Can playing videogames actually mean fat loss? Yes with a game called Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) you can burn calories while having fun. It originally started as an arcade game, but then they brought it out to the Playstation and Xbox.
The Playstation and Xbox are game systems, though if you have any young boys they could tell you all about a Playstation or Xbox. The concept of the game is to dance on a "dance pad". The dance pad looks like an original hand held Playstation or Xbox controller but all the buttons are on a mat.
How It Works
To make it work you will need a Playstation (or Playstation 2), or a Xbox. Then you will need one of the Dance Dance Revolution games for the system that you own.
Click To Enlarge.You will also need a dance pad. Plug the dance pad into the system. After you pick which mode you want you will see a selection of single, versus, or double. Single is for one person on one pad. Versus is for two people with each on an individual pad. And double is for one person using TWO mats.
After you have made your selection you will see four different choices beginner, light, standard, or heavy. Beginner is good for people who just purchased the game. Light is a bit easier, but still nothing very hard. Standard is medium where you will start feeling a bit challenged. Heavy is the hardest, which is strictly for experts.
Click To Enlarge.After you pick your difficulty you will see a list of songs. Each song has its own difficulty level, which can be determined by the RPM at the top of each song.
Click To Enlarge.The higher it is the harder it will be. Depending on which difficulty you picked affects how hard. 100 RPM would be very easy and 200 would be hard. Depending on the RPM you should be able to choose your difficulty.
After you have picked a song you will see arrows at the top of the screen. Arrows will then appear from the bottom going to the top. When the arrows from the top are in-line with the ones on the top you would press that arrow on the pad. There are lots of different types of arrows.
There are ones where you have to press two arrows at once or ones that may seem like a double but actually are arrows you have to press extremely fast one after another. You then would try to last the whole song without missing arrows. When you hit arrows a bar at the very top of the screen will fill up.
Click To Enlarge.Depending on how full it is indicates how well you are doing. If its full you're doing great if it's almost empty your not doing so good. If it turns red you are doing perfect. If it completely empties you will get a game over and have to start over. If you get four arrows in a row without missing any, you will start a combo.
You can get a huge combo as long as you don't miss any arrows. I've gotten up to a 300 combo, so keep trying. At the end of the song you will get a ranking ranging from AAA to E, E being the worst and AAA being the best, although to get a AAA you cannot miss a single arrow for an entire song.
At the end of three songs you will go to the credits and that's the end of one session. Depending on how well you did you can unlock new songs and challenges.
Different Modes
When you are at the main screen you will see five different mode selections. Game mode, workout mode, training mode, lesson mode, and edit mode. Game mode is the original game like we just talked about. Workout mode is pretty much the same thing as game mode, but it will give you an estimate of how many calories you have burned.
At lesson mode it will teach you all about how to play the game and when to press the arrows, and kind there are. In training mode it will teach you how to do individual songs better. And in edit mode you can edit the arrows in songs, or make them easier or harder.
I recommend starting at lesson mode then doing training mode. I personally never use edit mode, I like the songs the way they are. In game mode there are all also different modes. You can do the normal version like we talked about earlier, challenge mode, and nonstop mode.
Click To Enlarge.In challenge mode there are only a certain number of arrows you miss before you get a game over, and you don't pick the songs, you have to choose from a group of songs, and sometimes can determine your difficulty.
In nonstop mode it will go on forever and you don't know your song or difficulty. This mode is good for experts who just want to go on for a long time. Depending on how new the DDR game you purchased will also affect what you do in nonstop and challenge mode, but for the most part that's how it will work.
Workout Mode
This is the best mode for you to use if you really want to burn some calories. Once you have chosen workout mode a screen will come up where you can put in your weight, your goal for the workout (how many calories you want to burn and how long you want to play). Then you pick if you want to do a beginner course, workout course, or normal course. You can also enter the date.
Click To Enlarge.You then would pick your song and you can change your difficulty by pressing down twice or up twice. At the end of the song it will show you how many calories you have burned, accumulation, overall accumulation, and overall average. It will also show you how many kilometers you would have jogged, how many times you jumped rope, and how many kilometers you would've swam.
This is another great feature to it, instead of actually doing any of those things you can get the same done here and still have a lot of fun.
Where Do I Get It, & How Much Is It?
I hear this question from many of my friends. You can purchase the pad and system at any game store like Gamestop or get it at a department store like Frys or Best Buy. It usually costs around $30 for each pad, and the system is around $150.
The game, depending on how new it is, is usually around $30-$50. I would not recommend buying the pads used. They can and will eventually break so it's best to just buy them new. Mine lasted for about a year before I had to buy new ones.
Learn More About The DDR Game. Learn More About The Gaming Systems.
Overall Summary
This is a great game and it's even better because you're burning calories while playing a videogame. I had a birthday party where I had a contest. I won but everyone loved the game. I invited 10 people and the next day at least three of them went and bought the game.
Also, depending on how new your version is there might be more features that we haven't talked about that might be included. It really works, and it's a lot of fun.
Thank you for reading this article, and have fun with the game.