Promoted from our community blogs

_{[It's easy to laugh off a title like Just Dance when there are a lot of other games to play, but Boxman felt he absolutely needed the exercise. And really, with a goal of some exercise when the fail state is absolutely no exercise, Just Dance delivered for him. His experience with it here is frank and refreshing. Don't worry about it, just dance! ~Marcel Hoang]}

My work has a program we call "LiveWell." It's really just a progr?am to encourage our employees to improve their health and wellness. This year, a big thing is "experiments." Try something for a short time, like a week. See how it goes. Did it hel??p? Did you enjoy it?

A bunch of coworkers did an experiment for one week where they didn't use any electronic screens for one hour before bed. This was to help them sleep. I refused to participate in such a ridiculous exercise, but they all reported improved sleep at the end of the week. I s??hould probably do it. But I won't.

I lead a very sedentary lifestyle. I work a desk job and therefore I sit on my butt for eight hours a day. I then go home and sit on my butt for the rest of the evening. Then I go to sleep, wake up, and do it all over again. I'm acutely aware of how unhealthy it is. I desperately need to exercise, but how can I do it? I hate exercise! A little over a week ago, I had a realization. I should Just Dance. I decided to play Just Dance every day for at least one week. I would play for at least 30 minutes? each day.

This isn't a review of Just Dance. ?It's ju??st a discussion of how well it worked as an exercise tool.

I should start by ??discussing my goal with exercise. I really have only one concern: I'm overweight, but I don?'t really care about losing weight. If I lose it, that would be marvelous and I'd be very happy. But that isn't my goal. I don't care about gaining muscle mass. My real concern is my heart.

I'm in my late twenties but I have absolutely horrific cholesterol. Combine that with my lack of exercise and I have a recipe for a heart attack in my forties. I am absolutely terrified about this idea. So what I need is some aerobic exercise to get my heart rate up for at least 30 minutes. The ideal would be to get at least 150 m??inutes of aerobic exercise per week. I don't know that I can maintain that long term, but if I can at least get above zero exercise, that would be great.

I don't exercise. Almost at all. Occasionally I'll do some yoga (I'll plug the excellent YouTube channel Yoga With Adriene here), which is wonderful. But it doesn't accomplish my goal of keeping my heart rate up. And that's all the exercise I get. I need to do something. But I hate all forms of exercise.

Except, it turns out, for Just Dance. 

A couple Christmases ago I purchased Just Dance 2017 for my wife on PS4. She rather enjoyed it. ?I did not. My biggest gripe with?? it is that it uses your cell phone as your controller. I have a massive phone. It's unwieldy. And if I throw or drop it during exercise, it could break.

This past Christmas I bought the 2018 version for my wife on Nintendo Switch. It's infinitely superior because you have the option to use the Joy-Con for control. These are much easier to hold. They have a wrist strap to deal with drops or throws. And of course, they're made of Nintendium. The Switch also would allow me to take it out of the house, but I haven't utilized this benefit for Just Dance. 

Just Dance is a simple dancing ??game. It's a rhythm action game. A licensed song plays on your speakers while the silhouette of a dancer plays on screen. Your job is to hold a Joy-Con in your right hand and mirror every move of the person on screen. Not complicated. Anyone can understand it. 

The game is basically all pop songs. The majority of them are contemporary (I gather that the 2019 edition is all contemporary). You'll see Beyonce, Selena Gomez, and S?hakira. 

Speaking of Shakira, her music is wonderful for this game. Basically all of the La??tin tracks are fantastic for exercise. They really get you moving and they're very fun! V?ery energetic! 

Not all tracks are ??created equal. Some of the choreography is really simple. Some is just kind of dumb. Some involve a lot of spinning around. This i??s awful. I get dizzy very quickly with this.

If I were in charge, I would strongly discourage any spinning in the choreography of the dances. I would even go so far as to limit each song to a maximum of one spin around. Seriously though, try playing You Spin Me Round without getting dizzy. 

The choreography in the game is mostly silly. You won't be learn??ing serious dance moves. If you perfect the dances in this game, don't expect to be able to go cut a rug in a dance club. A lot of the movements feel like Tae Bo, frankly:

I do appreciate that, over time, you can unlock additional songs. You can even unlock alternate choreographies for various songs. You unlock things very frequently, but most of the unlocks are dumb and pointless. They're "stickers."  Very helpful to h??ave digita?l stickers.

