August 31st, 2009
By Eddy
The folks at Namco Bandai were generous enough to let us try out the next game in their Active life line: Active life Extreme Challenge . If you are a faithful follower of Dancinghotdogs (why wouldn’t you be) you would know that we briefly tried the game out during the last Namco Bandai blogger party. Needless to say that brief taste left us wanting more.
WARNING: this game can and will make you sweat: you are stepping, jumping and stomping at various speeds. If you playing a reasonable amount of time you will get a work out. For the unmotivated who cannot get off their lazy butts for exercise this is a great tool as you concentrate less on a working out and more on playing the game. With 15 different games with various difficulty levels Extreme Challenge will make the most ardent workout warrior sweat with effort. Armed with the provided game pad, each game has you performing different moves and tasks so there isn’t a repetitive feeling to the game, and each games game play is unique enough to keep me coming back for more. I liken the game play similar to Wii Play and Resort , which relys on short highly addictive games to keep the gamers attention.
Especially key to the enjoyment of Extreme challenge is the co-op game play, which allows two individuals to compete in either friendly or tournament style competitions. I found this to be the most satisfying way to play the game, though the individual play levels with their customizable levels of difficulty easily kept my attention.
The look and feel of the game was much improved from the last game, with a cell shade system that creates more of a cartoon feel, as well as the ability to insert Miis in the game which allowed for a sense of personalization.
After playing through most of the games, my favorite has to be the speed rock climbing game. In this game, one player must climb the face of a cliff as fast as possible, this is done by kneeling down and with your hands hitting the two square floor buttons. To make things worse for the player and better for overall game play, the second player takes control of the Wiimote and knunchuck and must rain boulders down on the opposing climber in order to slow them down. In two player mode, this competition becomes a game of wits, as the climber is forced to outsmart the rock thrower in order to ascend the cliff as fast as possible.
I can definitely see myself playing this game when ever I feel I need a touch of exercise and don’t want to monotony of a exercise dvd or lifting weights. The competitive nature of the games makes it more of a draw for me than the Wii Fit . Extremely challenge at least makes me feel like I am playing a game rather than exercising and not the other way around which is exactly how it should be.
Extreme Challenge is currently retailing for around $60 dollars depending on where you look.
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