I have never been afraid to try out new games. I especially haven’t shied away from those that were interested in under represented genres such as home fitness.
For example, I quickly got onto the Dance Dance Revolution bandwagon when I realized how much fun , and how healthy playing those games could be. When I first got DDR Universe for Xbox360, I lost 6 pounds that week and had burned a little over 4500 calories. But the step mat wasn’t enough… I also drank plenty of water and tried to alter my diet to eliminate grain and sweets.

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If there is any one factor that influences weight loss in a game of this nature, it is repetition. Simply put: does the game you are playing have enough content and features to bring you back and keep you playing? The problem with the new Wii Fit for Nintendo Wii, is that the answer to that question is NO !

Wii Fit is a technology gimmick. It will be lauded and hyped by the news networks as a fitness solution for Wii owners – and it may even find use in physical therapy clinics like Wii Sports. All of that is advertisement geared towards women and those unhappy with their weight. Seeing a picture of a sexy female model doing Yoga on the box goes a long way towards selling units.
But for the average home user, Wii Fit is a technology demonstrator you’ll use for about a month and then put away for good.




THE WII BALANCE BOARD

Wii Fit, just like the vast majority of Nintendo Wii’s games, requires you to have yet another plastic device to litter your living room. This added to all the attachments, zappers, tennis rackets and golf club attachments meant to make the WiiMote feel like anything more than a cheap gimmick. That device is referred to as the BALANCE BOARD.

The Balance Board looks like a big white plastic scale. It weighs about 9 pounds and requires 4 AA batteries to connect wirelessly to the Nintendo Wii console.
It woulda’ been nice to get a rechargeable battery with such an expensive package – already some third party companies such as Nyko are vying to get those on the market.
Non-rechargeable batteries are so 1990's.
The board is the core of Wii Fit because the program requires the extreme sensitivity of the board in order to detect changers in the user.

And it is quite sensitive. The Wii Balance Board can only take up to 330lbs (150 KG) which means the Morbidly Obese who want to use their Wii to try and acquire some form of fitness are left out.

For those of us interested in personalization – or for those neat freaks – there are already silicon gloves being offered for the board which the brilliant bigwigs in Best Buy and Circuit City are certain to have waiting for you right next to the Wii Fit box ($20 a pop and in different colors).






YOU ARE FAT AND NO ONE WILL EVER LOVE YOU…based on your BMI

Once you fire up the console, your personal Mii is registered within the game.
You then need to input your height and birthdate. You step on the balance board for a weigh-in and the software then makes its calculations. From the height and weight data, your Body Mass Index is calculated and you are then tagged as underweight, ideal, or overweight all depending on your BMI score.

The next thing you need do is perform a quick balance test. You need to shift your weight on the balance board within a set amount of time. After this test, you’ll be given a Wii fit Age. Only one Wii Fit Age result can be recorded daily, although you can practice the variety of balance tests as many times as you want.


Using Body Mass Index to calculate your fitness is the manifest folly of this game’s premise.

Body Mass Index has long been contested as a poor way of measuring fitness simply because it fails to discriminate fat from muscle.

For example, if you are 5foot9inches and have a very low body fat content, yet weigh in at 300 lbs because of pure muscle, the game considers you overweight.
Lance Armstrong for example, was classified as “overweight” when he competed in the Tour de France.

If you took the sexiest, most muscular jocks from the NFL or NBA they would all be classified as “overweight” despite they have bodies and stamina that put even American Marines to shame.

Simply put, Body Mass Index is a poor calculator to use – especially when you are targeting women who are most likely under 200 pounds. Breast, waist and hip ratios aren’t factored in. What really is required here is an algorithm which calculates height, weight, and measurements of the waist and torso.
A woman who has alot of her mass in her thighs and her breasts, specificaly, will have her feelings hurt when the device confirms her deepest fears: "yes Virginia, you are fat!

To use BMI, Nintendo is just being LAZY.

The telling fact that the software is innacurate is that from day to day, you need to do the basic setup tests before starting each routine. Your BMI can waver by wide margins depending upon what you are wearing or the mass of your last meal.

There is also an activity log which you can use to keep track of your physical activities outside of using the Wii Fit. It tracks "light", "medium" and "heavy" activities. For example, playing a piano for a certain amount of time is considered "light" while playing tennis is considered "heavy". The software adds values to these activities using a multiplier (light = 0.5, Medium = 1, Heavy =2) in order to attempt to track the amount of impact each one has. Strangely, there is no negative multiplier for eating.

