“We’re excited to introduce a product that helps address the evolving recommendations for children to engage in physical activity, in a game where breaking a sweat with your Nickelodeon friends is not only fun but can be heart healthy,” said Steve Lux, vice president of business development for 2K Play.

The activities include jumping rope with the Backyardigans, river rafting with Diego, hurdle jumping with Kai-lan, pogo sticking with Dora and an all-out relay race featuring the whole cast. Parents can keep track of their children’s progress, which includes total time exercised and intensity levels on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. They can then go in and modify routines to focus on and improve on different areas such as endurance, balance and dexterity.

Dr. Goodway, chair of the National Association of Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) ‘Active Start’ physical activity guidelines committee added, “Our association has found that many children are not engaging in enough physical activity to promote positive health outcomes. Nickelodeon Fit employs four principles to help counter this trend: frequency, intensity, time and type, thus encouraging gamers to exercise regularly, try activities with different intensity levels, extend their exercise time and add variety to their daily regimen.”

Nickelodeon Fit has been age-appropriate tested, and can be demonstrated during E3 at the 2K booth (#2823, South Hall). More information will be available soon on 2K Play’s website.

I don’t quite recall how I discovered the Riiflex dumbbells. Odds are it was something I saw locally seeing as they are an Atlanta based company. I had been looking around the Walmarts and the Targets and had found weighted boxing gloves, however I am not a boxing person and they had no use for myself away from a Wii workout. Dumbbells, however, can be picked up randomly throughout the day and seemed like the best choice for me.

Each dumbbell weighs 2lbs (1 Kilo for Metric countries of the globe), features comfort grip padding and allows for easy pop in, pop out with the Wii remote and nunchuk. Each controller slides naturally into place, staying nice and snug during my workouts. The bottom sections of each dumbbell are open to accommodate having either the corded or wireless attachments, and there is a window on the top of the remote dumbbell which allows the sensor to interact flawlessly with the sensor bar.

Using the dumbbells with EA Active this past week, I have come to the conclusion that making sure I am using them with each and every exercise I have more than likely tripled my intensity level. For exercises such as Lateral Raises, Bent Over Rows, and Shoulder Presses, using dumbbells is exactly what you would be doing at a gym, which I personally prefer over a resistance band. With the boxing, tennis, baseball and volleyball exercises, adding the dumbbells made me utilize muscles in my arms that I normally wouldn’t be working and brought much-needed resistance to each activity. Even using just one of these accessories with the Side Lunges with Toe Touch and Standing Knee Crunches brings a new challenge to the exercise program. Targets and Heavy Bag with the dumbbells? Been there, done that, arms felt like they were about to fall out of their sockets, but man was it good!

Throughout the day I find myself picking up the Riiflex dumbbells for a quick set of squats or jumping jacks, usually after a bout of writing and needing to stretch my legs. It’s nice to have the freedom to use a gaming accessory without having to be plugged in all the time.

If you are looking for a great way to increase your Wii workout intensity and have something handy around the house for a mini-workout, then I recommend and give the Riiflex dumbbells five shiny gold stars. They are $29.99 for a pair and are sold via PowerPlay’s Amazon store. (And yes, they do qualify for free shipping.)

To learn more about PowerPlay and their goal to bring high quality peripherals to all gaming consoles, visit their website today.

Review product was provided by PowerPlay, and does not affect the outcome of this review.

“The millions of people who bought Nintendo hardware during the holidays can look forward to enjoying great games on those systems now and in the future,” said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks for Nintendo DS, and Wii Fit Plus and New Super Mario Bros. Wii are all currently providing Nintendo fans with amazing experiences and fun adventures for the whole family.”

Official data has not been released yet by NPD for December 2009, but it’s safe to say that Nintendo’s numbers will be high. Nintendo is already estimating that the DS and DSi have set a new US record for sales and that sales in the US for the New Super Mario Bros. are approaching 4 million units. It will be interesting to see the official numbers once they’re released on January 14th and compare them to how well Microsoft and Sony did with their systems.

It looks like UK Gamers enjoy their “football” (soccer). Enjoy might be putting it lightly. They enjoy it so much that they also seem to love any video game that is on that subject matter. For about a month, the top spot in the UK Game Sales charts has been taken by a football game.

