Are you a chubby overweight dude with little desire to go outdoors and join a gym? Then read this review
Rather surprisingly the board does not feel like a flimsy piece of plastic but has a serious quality to it, which I am guessing might be needed depending on the body weight of the person using it (hey I'm not judging as I am pretty heavy myself!)
Popping the disc into the Wii you are created with an option to create your Wii Fit profile. You can use any of the Mii's stored on your console or you can create a new one or play as a guest (if you are even virtually shy). Next up? A Body test. urgh. Once you enter your birth date and height the balance board measures your weight and calculates your body mass index. You then are either classed as Underweight, Ideal, Overweight or Obese. Not surprisingly I was in the overweight class. Nothing I didn't know already.
Your ideal weight isn't shown on screen unless you hit a specific button so you can spare yourself some embarrassment if you have friends or family in the room. If you are borderline paranoid, you can even set up a password so people sharing the console can't check out how much of a donut you are.
Once the BMI has been recorded you then take a series of balance tests, so drinking a bottle of Jack Daniels beforehand is not recommended. These tests involve shifting your weight left or right on the board so you stay within certain parameters on screen or trying to remain steady while standing on one leg. When this has finished your BMI, age and balance test results are combined to calculate your Wii Fit age.
It all seems relatively scientific however I noticed some fluctuations running the test multiple times. Despite the obvious discrepancies it is fun to compare Wii Fit ages and it is a cool way to track your progress, just like Brain Training you get to stamp your calendar each day you complete a test. Graphs detail how you are progressing and how close you are to reaching set weight loss targets. It is extremely gratifying to reach even a simple target so I can see this being a great incentive to using the game.
Training is set into four categories, Yoga, Muscle Workouts, Balance games and Aerobic Exercises. These are designed to improve your posture, tone muscles, burn fat and improve your balance. Initially only half the exercises in each category are available, the amount of time you devote to them is stored in a virtual piggy bank and the more minutes you earn the more exercises you get to unlock. It is an interesting concept within the context of the game and works very well. Clearly there has been a lot of thought put into the whole procedure as even if you suck at the exercises you still get rewarded for putting in the effort. If you begin to master the exercises then you unlock higher levels for the relevant tests as well as getting different stamps for the calendar.
Wii Fit Yoga is all about stretching your body and maintaining your balance (which sounds a lot easier than it really is). The balance board is obviously used to measure your ability. Muscle workouts are exactly what they say on the tin. You have to bend a lot, lunge, and do press ups, this can be extremely intensive so care should be taken not to get into it all too quickly.
I found the Yoga exercises to be the most interesting as you can literally feel your muscles stretching as you work. It also helps to increase body movement over time. There are 15 exercises in the Yoga and muscle exercises group to unlock and 9 in the aerobic and balance sections.
The Aerobic and Balance sections feature Mii's rather than the trainers which populate the other two modes, The Mii's look a lot better and bring a more friendly look to the game, the trainers look like robots!
One of my favourite exercises is actually jogging through the Nintendo park, however this doesn't use the balance board, you put the Wii remote in your back pocket and it acts as a pedometer! The whole atmosphere of this exercise is top class, with assorted Mii's and characters all waving at you and cheering you on.
Another nice touch is the fact that regular players get priority as background characters. So the last people who have been playing the game get to interact with the person currently playing the game. For example these people will be throwing the hula hoops to the current player.
Table Tilt is another fun exercise and works like 3d Marble Madness in that you control the tilt with your weight and the balls bear the faces of your friends, this is extremely addictive. Other memorable exercises include Ski Slalom and flying penguins.
Multiplayer works great, you obviously can't all jump on the balance board simultaneously, however you can take turns which is a lot more fun than I reckoned it would be.
This leads me into the all important question "will I stick with Wii Fit or get bored of it quickly?". It is going to be hard to answer that for everyone, if you are the kind of person who got bored quickly of Wii Sports Tennis then it is possible this will end up gathering dust. If however you really want to get in shape and hate going to the gym this is a good place to start motivating yourself. It will never be as beneficial as actually going to a real gym, however even over the course of two weeks playing for an hour a day I noticed some benefits to my body and fitness level. The fact you can track target levels and see how your performance improves over the course of time is a great benefit to keeping the interest level high.
A great product featuring moments of charm that Nintendo do so well, it is reasonably priced considering the high quality of the board peripheral and comes highly recommended.