Science fiction author Neal Stephenson plays Halo on its hardest difficulty setting, Legendary, while using an elliptical exercise machine, the writer of Snow Crash told an audience in Austin today.
He tried the same thing with Rockstarâs Western Red Dead Redemption, but it hasnât worked. Why would a man exercise like this?
âMy relationship to games is slightly unusual,â he said as part of his keynote address at GDC Online this morning. âI went into a serious binge-mdoe for a while on some Xbox games, mostly Halo, and began to notice that I would start playing it and suddenly it would be three in the morning, which wasnât that compatible with some of my other responsibilities in life. So I started to cut back. And I had another first-world problem that I needed to deal with, because I wasnât getting enough exercise.
âI just hated using things like treadmills and elliptical trainers because itâs so tedious. And finally it occurred to me that I should just combine those two things [games and exercise]. So I actually built a rig that consists of an elliptical trainer with an Xbox 360 [attached]. I discovered that itâs possible to balance the 360 controller on the yolk in the middle of the elliptical.
âI basically play Halo 3 in solo mode for 45-minutes stretches, a few times a week as a way to get aerobic stuff in. Halo 3 is probably the most crack-like game Iâve found; I donât have to learn anything new to play it. Iâm trying to get through on Legendary. Iâm maybe 2/3 of the way through. It goes very slowly, but thatâs what I want.â
And why doesnât Rockstarâs great game fit into his workout scheme? âI did play [Red Dead] on the elliptical some, but it was one of those games that required a lot of stopping and thinking, and thatâs bad for when youâre trying to forget the fact that youâre on an elliptical trainer.â
Heed these fitness tips, dear readers. And, well, make sure youâre getting a good enough workout if youâre playing games at the same time.
You can contact Stephen Totilo, the author of this post, at [email protected]. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.