First it was Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 (now at 5), then it was FIFA 10 (3) and now SEGA moves into the top spot with Football Manager 2010. How can one play so many soccer games?

Tekken 6 enters the countdown at 8 and Wii Fit Plus enters in the number 2 spot. DJ Hero enters at number 20, which could be due to the cost. It also appears that our European friends have Eyepet already which enters at 18.

Both WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2010 (11) and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (12) dropped six places. Making these titles the biggest drop on the countdown.

The countdown stays varied but Nintendo wins the publisher spot with 5 games on the countdown.

GameFly is already in a battle with the US Postal Service which means today’s findings can’t be good for the USPS. Philly.com reports that Reginald Johnson, a former Philadelphia mail handler, has admitted to a federal court that he stole 2200 GameFly games — totaling $86,000 in value — before they could be delivered to local subscribers. That’s alot of games!

Of course he wasn’t taking them for personal gaming use. He would trade in games at GameStop and get store credit. Johnson was caught because of an investigation as to why so many games went missing in the Philadelphia area. Local authorities caught him with 60 games and a load of Wii Fit units, controllers, a Playstation and GameStop receipts in a SUV and duffel bag.

[source via GamePolitics]

Shirley Manson in Guitar Hero 5

Activision is having problems with Courtney Love over the use of Kurt Cobain in Guitar Hero 5, but that’s not slowing down game sales. Guitar Hero 5 entered the UK game sales charts for last week in first place. Colin Mcrae: Dirt 2 took second place while The Beatles: Rock Band took fourth. All three are new to the chart pushing down Batman: Arkham Asylum to third spot and Wii Fit to the fifth spot.

Call of Duty: World at War made the biggest shift downward moving from 8 to 14 on the charts. Last week the title skyrocketed, but it looks to be normalizing out now.

Nintendo takes the top publisher spot with four titles. Other publishers have three or fewer games in the top 20.

EA Sports Active

EA Sports Active knows that by now you have completed the 30 day workout, maybe even a couple of times and wants to up the ante for getting you involved before EA Sports Active More Workouts launches. They are announcing the EA Sports Active 5K Challenge.

The site will have community leaders who will choose a run in their local community between October 17 and November 15. They even have a trainer that will help everyone get prepped for the big run.

Once you sign up, they will match you with a community leader in your area. To sign up, go to easportsactive5kchallenge.eventbrite.com/.

If you are interested in being a leader check out all the information here.

Batman Arkham Asylum

Batman is a very popular DC character, so it’s no big surprise that probably the best Batman game made yet, is on top of the UK Game Sales charts this week. Batman: Arkham Asylum has beaten out Ashes Cricket 2009 for the top spot. Ashes Cricket 2009 drops to number 3 as Wii Sports Resort drops down to number 2. Activision’s Wolfenstein fell to the fourth position while Wii Fit rounds out the top 5.

The biggest move is definitely Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare from 17 to 10th position. Maybe a free xp weekend? But then Activision has some problems as Prototype drops to 16 from 10.

Nintendo has been knocked out of the top publisher spot in the UK while EA and Activision duke it out to see who will be number 1. Both are tied at 5 titles on the countdown each.

Wii Sports Resort has been itching to take over the UK Charts for weeks and now Nintendo has done it. Ashes Cricket 2009 has fall to the third spot in the charts which lets Nintendo take the number one spot. Activision’s Wolfenstein enters the countdown in second place. Nintendo’s other title Wii Fit does drop one spot but not too big of a drop. Fight Night Round 4 gets a burst of energy moving up from 12 to 9th, could be because of the new DLC coming. Madden NFL 10 has the biggest drop on the countdown from 8 to 20, just barely hanging in there.

The top publisher of the charts for sales last week is EA Sports with 7 titles.

Ashes Cricket

UK Gamers are still buying and playing Ashes Cricket 2009 from Codemasters to keep it in the top spot this week. Wii Sports Resort and Wii Fit are in the second and third slots just waiting for Ashes Cricket to falter. Ubisoft’s Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood moved up from seventh to fourth place while Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 continues to drop ending in 5th place.

Madden NFL 10 may be a big hit in the US, but it enters at the eighth spot in the countdown. Also bad news for EA as Fight Night Round 4 has the largest drop from 4 to 12.

EA Sports is keep EA in the charts with the most games on the chart (6).