While dance simulators are nothing new in the realm of console gaming, the upcoming release of the Kinect for Microsoft’s XBox 360 opens up the field to a whole new world of possibilities in the realm of getting your digital groove on. One of the first games that we’re going to see tackle this new level of booty shaking is Dance Central from MTV/Harmonix (the folks behind the phenomenal Rock Band series). Featuring tracks from the likes of Lady Gaga, No Doubt, and Bell Biv Devoe, Dance Central will follow in the footsteps of the Dance Dance Revolution series that came before it by including a feature that will allow you to track the calories you burn while playing the game. While there hasn’t been any word on whether or not new tracks will be available for digital purchase to add on to the initial game, it seems fairly obvious that the with the success that MTV/Harmonix has had selling content for Rock Band they will follow suit with this new franchise. This would help to remove the one obstacle that always seemed to get in the way of regularly using Dance Dance Revolution as a means of getting your exercise in – The songs get old after a while!

On Tuesday, August 17th, at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, MTV/Harmonix announced several new songs that will be available with the initial release of Dance Central. Look behind the cut to see what new grooves are going to be available, along with a list of tracks that had previously been released.

Gen Con. The Best Four Days In Gaming. This weekend long gathering of geeks in downtown Indianapolis is one of the few times in your life where the large majority of people who you meet on the street will have a set of polyhedral dice on their person. Call it a bad stereotype if you like, but chances are a lot of the people you meet are (or should be) trying to shed some of their natural encumbrance. Unfortunately for them it’s difficult to eat wisely when you’re at a convention, but it isn’t impossible. All it takes is a little homework and self-control.

We here at ShrinkGeek are going to do some of the homework for you.

Underneath the cut you’ll find a list of some of the restaurants in the downtown Indianapolis area that Gen Con attendees tend to frequent. We’ll give a brief overview of the restaurant itself and try to point you toward some of the less calorie blasting choices off of the menu. Check back often as we’ll be updating this list as we gather additional information and take suggestions from some of the attendees themselves!

See you in Indianapolis!

Image courtesy of Scott Smith via Flickr

Fitness gaming has come a long way in a very short time. We’ve advanced from games that were, for all intents and purposes, glorified exercise videos to fully interactive workouts with virtual personal trainers. With the upcoming release of the Kinect for the XBox 360 the bar is being raised even higher, and companies like EA SPORTS are fully poised to rise up to the challenge with the addition of gadgets that will actually monitor your heart rate while you’re working out and evaluate your form at the same time. Despite these advances, though, there still seems to be a somewhat unspoken belief out there that these games, while keen, are…well…

For girls.

Many guys just don’t feel that fitness games are “intense” enough for them. Mind you, if they actually tried the games in question they would probably be surprised to find out just how intense they can be, but the incentive just doesn’t seem to be there for them.

That may very well be changing soon.

Buried deep within the comments on one of my recent articles over at WoW.com was an interesting little bit of information from a poster named Saitenyo. She talked about how she set up a platform near a recumbent bike in her home so that she could use her laptop to play World of Warcraft while exercising. I was curious to learn more about this, because while we’ve talked about getting in exercise while playing an MMORPG like WoW, in all my years of gaming I’ve never really known anyone that has put a serious effort into doing so.

A brief exchange of emails later, and I had the full story from the player behind the avatar, one Chelsea Brown. Ms. Brown is a recent BFA graduate from the Laguna College of Art and Design and a self-proclaimed fan of a long list of things that would make her a perfect candidate for attendance at Dragon*Con. She did such a great job of explaining her set up and the benefits that she got from it that I figured I’d go ahead and let her do so in her own words.

It’s Friday, and what’s even better is that it is a holiday weekend (at least here in the states)! Whoo Hoo! If your place of business is anything like mine things are probably pretty dead right about now and you’re all sitting around watching the clock in eager anticipation of three days of non-work related bliss. You may also be staring in the face of a whole bunch of eating challenges in the form of grilled meats, chips, and tasty adult beverages.

In order to help you pass the time and perhaps provide you with a little motivation for the upcoming weekend I’ve compiled a list of news items from the last few weeks that you might be interested to know about. This will actually be the first in an ongoing series of Friday afternoon news summary posts, so I hope you enjoy it!

So let’s see what’s going on in the world of health and fitness!