Review: Nintendo Wii Fit

02-05-2008

by Ciara O'Brien

ENN assesses the Nintendo Wii Fit to find out just how much 'fun' getting fit can be.

The latest device from Nintendto, Wii Fit, provides gamers with a more enjoyable way to get fitter than slogging it out in the gym with the rest of the pre-holiday panickers.

Using the Wii Fit balance board -- a pressure sensitive wireless device that syncs with your Wii and measures your activity, balance, weight, etc. -- players "compete" at four different types of exercise: yoga, aerobics, balance and muscle strength.

Before you begin, the Wii Fit will take a few simple details from you -- your age, your height and it will measure your weight. From this, it calculates your Body Mass Index, and you are ready to go.

Each day, you are asked to test or train your body. Training can be done at any time -- with a virtual trainer who helps you through the activities -- but your body test results are only logged once a day. Each time you complete the test, the game uses your results, plus your actual age, to calculate your Wii Fit age -- often not too complimentary at the start as you struggle to get the hang of the balance board.

Once you have begun your training your Wii Fit age should decrease quickly as you begin to see the effects of using it regularly.

You start off with a minimal number of activities open to you, and the longer you play the more activities will unlock. For example, in the aerobic section you can start with a hula hoop game -- amusing to watch, and great fun to play -- before moving on to the 'super hula' game, which will ask you to spin the hoop in a particular direction. The hula hooping is performed by standing on the balance board and swiveling your hips around and around. You can see how this might look ridiculous to a passer by.

Other aerobic exercises include running -- you jog on the spot with the Wiimote shoved in your pocket -- and step aerobics, a pet hate of mine since my brief teenage flirtation with that particular hellish exercise. However, the step exercise is made more fun by introducing the competition element to it, with your moves rated as "perfect" or "Ok" depending on how well you can match the rhythm of the game.

Balance, meanwhile, is tested through heading footballs, or ski jumping to start off with, followed by progressively more difficult tasks such as tightrope walking.

The yoga poses and muscle strength exercises, while not incredibly difficult to start with, are made that much more taxing by the need to keep your centre of gravity within a certain limit while you perform the moves. Leg extensions become harder to hold, the warrior pose is a little more taxing. And at the end of every exercise you are given a star rating, providing you with something to compete against next time around.

In fact, it's the competitive element to this game that probably will keep you coming back long after your gym pass gathers dust in the back of a drawer. Those who are already very fit will probably find this a bit too easy, but for the average player, the game provides a little extra activity every day and helps shake off the couch potato tag that has dogged games consoles for so long.

Just remember to close the curtains and be grateful there's no one lurking with a camera to capture your attempts at slalom skiing or hula hooping.

The Wii Fit is available from Gamestop for EUR89.99.