quick search at the app store, I'd be able to find it again. Literally, it was an RPG with chrono trigger style sprites that you could customize with different outfits and all that to level up your character and gain perks for future tasks, or the way I use them, grace periods in case you needed a rest day, um, just by making a to-do list and getting stuff done, assigning how many points or experience it was worth, depending on how difficult you felt that task was.
SPEAKER_00It's it's there. The the the uh backbone for these games to be successful is there. The only thing that keep it keeps on running into is the willpower of its audience.
SPEAKER_03You know, um just like any fitness-related goal or New Year's resolution, since we're recording this in the the last month of the year, all those are already coming up. It's all about being able to make the habits that justify the gamification of your life and to have it really stick with you. And that's why I think gamification of these things even got to be so popular to make the habit more easy to stick with, because it gives you all the feeling of playing the video game and why you can be hooked on these games, but hooking yourself on real life instead.
SPEAKER_00That being said, Grant, I have a game for you to play.
SPEAKER_03Okay, that sounded just about as good of a jigsaw imitation as anybody.
SPEAKER_00So you are pretty versed in exercise more than I am. So what I have done is I have put together a list, and you are going to tell me if they are real or fake.
SPEAKER_02Like the exercise moves?
SPEAKER_00Yes. Okay. Is this a pro wrestling or a fighting game move? Or is it a yoga pose?
SPEAKER_03It's Mountain Dew all over again! I knew it! Are you ready? As I'll ever be. Let's go.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so again, rules are you have to tell me if what I tell you is a wrestling move slash fighting game move, or a yoga pose. A yoga pose.
SPEAKER_03Let's see what we got.
SPEAKER_00All right, here's your first one. Fireman's carry pose.
SPEAKER_03I believe fireman's carry belongs in the first category wrestling slash video game.
SPEAKER_00You are correct. Cobra pose. Cobra is yoga. You are correct. One winged angel stretch.
SPEAKER_03Up until you said stretch, I was gonna say video game because Sephiroth, but the one-winged angel stretch. I see that's a tough one. Because while I when I took yoga classes, nothing was ever called the one-winged angel. So that's why I am leaning toward the other category. Sure. But if it but if it is a yoga stretch, I'd completely understand. So I'm gonna give it to the wrestling video game category on that one.
SPEAKER_00You are correct. It is not only a video game uh reference, but also Kenny Omega, the AEW pro wrestler, uses it as his finishing move.
SPEAKER_03Oh, okay. Wonder if he got it from the video game reference one winged angel.
SPEAKER_00He did.
SPEAKER_03Of course.
SPEAKER_00He's a gamer, very prolific gamer. Um chair pose. Chair is yoga. Okay. Yoga flame pose.
SPEAKER_03That's from Street Fighter. Come on.
SPEAKER_00Eagle pose. Eagle is yoga. Okay. Lion tamer.
SPEAKER_03I think that's from video games slash wrestling. I don't know if it's from Street Fighter. Okay. I I was gonna say, I don't know if it's from Street Fighter again, but I don't think it is. Bridge pose. Bridge is yoga. Okay. Phoenix position. Phoenix position. I wanna say that's also yoga. Yeah, that's also yoga.
SPEAKER_00You are correct. Burning hammer pose. I think that belongs in a video game. It's a pro wrestling move.
SPEAKER_03Oh. Well, okay. Hang on. I I guess I need to clarify the rules now that we're already deep into the game.
SPEAKER_00You you still got it. You still got it. Okay. You still get the point for it.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Fair enough.
SPEAKER_00Half moon pose.
SPEAKER_03Yoga.
SPEAKER_00Cat cow stretch.
SPEAKER_03Definite yoga. That's part of my workouts from the video game, Jim. Sharpshooter pose. I feel like I've done a pose in yoga that takes inspiration from a sharpshooter or like a like someone firing a bow and arrow. But I don't recall the name, so I'm gonna give it to the wrestling gaming category.