I also really enjoy that the variety of songs gives you varying intensity of music. Some songs will really get your bloo?d pumping. Others are comparatively relaxed. I like to do about five songs, give or take.

I'll start with one about medium intensity. Something like Eye of the Tiger. Get warmed up and energized. Then I'll do a less intense one. Then I'll do a really intense song like Footloose. Then a lighter one. Then I'll end on a medium. This is a very rough idea. I don't follow it strictly. And sometimes you guess how intense a song will be and you are way wrong. 

Ano?ther feature the game has that I really enjoy are Dance Labs. They are a sequence of five activities that aren't really dances, but are played the same way as dances. The premise is that aliens come to earth and you must teach them all about life on earth using interpretive dance. For example, you might imitate a frog, then a miner, then an astronaut, then a jellyfish, and end as a baseball player. It provides great variety and varying levels of intensity within one routine.&n?bsp;

But here's the big thing to be aware of: If you're going to use this game as an exercise tool, you really ought to consider subscribing to Just Dance Unlimited. It's a service that gives you access to hundreds of songs via the Internet. Almost like a Netflix of Just Dance. If you just play the songs available on a single edition of the game, you'll g??et bored in a few weeks. My copy of the game came with a 90-day trial of Unlimited and it's been really fun. It provides a ridiculous amount of variety.

If I? continue using this as an exercise tool, I will gladly pay for U?nlimited. A year costs about $25 when I checked. If you compare that to a gym membership, it's pennies. As a game service, I think it's expensive. But for an exercise platform, super affordable. It's all in how you look at things (and no, this blog is not sponsored by Ubisoft in any way).

But what if you don't have money for that? Heck, what if you don't even have a game console? You're not out of luck! You can often find people streaming Just Dance and you can simply ?play along with them at home. You won't get feedback on your performance, but you'll still be getting your body m?oving and that's awesome! I haven't looked, but I'd wager you can find recordings of people playing it on YouTube, which would also be a free way to play.

Another thing is this is so much fun to play with other people. Four people can easily play if you have four Joy-Con. Some songs are even designed for four participants. You could even do a massive group. Put the game up on a projector screen and just have everyone play without Joy-Con. Take it to your next family reunion and lead everyone in exercise like Dan in Real Life:

One last thing I'd like to mention is feet. You hold your Joy-Con in your right hand. The game only tracks your success with the movement of that hand. Any left-hand movements are unscored. And any foot movements are unscored. At times, the footwork can be really hard to perform accurately, at least for someone as uncoordinated as me. But if you play this game for the purpose of exercise, really try to keep up with the footwork. It will greatly improve the quality of the aerobics. Your heart rate will go and stay up mu????ch better.

Overall, I had a lot of fun playing Just Dance! I'm very surprised by this, and pleasantly so. One of the nicest things is that time really flies by when you play this. Half an hour is over before you know it, and you may even want to play more! Just Dance is super approachable.

Since it's a game, the scores provide you with instant feedback. Seeing a good score is instantly gratifying. You can even turn on "sweat" mode which just estimates how many calories you burned after each song. This is all really great. O??ne of the many reasons exercise is so difficult is that your only motivation is the theoretical future you that is healthier, skinnier, hotter, etc. You still have that here but it's coupled with the instant reward of a high score. 

For my purposes, Just Dance is an extremely effective exercise tool. Depending on your exercise goals, it may not be as good a fit (you're not going to build massive biceps with this, for example). But if you just need to get off the couch and get your heart rate up, Just Dance will absolutely accomplish this. You'll?? have fun. Time will?? go by swiftly. You'll feel good. You may even learn about some music that you weren't familiar with before. Here is my favorite song that I newly encountered this week:

My experiment was a great success. I will absolutely play Just Dance more for exercise. I don't know that I'll do it every day. But I will continue. My invitation to you is to try an experiment in your own life. It might be trying an exercise routine. Or perhaps you could add or remove something to your diet. It could be something less health-oriented. You could reduce your spending on something to save money. You could try reading a ??book or consuming another bit of art. You could listen to Ted Talks or something like that. You could journal. You could do something nice for someone each day.

