travis' brain dump

Ok, so I figured I would do a few postings up about different things in 2011, specifically, game reviews and other various topics. While it’s fun to put up crazy computer problems, personal updates and rants, I think adding in some more informational things might help out quite a bit as well.

This game review is for “Your Shape: Fitness Evolved” for the Xb0x 360 Kinect.  For a comparison to work with, I have also played The Biggest Loser Ultimate Workout.

Out of the box, Your Shape is much easier to use than The Biggest Loser as far as interface goes. The interface for The Biggest loser is really hard to maneuver and lock onto target while Your Shape has a very intuitive system that actually keeps close proximity to your avatar and allows you to select, then confirm your action in an easy motion. It also helps you to warm-up a little while you’re traversing the menus… rather than small controlled movements of the hand, you’re using your whole arm and moving it around to select options within the menu system. Kinect tracking is also better in Your Shape as The Biggest Loser tends to lose you a lot more. You also have you change your angle a lot and it does a poor job tracking you in different positions. Another advantage to working out with Your Shape is that you’re able to see your body moving on the screen to ensure that your actions are being interpreted correctly by the system and matching the trainer’s poses and speed. The variety of the workouts between the two is pretty comparable, while The Biggest Loser has a little more variety and somewhat easier exercises, Your Shape focuses on form and speed matching the trainer to get the most out of your exercise as possible. When comparing similar timed workouts, I was able to burn nearly double the calories with Your Shape than The Biggest Loser per my Polar Heart Monitor. Both games do a poor job of actually tracking the amount of calories you’ve burned during a session.  Both The Biggest Loser and Your Shape give you some things that keep things from getting too boring in the form of challenges (The Biggest Loser) and Gym Games and Classes (Your Shape). One of the nice things with Your Shape is the expandability and the “classes” they have for things like a Zen Workout, Bollywood Dancing and Cardio Kick Boxing.

While the actual workouts themselves seem to lack some of the detail and technique you’d pick up in an actual gym in actual classes or sessions with a trainer, I personally feel that Your Shape delivers about the best you’re going to get from a video game. Ubisoft has done a great job with a first release workout game for the Kinect platform. While the scoring system sometimes falls on it’s face because the system can’t exactly tell you’re doing the move right or wrong, it still does a better job than The Biggest Loser. The only downside to both of them is they do fall short when verifying correct form and encouraging correct form when your form is improper. However, anyone who knows their body should be able to determine if they are doing the exercise right or not as you should actually feel the exercise as opposed to feeling pain or nothing from the exercise.

My recommendation if you’re looking for a workout game for the Kinect, Your Shape: Fitness Evolved.

Now to get my hands on EA’s new game and see how well that works.

So, another year down… another to go.

2010 had some pretty interesting challenges, lessons learned, blah blah the usual nonsense. What does 2011 hold? Who knows at this point. NYE went pretty well… it was a calm one. Just spent it hanging out with Andy and Amanda and the kiddos gorging on food continuously for the entire evening… gotta get in that last night of crazy eating before those weight loss new years resolutions kick in eh? I’ve actually done really well this holiday season, partly due to the fact I’ve been sick most of it. This cold has been such a pain in the rear end but it seems to finally be getting out of my system.

So much I could throw on the list of new years resolutions and goals but at the very least, this year, I’ve got to do the final kill on these few extra pounds lingering… I’m goaling for the first three months of 2011 to get that done… this past summer really screwed me up with that crazy work schedule. I was within my goal weight by 10lbs and ended up gaining 10 back due to working so much. 🙁 On my list of goals is to run another 2 10k’s this year and get a better time than last year by at least 10 minutes. I think I can do better than that, but we’ll see. I figure if I can drop 20lbs by April and kick training into high gear from the end of March through the end of May, I should be able to tear up the Bolder Boulder this next year.  Eventually I want to work myself up to a half marathon, but I’m not going that crazy this year. That’s just way to ambitious for me with my schedule, lol.

I’ve got the usual various other goals to work on too… you know those personal goals for finances, the ever looming Camaro project that is slowly but surely moving forward, etc… I just want to make some major dents this year. On the plan as well, remove that horrible old swing set from the back yard and build the kiddos a mega-plex to play in for the summer. Should be a fun project but I’m definitely done with that archaic setup we’ve got going on. It should be a pretty interesting year. But for now, I’ve still got 3 solid months left of snowboarding season and that’s got priority. 🙂

So in other news… on the tech side of things… I’ve integrated my blogsite with Facebook. Now it’s easier to login to the site using facebook credentials. Anyone with an existing account can login the same way and link their blogsite account to their FB account from their user profile screen. Also new accounts registering can do so using their FB credentials. This is all part of the eventual removal of the traditional registration/login system that has been allowing about 50 spammers a month to sign up using automated methods. Really irritating. More to come on this as I play with more features, etc. 🙂

Anyway… enough boring nonsense.

so… after fifteen hours of driving, three days and two nights in provo,utah, one snowboarding trip to park city, one visit with an old friend, a few hours of chaos with kiddos and an android g2 phone later… christmas is over.

This by far was the most expensive trip (in part mostly due to shelling out 5 bones for a new phone) but overall was a good one. It was good to see some of Amanda’s family and get out of town for a few days but I’m still on the fence on whether the several trips through some epic powder was worth 600 bucks or not. Nothing says awesome like doing a cartwheel tumble down a hill so violently that you eject your cell phone from two seperate pockets that were previously secured well with velcro… lol

Anyway, regardless… the kiddos, Amanda and even myself had a pretty good trip. I am however glad to be home… now if I can just kick this stupid cold I will be happy.

Only one thing left to survive… New Year’s.

Merry Christmas to all… (albeit a day late)

-=posted via my t-mobile G2=-

I think if I could go the rest of my life without ever riding a bus driven by this maniac, I would be a happy man.

Seriously, I feel like I’m on a bus in central america swerving all over the road… I think I’m actually a little sea sick…