I'm battered, broken and feeling bruised. My neck aches, my shoulders and biceps are stiff from throwing punches, and even my lower back is feeling the effects of weaving and ducking. I even somehow got a cut on my thumb, with blood caked between my cuticle and nail. But you should see the other guys. That's right, "guys." You didn't think I'm the kind of pansy who would just go up against one opponent, did you? Nope, as soon as I beat my first one into unconsciousness, another one jumped in the ring. And then a third.
Donnell Rohdes from New Jersey. I left his 219-pound frame laying on the canvas and barely broke a sweat. Then came Marvin Tyler. A New Yorker, he gave as good as he got, but not good enough. But then it was Igor Dragunov, the mad Russian. My gloves were like lead, I was winded, and finally, I was knocked out.
And, according to the counter, I also burned nearly 600 calories. Not bad for a 10-minute workout and a few quarters.
Such is the life in the world of MoCap Boxing, an immersive video game I found at the Hilton's arcade. Duck fast enough and evade the roundhouse. Weave quickly and your computer-animated opponent's uppercut gets nothing but air. Gripping the 2-pound, plastic boxing "gloves," aim for the targets and get your licks in—fast. Hit him and he gets bruised and staggers back. Get hit yourself and you see nothing but red, or maybe even the arena's swirling roof and a referee as you lay on your back.
Oh, and blocking doesn't work. Take it from someone who tried.
If your image of video games is still Pac-Man and Missile Commander, you'd better look again. While there are still plenty of button-mashing, joy-stick-yanking boxes to swallow your quarters, a new breed has been slowly creeping into arcades. These beasts demand more from you than just eye-hand coordination; they want your entire body. Along with boxing are games in which you have to duck for cover in shoot-outs, match steps with disco masters, put out fires—and the list goes on. As a matter of fact, basically any sport or activity you can think of, including bass fishing and pingpong, can now be found in easily digestible digitized form.
So much for telling the kids to get out of the arcades and go outside for some exercise. And don't look for any support from me. Sure, I may be 38 on the outside, but inside, I have the soul of a 13-year-old. Which is why it hurts my feelings so much when the other kids laugh at me for cramping up. But that wouldn't stop me on my quest to experience the best that the Strip's arcades have to offer in immersive video games.
It all began in 1998, when electronic game giant Konami debuted something called Dance Dance Revolution in Japanese arcades. Unlike every other video game before it, there were no space invaders to shoot, no street fighters to battle, no barrel-throwing apes to evade. Instead, the player stepped onto a platform divided into nine squares, four of which are pressure pads, and as a pop song played, tried to place their feet where a series of scrolling, onscreen arrows directed. Except for picking your song, the entire game is played by dancing. Look, Ma! No hands! And no sense of self-consciousness, either.
DDR, as those in the know call it, spread out across Japan and Asia as only a disco-dance-fueled wildfire could. Eight versions later, not counting Disney Rave and Euro Mix, it can be found in just about every country around the world. There are tournaments held in London and San Francisco. Expert players are known to use not just their feet, but also their knees, hands and elbows. Norway is on the verge of classifying it as a "sport," up there with rugby, ice hockey and synchronized swimming.
And if you think it can't possibly qualify as a sport, consider this: It requires timed, precision movements; it tests reaction speed and body control; and you break a serious sweat. Just ask Autumn Mosenteen and Richard Schlater, visiting Las Vegas from Colorado and dance-dancing up a revolution at T.I.'s arcade Friday night. They both have been playing DDR for about a year, with Autumn even having the home version of the game, available on PlayStation and Xbox. Schlater, 31, claims to have lost 20 pounds and Mosenteen says she's dropped 15.
"It's our only form of exercise," a slightly out-of-breath Schlater says, after being defeated by a screen that was essentially an eruption of directional arrows and would have required a spasmic octopus to master. If octopi could survive outside of water, of course.
Not just content with DDR's viral-like success, Konami has since come out with other music-related games, such as Beatmania. "Scratch the table responding to the gauge on the screen," read the instructions, giving players the chance to play at being a hit turntableist. If that's not your style, there's Drummania, Guitar Freaks and MTV's Drumscape. I experienced the last of those at New York-New York, and in case I ever needed further proof that I was born with two left ears and the same sense of rhythm as an epileptic squash, this game provided it. It didn't help any that not more than 10 minutes later, some smart-ass professional musician-type sat down and proceeded to re-create Poison's "Talk Dirty to Me."
In 2000, Konami came out with the next evolution in immersive video games: Police 911. Taking on the role of an LA cop fighting the yakuza, you stand on a yellow mat that, together with three overhead infrared sensors, detect your body's movements. Charging into a room behind a phalanx of SWAT members, you physically have to duck to the left or right as you exchange light diode gunfire with the bad guys. It's the same technology that led a year later to MoCap Boxing (the "MoCap" stands for "motion capture") and Tsurugi or Blade of Honor, in which you swing a sword hilt, trying your best to slice and dice samurai in half. In 2002, along came a game with an even greater propensity for spilling over into real-life violence, MoCap Golf.
