Book Acela now - Amtrak.com
You'll be anchored to the balance board for most of these exercises and activities, with the board giving you on-the-fly feedback on just how well you're performing. Each activity features an onscreen indicator showing you where your weight should ideally be placed, with Wii Fit assigning you a score based on how well you've managed to keep your balance or shift your weight to the appropriate areas. In this, the board is a remarkable piece of tech, with even the slightest quiver of your feet registering as a shift in balance. But while the board is extremely sensitive when it comes to weight, it can't actually track what you're doing with your upper body. This means you can easily "cheat" your way through most of the exercises by simply shifting your weight to where Wii Fit indicates it should be. It's even easier to cheat in the few activities where you don't use the board at all. In jogging, you're supposed to either tuck the Wii Remote into a pocket or hold it in your hand while running on the spot, but you can achieve the same effect by simply waggling the Wii Remote.
But as with any form of exercise, you won't get real results by cheating. Wii Fit's list of yoga and muscle exercises do have the potential to tone muscles and improve balance with regular use, although with only 30 moves in total, it'll get old rather quickly. It's puzzling, then, that Wii Fit initially locks most of the exercises, with time spent using the title the only way to unlock them. New activities are unlocked roughly every 10 minutes of use, which means you'll need five or six hours of Wii Fit play time before you get full access to all of its activities. And any unlocked activity can only be played with the profile that gains it. That means if you have several people registered on the one console, all of them would have to unlock the activities individually. What's even more baffling is the lack of an option for players to create their own workout programs by stringing exercises together. That means you can't choose, let's say, four yoga, three muscle, and two aerobic exercises to create a tailored half-hour program. Instead, you'll have to select an activity using the Wii Remote, perform it, jump back into the main menu, select another activity, and so on. It's jarring, and certainly not the smooth workout experience many were probably expecting from Wii Fit.
This strange lack of functionality extends to the "fun" parts of Wii Fit--the aerobic and balance games. There are scant few multiplayer options in this title, meaning players can't directly take on family and friends in any of the games (two-player jogging being an exception). Considering Nintendo's strong social push with the Wii, this is a strange move. Thankfully, most of the games are quick affairs, although it's still annoying to have to kick all the way out to Wii Fit's main menu to select another Mii to play with. Some of the games themselves are rather shallow, too, and will fail to excite most people after a couple of weeks. Perhaps the best game of the bunch is the table tilt game, which becomes increasingly difficult and can really push your balance control.
Wii Fit's presentation is typical Nintendo, which is to say that it's clean and cheery for the most part. The title looks best with its aerobic and balance games, with a player's assortment of Miis taking centre stage. The character models used for the fitness trainers are rather low-definition, however, and are functional rather than impressive. In-exercise audio is also bland in an elevator-music type of way, although thankfully it's not the thumping dance music you hear blaring out of most gyms. Online is nonexistent here, but the game does feature a Wii Fit Channel function which allows you to check your progress and compare it to other Miis on your Wii without having to start up the full game.
Wii Fit's included exercises do have the potential to positively impact your health, but thanks to its lack of exercise options, poor support for multiplayer, and shallow health advice, this title isn't a gaming fitness revolution. What it does do is serve as a great introduction to the very impressive balance board, a peripheral which is already being lined up for use in other games. But for a game that's being marketed so heavily on fitness and fun, Wii Fit is a little underweight in both.
- See more CNET content tagged:
- Nintendo Wii,
- exercise,
- activity,
- Nintendo Co. Ltd.,
- weight
User reviews
- Average user rating: 4.5 stars out of 31 reviews
- My rating: 0 stars Write review
-
Showing 3 of 31 user reviewsSee all 31 user reviews
-
5 out of 5 people found this review helpful
-
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful
-
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful
- See all 31 user reviews Write review
Wii Fit (Wii):
%20Wii%20Game%20reviews%20-%20CNET%20Reviews&srcUrl=http://ecoustics-cnet.com.com/wii-games/wii-fit-wii/4505-9993_7-32513029-2.html){kind=small}