SPEAKER_00You are correct. The sharpshooter is a submission hold made popular by Brett the Hitman Heart. Hmm. Wave writing pose.
SPEAKER_03Uh gaming wrestling category.
SPEAKER_00It is actually a yoga pose. What? Never heard of that one before. Do you have a breakdown? So you uh you stand up, right? Arms arms to the side. Okay. You have one leg bent, the other one, so it's it's like leg is bent, this a this leg is sideways, right? And you kind of rock back and forth with it.
SPEAKER_03Huh. So that sounds to me kind of like the warrior poses, but I can I can see why they would call it surfrider because it does look like you have to do those sorts of positions to balance on a surfboard. I can see that.
SPEAKER_00Fish pose.
SPEAKER_03Yoga.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Downward dog. Yoga. The motor city stretch.
SPEAKER_03Uh video game wrestling. Correct.
SPEAKER_00The moss-covered three-handled family gradenzel pose.
SPEAKER_03If that's not some sort of a video game special move or a wrestler special move, I would be very surprised.
SPEAKER_00You're right.
SPEAKER_02I was fully expecting you to be like, nah, dude, it's a yoga pose, and here's how you do it. I'm like Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00The next one. The spinning cobra clutch pose.
SPEAKER_03I feel like no, I was confusing my spinning animal things. Uh I almost thought of that as a spinning bird kick. Either way, I'm gonna classify that to uh wrestling in video games.
SPEAKER_00You got it. That's exactly what it is. Lotus pose. That is yoga. Okay. Mountain pose. Yoga. Child's pose. Yoga again. Fire breathing pose.
SPEAKER_05Huh.
SPEAKER_03I'ma give that to the video game wrestling side.
SPEAKER_00You are correct, even though it's not technically from a video game or A wrestling move. It is from Avatar the Last Airbender.
SPEAKER_03Oh wow. Okay. That was I I am so glad I got the hunch that it was not yoga. So glad.
SPEAKER_00The Saskatchewan spinning nerve pose.
SPEAKER_03Video game wrestling sad.
SPEAKER_00You're correct. The corpse pose. Yoga. Okay. The stretch muffler pose.
SPEAKER_03Video game wrestling.
SPEAKER_00Okay, and finally, the lion salt pose.
SPEAKER_03Video game wrestling?
SPEAKER_00You got it, man. I missed one. You missed one out of all of these different things. Mr. I'm not a gym rat, bro. I typically speaking, you wouldn't get a gym rat doing yoga anyway. Hey man, I I classify you as one of the the high-tier, you know, gym bros that uh, you know, looks to looks to learn all aspects of of the uh the health and wellness, you know, field.
SPEAKER_03I mean, uh mostly to take care of myself because uh I'm get I'm getting older. I want to take care of my body, make sure it can still function well, and uh weight loss kind of requires to know your body well enough to know how to cater to it.
SPEAKER_00It really does. I need to pick up tips from you, man.
SPEAKER_03Hey, I'd be happy to share them. Share my experiences. All you need to do is ask.
SPEAKER_00Somebody uh, I think I was on uh on threads, and I I was uh another streamer, uh Hogue like Woe, shout out to them, uh posted a a pic of themselves in a mirror, and they were like, they were jacked. Um, and I was like, dude, I had no idea you were this this swole. I need to I need to step up my game so I can be like you. And he's like, he and he replied back, oh don't worry, you you will be uh swole nior donut the next year. And then I was like, dude, why didn't you just use uh senor swole nut?
SPEAKER_05And then I said it and I was like, get back, everybody.
SPEAKER_00I was like, wait a minute, that doesn't sound right at all.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god. The last thing you want are your nuts to be swallowed. The last thing. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_03And on that happy note, this is where we're gonna end the episode. Just a couple of nuts joking about swall nuts. I have been Grand Patricio currently breaking his senior donut. We will see you next time. Good night, everybody!