Just try something out for a short time (a week is great but it doesn't have to be one week). See how it makes you feel. Did it improve your life in any way? If so, consider implementing that as a mor?e permanent thing. If it didn't improve things, that's okay. Try something else next week or next month!

So please share your thoughts with us. What are you doing to improve your health or wellness? Also, what are your thoughts on Just Dance if you've played it?

Last, I'll leave this here with no context:

The post Promoted: A Week of Exercise with Just Dance 2018 appeared first on Destructoid.

May the forest be with you

Hello dear friends! It's time for a new theme for Band of Bloggers! Last month's theme of Dragons went remarkably well. We had some phenomenal blogs written as a result and I couldn't be more excited to see where Band of Bloggers goes in the fut?ure! Of course, it's still not too late to write about last month's theme as well.

As I pondered what our theme might be for May, I considered many things. I thought about Spring and how it makes me actually want to go outdoors for once (then I go outdoors and I'm allergic to everything). I thought of trees, greenery and fresh air. I envisioned going for: A Walk in the Woods.

I really like the phrase "A Walk in the Woods." I find it evocative, I hope you do as well! Maybe this similarly titled piece of music, from Halo, will give you some inspiration.

"What does this mean to me?" you ask. I would respond, "What does it mean to you?"

Perhaps you think of a game that takes place inside of a forest, or possibly just a particular forest level within a ??game. Write about that game. Maybe your mind is drawn specifically to the "walk" portion of the theme. Write about a walking simulator. The world is your burrito!

The idea is just to use this as a jumping-off point. Find a game that relates (no matter how remotely) to this theme and write ?about it. It would be great if you discover a new game and play it for the first time, but that is by no means a re??quirement.

Write about a game you once loved or even about how much you hate forest levels in games! Go (tree) nuts! When you've written your blog, be sure to throw "Band of Bloggers" in the title, or "BoB" if you w?ant to shorten it, and we'll have a lovely month discussing these games together!

The post Band of Bloggers – May Edition appeared first on Destructoid.

From the community

During my morning commute today, I was thinking about falsehoods that gamers believe. Over the years that I've used the internet, I've seen a lot of gamers talk about their theories and ideas about games and the gaming industry as a whole. Sadly, these gamers are often mistaken about? their beliefs. Let's take a look at a few of them:

Game companies care about me!

Wrong. They do not care about you. 

Smaller, independent developers might care about you. That is completely possible. But publicly traded corporations do not. Not even a little bit. A publicly traded company cares about one thing, and one thing only: max??imizing shareholder value. That's it. They don't care about their customers as people. I know mom says that you're special and that eve?ryone loves you. But, despite what some politicians will tell you, corporations aren't people. People might love you, but corporations don't. 

I want to go to E3!

As a kid, you eagerly awaited the annual issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly in which they'd preview every game they saw at E3. They?'d talk about the event. They'd throw in pictures of booth babes. Oh my, did you want to go? It's bee??n your dream ever since.

In reality, you don't want to go to E3. Firstly, you won't get in to the press conferences, which is where all the cool stuff happens. All you'll be able to do is go out on the show floor and wait 8 hours in line to play a demo of a single game for just a few minutes. Everything significant at E3 is inaccessible to John Q Public. After the press conferences, the real game previews take place behind closed doors and they are by i??nvitat?ion. 

If you really want to go to a convention, go to PAX. You can actually play games there. You can meet real developers. You can play actual games. You can also atten?d panels where developers tal??k about those games. Or so I've heard. I've never been to either. One day!

Lots of cash means the company is healthy!

"Nintendo is do?ing great! They have 9 billion dollars of cash in the bank!"

I've seen people make similar statements about Nintendo and other companies o??ver the years. Here's the deal. That company that you fawn over might very well have huge cash reserves. That doesn't make them a healthy company. Does a company need cash? Absolutely. It's used for all kinds of things. But sitting on huge stores of cash is foolish. It doesn't grow your business. If you want to grow, you spend your cash on Research and Development, Marketing, Advertising, and Investments. You purchase assets. The cash doesn't sit idly. Don't look to cash as a sign of a health ??company. 

If a company is pro-consumer, they will be successful!

