VR gaming as a workout option
Genem30
Posts: 431 Member
Over the holidays, I picked up an Oculus Rift when they were $350 to see if it was something I would get into. I spent some time with Fallout 4 VR, VRChar, OrbisVR, and a couple of other smaller titles, but then I was at a friend's house over the weekend and played some AudioShield, and wow, after about 20 minutes, I was sweating my butt off, and my Fitbit was singing my praises for the burn. I picked it up when I got back home and did some research into other games that are considered great workout titles. Some of the ones I've tried out:
Drunken Bar Fight
Knockout League (has a built in calorie counter if you enter your weight before playing)
Holopoint
Space Pirate Trainer
If you have a PC with a decent CPU/GPU and are looking for another outlet for cardio, I'd recommend maybe looking into a VR solution. I put in an hour today with Audioshield and then spent another half an hour with Knockout League, I was sweating pretty good by the end, and had a blast doing it.
Drunken Bar Fight
Knockout League (has a built in calorie counter if you enter your weight before playing)
Holopoint
Space Pirate Trainer
If you have a PC with a decent CPU/GPU and are looking for another outlet for cardio, I'd recommend maybe looking into a VR solution. I put in an hour today with Audioshield and then spent another half an hour with Knockout League, I was sweating pretty good by the end, and had a blast doing it.
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I wish some of these games would come to the PlayStation vr but still a lot of fun and does get you moving
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I'm all for video games as workouts. It's one of the reasons I own a large number of DDR games and the dance mats for my old ps2 and am currently looking into Just Dance for our switch.1
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Thank you for the idea! My husband picked up one when they were on sale too, so we'll have to give them a try.
(I also still workout doing DDR on an old PS2 that's still truckin' along!)0 -
Yes, I love my PS2 and they can pull it from my cold dead hands! Seriously though, yes I am starting up on DDR again because I found DISNEY TUNES DDR. That's for the Wii. How do you log it though?0
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Yes, I love my PS2 and they can pull it from my cold dead hands! Seriously though, yes I am starting up on DDR again because I found DISNEY TUNES DDR. That's for the Wii. How do you log it though?
Does it give you any kind of calorie burn? I do the workout mode when I do DDR, and just enter what it says after I'm done with a custom entry. If not try looking for a dance entry and see if the calorie burn sounds right!0 -
marieamethyst wrote: »Yes, I love my PS2 and they can pull it from my cold dead hands! Seriously though, yes I am starting up on DDR again because I found DISNEY TUNES DDR. That's for the Wii. How do you log it though?
Does it give you any kind of calorie burn? I do the workout mode when I do DDR, and just enter what it says after I'm done with a custom entry. If not try looking for a dance entry and see if the calorie burn sounds right!
On the regular game mode it doesn't, but I just noticed there is a workout mode so I'll look there.0 -
When I play DDR/Stepmania I set my Garmin to "Other Cardio" and use that lately. I used to just pick a random "dancing" entry.0
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Space Pirate Trainer is pretty good for a workout as well0
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Been playing Soundboxing a bit - I've heard Thrill of the Fight is really good fitness-wise, but I really like rhythm games so this is more compelling for me. There's also a score modifier based on how hard you punch, so you can really go all out in trying to get a top score. As all the beatmaps are user-created, there are a lot of bad ones, but there seems to be a small community of users making super fun challenges which feel like dancing and involve the lower body as well.
People's burn estimates for this kind of thing seem pretty high, though - I'm definitely sweating, breathing hard, and after playing for three days in a row, 1-2 hours a day, my arms were kinda giving up on me, but I don't feel like it's comparable to running or anything like that, which is what a lot of people have been saying.
I wish I still lived on the ground floor so I could play Stepmania again. Many happy memories of that game
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I think Drunken Bar Fight is now on the PSN. I feel so claustrophobic in the PSVR headset anyway and heat up instantly, so pretty much anything would be a good workout
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I don't really know anything about VR gaming but this sounds better than spending time on a treadmill. I have a gaming laptop so should be able to run whatever software I think. What hardware do I need and would you all recommend for PC VR gaming?0
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I've been playing Beat Saber for the past couple of days and I'm hooked. It's like guitar hero with lightsabers. If you're at it for a while, especially on the harder difficulties, you really work up a sweat! Last night my Apple Watch told me I burned 370 calories in a 45 minute session. That's pretty damn good since I had a blast.0
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RachelElser wrote: »marieamethyst wrote: »Yes, I love my PS2 and they can pull it from my cold dead hands! Seriously though, yes I am starting up on DDR again because I found DISNEY TUNES DDR. That's for the Wii. How do you log it though?
Does it give you any kind of calorie burn? I do the workout mode when I do DDR, and just enter what it says after I'm done with a custom entry. If not try looking for a dance entry and see if the calorie burn sounds right!
On the regular game mode it doesn't, but I just noticed there is a workout mode so I'll look there.
Even if it gave a calorie burn, I don't know how trustworthy that'd be. You're best bet would be to just find the dance entry (as Marie said) and then edit it if after 3-4 weeks as needed if you don't see any progress scale or inches wise.
The only other way is to get a heart rate monitor or fitness tracker. That way you won't even have to think about it. Just wear it and then let it update to whatever app you use (which hopefully links to MFP for an even easier transition).0 -
Beat Saber is a great workout! I wish I had an Oculus so that I could get it. The PS4 version isn't as cool because there aren't many songs due to copyright issues.1
