Mountain Surfing

Wii fit is a popular "game" for the Nintendo wii game console, so popular it remains hard to buy the wii fit in retail stores. wii is a great way to shape up & trim down, it is actually fun to shed a few pounds. Not like run of the mill exercises & diets, that rarely work, and cost too much. Nintendo's wii fit is really fun, easy to set-up and a blast. I highly recommend the wii fit to anyone. Pick one up and we can say good-bye to those over-priced diet and exercise plans that are time consuming and boring. Let's get some Nintendo wii fitness.

A two-part wii fit review...

Introduction:

Every thing needed is included in the box, well, except for the wii console, which you need to purchase separately.

Wii Fit's activities break down into four categories: balance games, yoga, aerobics, strength training. However, before you get to those, there is a required Body Test where you enter some simple information (height, age) and complete a brief balance test, then wait a few seconds for the Wii Fit to respond. Respond it does, with your body-mass index, or BMI, and "Wii Fit Age"- the system's judgment of how old you are based on your performance and body characteristics. (believe me, that in it self can be pretty funny).

Balance Games:

This by far is the most popular segment of Nintendo wii fit, not surprisingly
these where a favorite with the testers as-well. Choices included ski slalom, where you race down a course, shifting your weight from side to side passing between the flags. This was quite amusing to watch. Ski jump, where you race & compete in an Olympic Nordic-style event. Soccer, where you "head butt" the ball, (or at least try), as it comes at you while avoiding flying objects like smelly cleats and goofy panda heads. My favorite; table tilt, here you try to maneuver a table to drop a ball through a hole, this was an absolute blast. Ninety-eight percent of the testers felt their balance was definitely challenged, and all of them found the experience fun. In short, a really big thumbs-up.

The wii fit balance board games are great and can really get your legs & mid-section toned and trim.

In part 2 we'll take a look at some other games for Nintendo wii fit, and I'll give a final conclusion. So-far, It's a definite buy, hands down.

Everyone knows how awesome the nintendo wii game console is. Thats the problem, they are hard to find anywhere! Being #1 world wide, thats really not surprising. The good news is you can get one right here, right now. nintendo wii game console - you know you want one.

E! Online - Is the New York Times on Team Aniston? It would seem so, judging from this article that examines Angelina Jolie's crafty ways with the media.

In the good old days, back when the Internet had about 10 users and the web was a far off vision, PCs were called Home Computers and anyone could learn to write computer games. Three of us set up in business to write and sell our own games for the ZX Spectrum (Aka Timex/Sinclair) and Commodore 64. We didnt sell many games but we were saved by getting into the game conversion business. A publisher would release a hit on the Commodore 64 and wed write the Timex, Amstrad, MSX, CBM 16 etc versions. It took about 3 months for one person to produce a game.

That was 20 years ago and things have changed a lot since then. The games industry is now a massive multi billion dollar business and development teams can number 50 or more. My first game had me as programmer, artist, and beep designer (well it wasnt proper sound!). I did everything. Back then games were written in assembler and you had to learn 6502 and Z80. Nowadays with a few exceptions games are written in C and C++. The days of back room programmers arent entirely gone- there is also retro remake and indie scene, e.g. http://retrospec.sgn.net/ but unless you have an exceptionally brilliant idea, you are not likely to get into the mainstream game business as a one man outfit writing Blockbuster PC games.

Its not all bad news though- if you can program to a very good standard and have learnt some of the techniques- eg 3d maths, artificial intelligence (ai), and can produce demos of your code then you may be able to get a job in the market. There are plenty of books and websites that will guide you through the intricacies of DirectX and before long youll be a guru on vertex shaders etc. Sign up on games development sites like http://gamasutra.com/ (it's free) and look for jobs. You will have to be good to get a job and prepared to work long, in some case very long hours. It is quite a tough business when a game is under development, youll live breathe and eat it for 18 months-two years. And you probably wont work 9-5 all the time.

There are however other ways to get into the games business and I dont mean console development. There are other genres of games that are much easier to get into.

1. MUD Multi-user dungeons. These have been around for 30 years and were the precursor to the MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games) that now exist. These are still popular and you can find the source code to several of these. I dont know if any make money- most people are now used to playing them for free. Look here: http://www.ability.org.uk/mud.html

2. Internet/Web based games. There are hundreds of these around. A good starting point is the vast directory at http://www.mpogd.com/ . These range from free to monthly subscriptions. Anyone can set up their own website and games using any web technology- e.g. Perl, PHP, Java.

3. Play By Mail. This has now largely but not entirely moved into the Internet/Web Games area. Flagship magazine is a good source of information their website is http://flagshipmagazine.com/

4. Flash Games. Flash development is a skill in itself, though programming in ActionScript (which is JavaScript under a different name) is not that hard. There is a definite career path available through programming Flash games and there are plenty of books to teach you to write games in Flash. Flashkit website http://www.flashkit.com/index.shtml is a good starting point online.

5. Mobile Phone and PDA games. This has become a big growth area recently and is likely to continue its growth as phones get more powerful. Its also one of the easiest to get into though not all phones are the same. All you need to know is how to write Java games running on the J2ME (Java 2 Mobile Edition) platform. Unlike the console world, Software Development Kits (SDKS) are available for free from mobile phone manufacturers. E.g. http://www.forum.nokia.com/main.html and the best IDEs for J2ME development (Netbeans and Eclipse) are available free. Expect to see MMORPG (Mobile Multiplayer Online Role Play Games) before too long.

Much of this can be done part time in your evenings/weekends but be careful that you dont let it take over your life and also that your employer doesnt have any claim on software that you develop. Some employers have clauses that let them claim anything you develop. There are ways round this, often involving a wife or loved one who can be assigned ownership but take legal advice if in any doubt.

If you are learning to program games, dont neglect the power of the web. Sourceforge.net is home to thousands of open source projects and many of those are games. Also game source for commercial games Quake I, II and III has been released by ID and can be found here http://www.idsoftware.com/business/techdownloads/

These are GPLd so you wouldnt be able to write games based on them and sell them without giving away the source code but you could write Mods. Several game modders have released very popular Mods free and have managed to get into the industry because of their quality. There are many games projects where you can sign up and program- this is an excellent way to learn new skills and make friends.

David Bolton is a software developer with an extensive past programming games. He co-founded Choice Software in Carrickfergus, N. Ireland between 1984 and 1987 and won an award for his original computer wargame Johnny Reb II (published by Lothlorien). He designed and programmed the Postal game Quest, which has also won awards and is still played (postally and online) 15 years after it was first developed. He worked for 12 months as game designer at Microprose (Manchester) in 1992. He is currently designing a large multiplayer role-play game, but it's not due out until 2006.

AP - The $25 billion rescue plan for the auto industry, desperately sought by Detroit's beleaguered Big Three, collapsed Thursday as Congress drew the line at one more bailout and Democrats said they wouldn't even consider it until the companies produced a convincing plan for rebuilding their once-mighty industry.