The Pope, a Rabbi, and an otter walk into a bar. The Pope says to the Otter, “I know a man with a wooden leg named smith.” The bartender says, “Get out of my bar.”
I woke up today feeling sore in my neck, shoulders, and thighs. I guess the fitness test and yesterdays, albeit light, workout are catching up to me. It just goes to show how out of shape I actually am. The soreness wasn’t bad enough to interfere with today’s workout, but it did cause me to dread it a little.
After completing the Wii Sports and Wii Fit activities I popped in Punch Out, switched it over to motion control, and activated it with the balance board.
The punching takes a little getting used to. Just punching will always throw a low punch. You need to hold up on the directional stick to punch high. Since I had just played Wii Sports boxing where you can change the angle of your punch by changing the angle of the remote and nunchuk, I was a bit disoriented at first. Glass Joe got some good hits in and almost knocked me out. Glass Joe!
Once I was acclimated to the punching though, Joe was a piece of cake. So was Von Kaiser. Where it got dicey was Disco Kid.
When you’re playing with the balance board you dodge punches by leaning left or right. The problem is, the balance board isn’t very sensitive when it comes to detecting your lean. I understand that the designers wouldn’t want players accidentally triggering a dodge, since that could be very frustrating. But you really need to shift a lot to trigger the dodge animation.
If you’ve played Punch Out you’ll know that Disco Kid is essentially a dodging tutorial. He’s the first opponent where the direction of your dodge matters. If you dodge the wrong way, his strong punch will connect. The delay between me throwing my weight to the side and the character animating was a problem. But a bigger problem was that Mac would often dodge the wrong way. I was very confused, until I realized that I was pushing off with my other foot in order to push myself in the direction I wanted to dodge. This meant that just before I leaned to the right, I’d press down with my left foot – or vice versa.
I’m not blaming the game for this. It’s just the way my body was compensating for the speed and magnitude of the shift necessary to make Little Mac respond. But it would have been very helpful if the game had a sensitivity slider that let you fine tune how much of a weight shift was necessary to dodge. It also would have made the balance board more responsive to my feelings, and after the game we could have read The Bridges of Madison County together.
I eventually beat the Disco Kid by removing the off foot from the board when it was time to dodge. For example, if I needed to dodge right, I’d pick up my left foot which put all my weight on the right. This worked, but created some unnecessary complication and dissonance between the control scheme and the animation.
On to King Hippo! I figured King Hippo would be pretty easy compared to the other three. His pattern is simple, his punches are slow and easy to dodge, and you only have to knock him down once. As I expected, the fight went really well until he got down below half-health and started doing his ear boxing punch.
I knew I needed to duck, but I couldn’t figure out how. The controller help said to hold down on the analog stick, but that definitely wasn’t working. I tried the d-pad, holding Z & B, no good.
Then I ducked. And then Little Mac ducked. And all was well.
Unlike dodging, I found the ducking to be super responsive and actually fun to use. After figuring it out I started ducking all of Hippo’s punches, and he was knocked out most soundly.
So how is Punch Out as a workout? It’s not as vigorous as Wii Sports boxing. There isn’t so much constant bobbing and weaving. The punches are timed around the opponents attack patterns, so you’re swinging less frequently. But despite that, I did find myself working up a bit of a sweat before the King Hippo match was over.
The balance board was a mixed bag. Dodging, a really central part of the game, disappointed. It was unresponsive and worse, sometimes backwards. But the ducking felt great. When playing Punch Out for a workout rather than as a game, I would recommend the balance board for the extra activity and immersion. Just expect some frustration with it and stick to opponent’s whose patterns you’ve already learned.
I first played through the game with the NES control scheme. But now I feel like it could be fun to play with the motion control, sans balance board. It is somehow more satisfying to pummel with your fists rather than by tapping buttons. As with the balance board, I feel like imprecision with the motion control could become a problem with the hardest opponents where split seconds count. But if you’ve mastered the game it would breathe a fresh challenge into it.
Nutrition Facts:
Total Calories: 1387
Calories from Fat: 399
Fat: 48.9
Carbohydrates: 182.9
Fiber: 20
Protein: 84
Exercise Level (moderate):
Walking
Wii Sports Test
Wii Sports – Boxing
Wii Fit – Basic Run (short)
Wii Fit – Sun Salutation
Wii Fit – Tree Pose
Wii Fit – Half Moon
Wii Fit – Warrior
Wii Fit – Single Leg Twist (10)
Wii Fit – Rowing Squats (15)
Wii Fit – Lunge (10)
Wii Fit – Torso Twists (3)
Wii Fit – Pushups & Side Plank (6)
Wii Fit – Hula Hoop
Wii Fit – Hula Hoop
Wii Fit – Basic Step
Wii Fit – Super Hula Hoop
Wii Fit – Soccer Heading
Wii Fit – Total Time: 30 minutes (moderate)
Punch Out with Balance Board
Foods Devoured:
Trader Joe’s Chicken Tikka Masala w/ Cumin Flavored Basmati Rice
Water
Grande Skinny Vanilla Latte
Water
Water
Soy Milk
High Fiber Joe’s O’s
Chicken Breast
Emmentaler Swiss Cheese
Trader Joe’s 50/50 mix
BlackBeans
Water
Vanilla Yogurt with Chocolate Chunks
Water
Overall I’m pleased with today’s food choices. I’ve taken in less calories than I was eating each day last week. A lot less. And yet, I haven’t felt hungry or deprived. My meals have been small, but scattered throughout the day. While a lot of the foods were still packaged convenience foods rather than real fresh foods, they were less offensive than some of the fast food I had been grabbing before.
The yogurt and chocolate snuck on there again. As long as they were sitting there in the cupboard and fridge, they were taunting me. They needed to be dealt with once and for all. I will avoid the urge to bring more chocolate into the house, which should curb my tendency to combine it with everything.
