Video games meet resistance training

Video games that give you a workout have been around for a while now, but research has questioned how much benefit you can really get from them. Now, an Australian startup is upping the game, as it were, adding resistance training to the mix.

Realm's gaming system attaches motion-sensing controllers like those used with the Nintendo Wii or Microsoft's Kinect to elastic resistance bands that attach to a belt you wear around your waist. This not only gives you something to work against while playing boxing, tennis or zombie-chopping games, it also measures your energy expenditure as you play. Realm says it creates a more "immersive physical experience that also delivers real health benefits."

The Realm System is currently in the prototype phase (it's on Kickstarter), but the company hopes to start shipping the product in September. It will come with three resistance bands of increasing strength and six games -- including one in which you work your upper body slashing zombies with a pair of machetes and another that makes you squat to lift boxes, a creatively disguised facsimile of helping a friend move, it seems -- and cost $259.

Go to CNET.com for a full hands-on review.