At Gameworks, in the shadow of a five-story rock-climbing wall, I'm giving Police 911 a second shot, no pun intended. I think I've got it. I'm in a restaurant-nightclub and I know well enough now not to shoot the cops in front of me (I'm a cop; they're cops; it's just bad form) and to avoid maiming innocent bystanders. The guy seated in the booth wearing the white dinner jacket is actually shaking with fear, and if it weren't for the bullets flying overhead, I'd risk taking a look to see if there's a puddle at his feet. I'm crouched down, leaning a little to one side to stay hidden behind the overturned table. I jump up, holding the gun over my head, angled down, and fire off a short burst. Duck back down again. Damn it! The bad guy ducked when I came up! He's not supposed to do that! Waiting, waiting, my magazine reloaded. Shells whizzing past. Jump up again, two rounds. Ahh, there's no satisfaction in the world quite like making a nice, clean head shot.
Best of all, when I'm finally gunned down, there's a little boy who's been watching me play and I see admiration in his eyes. Yes! I've impressed a 10-year-old!
But don't think that immersive video games are all about black eyes, hot lead and broken nine irons. There's a whole arena's worth of sports games out there, too. The Luxor's arcade has the rare Home Run Derby, complete with batter's cage, and a number of spots, including the ESPN Zone, have Kick It!, both great-grandparents by virtual-reality standards, having been released back in the late '90s. Not to be confused with the VR amusement about overcoming addiction, Kick It! is a soccer simulator, or a big TV screen with a tethered ball at its base. Haul off and whale it with your foot, trying to get both the curl and speed necessary to get past the computer goalie. Succeed and you're rewarded with onscreen fireworks and a cartoon soccer ball flying in circles. My own running about in a circle, hands in the air, shouting, "Goooooal! Goooooal!" only causes my wife to shake her head and cover her face in shame.
(Rumors of a Kick It! 2, complete with rioting fans, could not be confirmed by press time.)
Far more fun is Sega's Top Skater, a skateboarding game in which you stand on an actual board and try to get your onscreen character to execute tricks, avoid barrels and figure out how to get out from behind the billboard and back on the track. Plus, it features real music from groups like Penny-wise and NOFX and gives your calves and quads a workout. At Gameworks, three of us jockey to be the next to play: me, a boy who looks to be about 13, and a guy with gray hair and goatee. Not only do I manage to make my onscreen persona look pretty cool, my lovely wife actually compliments me on what a good job I did. Heck, and I thought I felt good when I impressed the 10-year-old.
Closely related to Top Skater is Ski Super G, in which the "G" stand for, "Geez, did that computer-generated guy just knock me into a tree?" Slip your Sketchers onto the twin foot rests, grip the poles and wait for your lumbar to start screaming. The screen quickly becomes a blur of snow, gates and trees crying out for Sonny Bono's blood. Going off jumps and lips gives you a real sense of vertigo, and yes, your computer-generated opponents are only too happy to introduce you to the trunk of a blue spruce.
With my eyes still tearing and my heart still pounding from Ski Super G, I look around for a calm game to play. A little girl is hogging Bass Fishing (She can't even figure out which way to turn the reel. Sheesh!), so I head over to the friendly orange seat of a rafting game called Rapid River.
Within minutes, I'm straining, sweating and feeling sore. My arms ache, my rotator cuffs are burning from paddling, and even my thighs are feeling the effects of keeping my balance in the tossing seat. But the tyrannosaurus Rex won't get off my ass. That's right, "T-Rex." I've already made it through Class IV rapids jagged with rocks, and survived flying off a 200-foot waterfall, with spins that made my stomach summersault. Now I'm having to whip the kayak paddle as hard and fast as I can while I watch a Jurassic Park reject snap its mouth inches from my rubber raft and feel layers of skin get torn off my thumbs.
But these are all sports I've played myself, and frankly, as good as these video games get, they can't compete with the real thing. The crack of a wood bat against a 3-D baseball, getting grass stains on your knees from kicking a soccer ball out from a friend's feet, the crunching of snow under your skis as you hit the first run of the day. And what happens when kids forgo the real thing for these cathode-tube, circuit-enhanced experiences dished out in 25-cent increments? Does the physical exertion that this new generation of amusement requires balance the scales for the lack of fresh air and interaction with people of the non-pixilated sort? This crop of children, for whom games like checkers and tag are crude and boring, are fated to grow up wan and nearsighted and inured to violence, never having run under a spring sun chasing a grounder or spent an afternoon in the shade of an elm, a fishing line drifting in an idle current.
Oh, screw 'em, I wanna hang-glide.
And I can! Grab the bar, lean your knees into the pads and watch as a tiny, little you runs and jumps off a wooden platform some two miles high in a mountain range in Hang Pilot. Relax as you drift over alpine meadows, half expecting to see Heidi down below. Feel your eyes widen in surprise as the sky suddenly becomes filled with hot-air balloons that require you to swing back and forth. Shriek in terror as you find yourself in a chasm, with collapsing stone pillars all around you. Hang your head and quickly walk away as the little kid who had been watching you laughs.
Or you—OK, me—I can pretend to ride a horse in the Preakness in Final Furlong back at New York-New York. Against a coworker. Stacy. That is, a girl co-worker. Who beats me! Beaten by a girl! Any scraps of pride I've earned playing games from the Stratosphere to Excalibur are torn away because ... I ... was ... beaten ... by ... a ... girl.
It doesn't help, either, that some Stetson-wearing tourists have been laughing at me, and one pointed out that I had somehow broken the ride and my nag would need to be put down. All I know is that I'm going to be walking bowlegged the next day and my editor is going to be full of questions.