Buy Walking VideosDance Factory Review at The Gadgets Page
I have talked extensively in the past about active video games like DDR where you can workout and have fun. Here is another video game to add to that category. I reviewed it for general playability on the Gadgets Page and you can see the review here:
The difference between Dance Factory and DDR is that you can dance to ANY CD that you want. This is especially important when you are working out every day. It is really easy to get sick of the DDR songs. Each DDR game might have 60-70 songs, but they are only two minutes a piece. One hour-long workout a day for a week and you’ve heard all those songs at least four times each. With Dance Factory, you can dance every day to a different CD. That’s an essential feature when you are using it for workouts and it’s the reason I bought a Playstation 2. This game isn’t available on Xbox or the PC.
One cautionary note: DO NOT BELIEVE THE CALORIE OR DISTANCE STATS. I said it in the other review, but it’s worth repeating. You might think that it would be very accurate because you can tell the game your weight, but it is not. When I compared the calorie count from the game with my heart rate monitor, they were vastly different. Additionally, during a workout, it stated that I had jogged the distance of over 7K. There’s no way that I worked that hard. I’ve run a 5K. The workout that I did with Dance Factory was nothing compared with that. If you don’t have a heart rate monitor that calculates your calorie expenditure, just gauge your workout based on time and perceived exertion, because the fitness meters are VERY generous.
This brings me to a final note. You should keep track of your calorie expenditure with a good heart rate monitor. They are the most accurate. I will be reviewing the one I use tomorrow to give you an idea of what to look for. I’ll also tell you why I haven’t reviewed this heart rate monitor until now, even though I got the watch for Christmas last year.
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October 4th, 2006 at 7:00 am
So glad to hear you’re going to review your heart rate monitor. I’m interested to hear about it and it was a question I was formulating in my head through your article (until I got to the last paragraph).