Destructive Incorporated

As obesity continues to plague the US and video games continue to be a favorite past time, one company seems to have found the perfect compliment for video games to help solve the 'epidemic'. The solution: combine your favorite video game with a bit of exercise.

While there are some great games that combine exercise with gaming like DDR and Pump It Up, and there are even a couple of other fitness game controllers (like the Kilowatt), none of them seem to be quite the ticket for exercise success among most gamers.

In comes the Gamerunner, a USB enabled treadmill/game controller that works with most any PC game, PS2, X-Box and presumably any USB enabled gaming device. Primarily designed towards first person shooter style games (like Counter-Strike, FEAR, Farcry, etc), the controller boasts incredible mouse accuracy, a large number of programmable buttons including back/strafe/use/duck and most any other command you might want to use, and best of all, you have to move on the treadmill to move around in-game.

After using the unit extensively, I am very pleased to be able to say that just about all of the criticism that the Gamerunner receives is simply not true. While the unit might take a bit of time to adjust to, in contrast to using a standard keyboard and mouse, it is quite intuitive and most people pick it up after just a couple of minutes on the controller. At CES 2006, I watched a large number of people use the unit, and nearly every person who had any true desire to use it (and were not doing so to prove to themselves it was a bad product) got on and used it with ease. Many people didn't want to leave the booth after they got their turn.

Another concern I've heard is that people don't feel that it was truly an exercise device. Usually, the people using them were walking quickly at best and stopped fairly regularly. It is true that you typically do not set the controls to require you to run in order to go full speed in game; that would be excessive. A person would not be able to play for very long before becoming winded, and last I checked, walking briskly was very good health advice. Especially compared to sitting down in a chair and failing to exercise little more than your finger for hours. I can tell you that after using the machine for a period, I felt like I got a great workout and completely lost track of time (as often happens with video games). I ended up playing/exercising for many hours between when I was supposed to be taking breaks.

Others worry about the lack of strategic abilities within team games compared to users playing with a mouse/keyboard combo. This is very possibly true, but after my time on the machine I felt that I had already gotten my game up to at least 80-90% of my typical level of play (I'm no slouch to begin with, I've been gaming for ages and would consider myself far better than the average gamer). I was easily able to keep a better than 1-to-1 Kill/Death ratio in Counter-Strike:Source and was often up 2-to-1 on servers with good players on them. Some of the other guys who work with Gamerunner were consistently one of the best in all the servers we played in. The controller provides a unique experience where you are even more immersed into the game by incorporating your physical movement and maintaining precision control of your aim, which from looking at the unit seems nearly impossible while on a treadmill. I feel comfortable saying that the mouse head for the controller is MORE accurate than my Logitech laser gaming mouse. The controller may put you down a peg from your normal gaming skill, but it definitely isn't a large loss after just a short time using the device. I honestly see the potential for people to become quite competitive on the machine in gaming competitions, along with a new market of niche games that could include anything from new shoot-em-ups designed around the controller, to games that simply allow you to run around a (real) place you've never been.

Only a handful of very heavy duty hand made Gamerunners have been produced. The company is still looking for a strong investor to help them get to market, at which time they expect the retail for a standard Gamerunner to be approximately $400-450. If you need one now, you may be able to talk them into building you one of the amazing hand made units for in the realm of $6,500-10,000. In fact they informed me that in the coming month or two, you might find one of these units for sale on e-bay to test the market.

I expect to see Gamerunners everywhere in the near future and quite possibly a whole host of games designed around it. You may see them in your gym, at your university sport training facility, in the rehab center of your local hospital, in gaming centers (like Dave and Busters?), and most importantly in front of your TV that your game consoles are hooked up to.

Overall, I have to give the Gamerunner a very strong 9 out of 10. It exceeded all of my expectations, was built with exceptional quality, and I wish the company the best with their great product.

Visit Gamerunners official site: Gamerunner
Gamerunner Manual / Tech Specs : Gamerunner Manual