Dammit, Nintendo, if I wanted to be fit and healthy, I'd watch my carbohydrate intake and take up social sports activities! It's bad enough that every Wii owner has to suffer the indignity of being repeatedly advised "You are overweight!" without our portable consoles - those very personal bastions of procrastination - getting in on the act, especially when we have left them at home.

Walk With Me! is an extremely cluey little title, throwing itself onto the bandwagon of several recent trends: using your console as a lifestyle device, bundling plastic peripherals with your software, and pedometers - those things your boss wears clipped to his waist so his wife can ensure he's taking the stairs and not copping out with a two-story elevator ride.


Bundled with two pedometers which sync up with your DS via the infra red receiver, Walk With Me! aims to promote a healthier lifestyle by designing a program that gradually increases the amount of walking you do, setting you daily goals and providing gentle encouragement (how gentle? Wii Fit gentle?!) for those suffering from a modern sedentary lifestyle. For the competitive, it includes online functionality to allow you to check your walking prowess against the global leader board; the cooperative can enjoy a virtual walk through the solar system mapped to the accumulated total of all users' steps.

The pedometers, which come in black and white to match your stylish new DSi, are designed to clip onto your belt (or even your dog's collar; you can set up a pet profile) and are capable of storing up to a week's data before needing to transfer, for those of you who let your handheld console out of your sight occasionally. Unfortunately this means you can't just shove the console behind the TV cabinet and pretend it doesn't exist if it "gently" taunts you about your junk-food gobbling, couch-surfing lifestyle; your friendly pedometer is still watching you! All. The. Time.


My brother used to have a Pikachu pedometer, which encouraged healthy exercise habits and lifelong gambling addiction by substituting slot machine tokens for your step count. We used to shake it gently up and down while we watched TV to maximise our evening fix of Pikachu video poker - a trick nearly every child whose parents clips on of these onto their backpack will no doubt shortly discover if Walk With Me! gets an Australian release for DS alongside European territories on the 5th of June.