I, for one, have never lost weight playing the piano.



ENOUGH TO KEEP YOU INTERESTED FOR ABOUT 3 WEEKS


Wii Fit might be better referred to as a fitness tracker or as a posture improvement system (through Yoga) but the last thing it should be considered is a game. Its just a "fitness toy" really.

Wii Fit includes three primary activities: yoga, strength training, and aerobics. These are represented as 4 different categories: yoga, muscle, aerobic, and balance. Each of these activities is broken down into individual exercises.

Graphics & Sound are exactly what you’ve come to expect from the Wii based on Wii Sports. No music in the game is as interesting or motivating as the music from a well mixed DDR Game such as Ultimate Party, so you’re stuck with a typical Nintendo made Wii soundtrack. The graphics resemble what you may have seen on one of the Brain Age games for the DS or the Wii. Nothing to write home about.
On screen models of realistic humans help add some interest but ultimately, this game’s excitement level is low to the point that its abysmal.

You can choose to be guided by a female, or a male “personal trainer”. Sometimes this can be annoying though. For example, if you eat lunch and then get on the board, you’ll be asked why you’ve gained so much weight. The device might also ask you creepy question such as how you feel about your significant other’s posture or body shape.

What significant other? I’m fat and no one loves me !

I found the aerobic games to be the most interesting. These included hula hoops, a boxing game similar to Wii Sport’s, step dancing and even jogging.
The balance activities are cool too. Many newcomers will be enthralled with snowboarding or ski jumping. Snowboarding actually requires you to turn the board while you play.

The yoga and strength training drills range from easy warm ups to much more challenging tests of balance and muscle strength. Unfortunately, this is where the program noticeably goes wrong. The game will suggest which exercises you participate in but, you have to manually select each one individually. I was disappointed to see that for a fitness program, there was no way to personalize my own routine. How could Nintendo have missed that? I can’t set my own reps or time limits?
You can’t even change the speed of the training drills which means you are locked into the personal trainer’s preferences.

Even Tony Little understood that everyone can’t be expected to keep up with the same pace.

Its simply not effective that the game requires you to manually select each and every exercise through many wasted minutes of on-screen navigation. This was something that also disappointed me about DDR games. What true workout desirers want is the ability to set up a routine that adds or decreases the challenge based on the software’s interpretation of the user’s ability.
You can't choose, “three yoga, two muscle, and two aerobic exercises” to create a customized workout. Instead, you’ll spend most of that workout pointing at the screen with the Wii-Mote choosing what to do next.
Even DDR was able to let you use just the Dance pad to control the entire game.






THERE ARE NO SHORTCUTS TO FITNESS

The real problem with Wii Fit that should raise its head – though many will choose to ignore – or not notice – is the fact that the Wii Board at many times can be too sensitive, especially in the Balancing games. There is a soccer headbutt game where you must lean in the direction of the ball to hit it with your head. When you lean consciously, you apply weight to the opposing foot and the Balance Board registers this as leaning to that side. Many times you will fail to achieve the objective because of this.

What really ruins Wii Fit is that you are forced to unlock most of the more interesting exercises from the get go. While this is acceptable for a DDR game –unlocking songs – it only becomes a pain in Wii Fit and artificially seems to expand otherwise dull and meaningless Gameplay. And like most of us who have an entire family playing with the Wii using their own personal Mii’s, each one of them will have to unlock the activities individually.

If You are really interested in home fitness, you’ll do just as much with an Ab Lounge or a home gym as you will do with Wii Fit (maybe even more). Wii Fit is PURE GIMMICK and is destined to end up either in your closet or under your bed. It doesn’t have enough to keep anyone interested in it for much more than a few weeks and due to the Wii’s lack of downloadable media, it fails to even be capable of offering more.

What also stands out to new-age gamers is the lack of multiplayer. No competitions against people online? Is this game 21st century or what?

If the Wii Balance Board is good for anything, it will be if some third party game developer takes time to make a very long surfing, snowboarding, or skateboard game. Imagine what you could do with a Tony Hawk title on the Balance Board. How about Silver Surfer where you use the Wii Mote to shoot bad guys?
How about California Surfing ? How about ESPN games? I’d be a bit interested in a game which allowed me to wreck myself like Jake Brown.

I do not recommend Wii Fit at all. Whether or not I recommend the Balance Board depends on what games 3rd parties develop for it. For now however, DDR will offer you just as much longevity (or more) as Wii Fit at less than half the price.



Recommended: No