Walk This Way

Unless you count Dance Dance Revolution's heart-attack inducing aerobics, games and fitness aren't exactly the best of companions. American inventor Charles Van Noland hopes to change all that with the FPGameRunner. This treadmill-gamepad hybrid relies on constant walking to power game movement. Bicycle-like handlebars are used for steering, with one of the handles acting as a "twist grip" for vertical aiming. Buttons normally assigned to mouse and keyboard are mounted to the handlebars and manipulated with the thumbs. While the official site for the FPGameRunner [www.fpgamerunner.com] claims that no better way to play first-person shooter games has ever existed, gamers would have to cough up nearly $2,000 US for the privilege of finding out. For that kind of money, they're more likely to buy a brand new computer and play games like they always have — with their butt firmly planted in a badly designed office chair.