Over the last few years, I’ve really grown to love active video games — everything from “Dance Dance Revolution” to “Wii Fit.” (As I just mentioned to FanStuffer Chanel Lee, all this started well after Nintendo’s Power Pad hit the scene … we were an Atari family, so I missed the 80s console wars and all those classic peripherals entirely.) I even picked up a copy of “Just Dance” in spite of its dismal-to-lackluster reviews because I read somewhere that it did a good job of burning calories. So I’m hugely excited about EA’s announcement about the next version of “EA Sports Active,” tentatively titled “EA Sports Active 2.0.”

I’ve written before about my reasons for liking the “EA Sports Active” model. It feels more like a real workout than most of the other active video games I’ve played, and the way it progresses and tracks my progress helps keep me motivated to exercise. It’s not foolproof, though. After owning the game for almost a year — part of which was spent with a broken knee — I finally finished a 30-day challenge for the first time last month. I’ve definitely seen progress in my own level of physical fitness over that 30-day period. I’ll pick up the “More Workouts” package as a reward if I successfully finish my second 30-day challenge, this time on hard mode, in a couple of weeks.

A few of the features EA has announced about version 2.0 have the potential to really kick the game up a notch in terms of the workout it provides. A big one is that it’ll ship with a heart monitor, and your heart rate will display onscreen while you’re playing. This is a huge plus when it comes to working on fitness and cardiovascular health — you’ll be able to see whether your heart rate is in the target zone for an aerobic workout. (Of course, you can also just buy a heart monitor and use it during your workouts, whether they’re game-related or not, but having one that synchs with the game is a neat idea.)

The other feature has the potential to make it easier to exercise on the road — depending on how it works. Right now, “EA Sports Active: Personal Trainer” and “EA Sports Active: More Workouts” are Wii titles. You can’t really keep up with your workouts if you’re traveling (unless you lug your Wii around with you). If you’re in the middle of a 30-day challenge when you go on vacation, it’s all too easy to come home to a message letting you know that it’s no longer mathematically possible for you to finish.

Version 2.0, though, is going to be available for the Wii, the PlayStation 3, the iPhone and the iPod Touch. If all those game versions can all synch through the new online tracking hub — and I have no idea if they will — you could potentially work out to a Wii or PS3 at home, and an iPhone or iPod Touch while on the road. In my best-case-scenario fantasy world, it’ll be like a fitness version of all my RSS apps that magically synch through Google reader.

And while I’m not a big fan of sharing every detail of my personal life with the world at large, the game’s social components can also be useful to other players. Example: I was delighted to learn that the game’s personal trainer doesn’t like the way anyone in the universe does side-to-side jumps, and I’ve learned to modify some of the exercises to compensate for my no-longer-broken knee by reading other users’ tips.

How about you — any good tips for staying fit with active games?