Some people believe that all a company needs to do in order ??to achieve success is to put the consumer first. Clearly, this is not true.

We have seen countless examples of this proving to be false. Consider lootboxes. These are very unfriendly to the consumer, but they are turning out lots of revenue for companies. Similarly, many mobile games require huge investments of cash by the consumer in order to make any notable progress (games like Boom Beach or Game of War: Fire Age are good examples).

Lastly, I'll mention Microsoft. They have decided that every game they put on ??the XBone will also be releas?ed on PC. This is a hugely consumer-friendly move. It is utterly shocking that they would do this. But what is the net result? It obliterates any exclusivity on the XBone, which in turn makes it less appealing to consumers. If they can play the games on other systems, why buy an XBone to play them? 

Ultimately, you need to realize that companies exist to mak??e money. Being ?your best friend isn't always the way to make money.

The Zelda timeline makes sense!

Stop it.

The Zelda timeline is nonsense. Just look at this thing. It's insane. Stop trying to convince people that it makes sen??se. 

The biggest thing is the split into three separate timelines. Why? Why do they do this? It doesn't make any sense. There are three paths, all based on Ocarina of Time. First is when you beat the game as an adult, which is what actually happens in the g??ame. Second is when you defeat Ganon as a kid, which you can't do in the game. Third is if you ??get a game over and Ganon rules the world (why doesn't the timeline diverge on any other game over?). 

It's just silly. More so, it's unnecessary. Just look at Zelda as a colle?ction of folk tales, all based around character archetypes. Enjoy them each separately. Forget about the timeli??ne.

If I tweet at game companies, they will listen to me!

Game companies have social ?media engineers that run their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media pages. These are normal people, just like you and me. They're just doing their job and doing what their told. They h??ave no actual influence over corporate decision making. If you tweet at them and tell them you want a sequel to your favorite game, it will do exactly nothing. 

If you want to support ??a game franchise, buy the games. Vote with your dollar. Tell your friend??s about the games and get them to buy copies. Don't think that shouting into the void on twitter is making a difference.

But if it makes you feel better, shout away!

Half-Life 3 confirmed!

It's not coming guys. It's just not. 

So, what do you think? Tell me what I got? wrong! Share with us any other myths you see that need to be squashed!

The post Seven myths that gamers believe in appeared first on Destructoid.

But no, just spend it on military

_{[If you don't live in North America, then know that the debate on health care rages on. I can at least take solace that the Covenant probably has just as bad health care. ~Marcel]}

This is the Spec Ops Commander of the Elites, featured in Halo 2. Aside from being a ?complete and utter badass on every level, he teaches us about health insurance inside the Covenant.

I work in health insurance. I am currently in customer service. When you have a question about your policy with my company, you call me. I've learned a great deal about health insurance ?as I've done this job. One of the most intere??sting things to me is about the Temporomandibular Joint (TMJ). 

This is a diagram of the joint. The lower jaw (which is the mandible) connects to the skull at this joint. Many health insurance companies do not cover any&nbs??p;diagnosis or treatment related to this joint. When they do cover it, it may be only in extremely limited circumstances, in very small amounts. 

Why is this? A couple of reasons. Firstly, there is a never-ending de??bate as to whether this should fall under medical or dental insurance. Honestly, I think it's absurd that medical, dental, and sometimes optical ar?e not all covered together. They're all important parts of the human body. We should treat all of them. But that's beside the point. Also, there are many treatments for TMJ problems that simply don't work. Some treatments may actually make the problems worse.

Elites actually have four mandibles. Humans have one. Elites are cut in half and doubled. As you can ??see in the above picture, the Spe?c Ops Commander is missing one of his four mandibles.

I suspect that, when he was injured, he called his insurance company. We'll assume it's called Pr??ophetCare. When he reached the Grunt at the local call center, the Grunt sadly informed him that ProphetCare doesn't provide any coverage related to TMJ. He may have even been referred to his dental insurance. But, looking at his teeth, I suspect he never actually obtained any dental coverage. So, the poor Spec Ops Commander is doomed to a life of chewing on the right side of hi?s mouth.

I would bet that if Bernie Sanders was actually?? a Prophet, the Spec Ops commander would have supported him.

The post P??rophetCare: A look at health insurance in? the Covenant appeared first on Destructoid.