On Motion Games

I've been asked to play some motion-based games, and then give my ideas of what these games might bring to the table in a creative writing classroom.  I would advise you to read the previous post on rhythm games, as we'll be heading down the same road.
But first, A haiku:

Every Kinect Game Ever

artificial hip

seventy pounds overweight

wildly flailing limbs

Don't get me wrong, Kinect Adventures is a blast.  I'm just saying that the catlike grace I can display via Solid Snake in a Metal Gear game does not translate to my gaming performance in the 'real world.'  The Wii, on the other hand, forces me to focus my real-world motions on simply my hands, and occasionally my feet.  I am an absolute ninja at Wii Fit Yoga.  Something about the whole-body capture of the Kinect brings out my Inner-Marrionette-Caught-In-A-Ceiling-Fan. It is just so cool in the way it works that I can't bring myself to loathe it the way I do rhythm games.

How would I use it in a classroom?  Well, like rhythm games, many mo-cap games are twitch-based.  And when it comes to poetry and short fiction, the initial drafts are also pretty twitch-based.  Sudden, improvised word choices often create literary gold, and need to be indulged when drafting.  Haiku throwdowns operate much like rhythm and twitch games, and when a group really gets into them,  they just sound cool, too.  

Another way these can be useful is as a sometimes necessary distraction when writer's block hits.  The two methods to get past WB are pretty well summed up as "Just write until more good stuff comes out" or "Go do something else for a while."  And there is absolutely nothing farther from poetry than they way most poets look like when they are playing Kinect Adventures.

Pax and Petra,

Ben