I pre-ordered Wii Fit through Amazon back in mid-April and today it arrived on my doorstep. I spent about 45 minutes this evening learning my way around the balance board, doing the initial Body Test, and checking out some of the included games.
Wii Fit doesn’t mean We Fit: this is strictly a single player game. There is a 2 player jogging game, but the second player is a guest so they can’t pick a Mii and it doesn’t count towards their Wii Fit credits. I was also disappointed to read in the balance board guide that only one board can be associated with a Wii at a time. That means no multi-player games with multiple balance boards (think We Ski). The jogging game uses the Wii remote only instead of the balance board, which is why it can support multiple players.
Now, I’m not that sure of how the Wii Fit Age calculation works, or how “accurate” it is. During my initial Body Test (in which you enter your age, the balance board measures your weight, and then makes you do a few balance exercises), my Wii Fit Age was calculated as 51! When I tried it again after 30 minutes or so of playing the games with the balance board, my WFA dropped to much more palatable 31 (and it also said I had lost 1.5lbs). Oh, and don’t expect Wii Fit to sugar-coat your physical fitness status … I didn’t mind it saying I was overweight (I knew that), but then it adjusted the size of my Mii accordingly, adding a little paunch around the middle! 😯 I’m just saying be prepared for the (ugly) truth.
After the initial Body Test, Wii Fit walks you through setting a goal and timeframe to reach it. Since my BMI was calculated at 25.98 (22.0 is considered normal), I set a goal to lose 10 pounds in 2 months. Adding the Wii Fit Channel to the Wii home screen allows you to “weigh in” using the balance board without actually having the Wii Fit disc in the drive (the Wii Fit channel uses 106 blocks of memory).
For a game that comes with a cool new peripheral, why does it involve so much use of the Wii remote? You pretty much have to keep it in your hands at all times to keep pressing the A button as you progress through the various intro/info screens. This makes some of the balancing activities a little difficult. During the running game, for example, you’re told to put the remote in your pocket. After you do that, it asks you to press A a few more times! I was hoping the balance board could act like a wireless controller, similar to the dance pad in Dance Dance Revolution.
One more negative (last one for now, I promise!) is the lag time between exercise activity. It takes way too long to go from one workout task to another. After finishing an activity (say, ski jump) there’s some extra animation, then the high scores list, then your Wii Fit credits go into the bank, then the prompt to Quit or Retry. If you quit, you’re back at the activity selection menu where you have to select a new activity, then go through the intro of that, which might involve a few A button presses before it actually starts. They really should have included a “playlist” feature to throw a bunch of activities in sequence to keep you moving (again, I’m thinking here like the workout programs in DDR). Maybe it’s in there … I haven’t explored everything yet.
The games I tried (under Aerobics and Balance) were fun, though hard to initially get the hang of. The balance board is very sensitive, so in some of the games you have to be careful to lean slowly and not in quick, jerky movements. I like the ski slalom and ski jump games, the tightrope and soccer ball ones I found more difficult. The best workout one I’ve tried so far was the running-in-place (it’s fun to watch all the other Miis wandering around while you run by).
I wasn’t sweating nearly as much as after 30 minutes of DDR, but I’ll give Wii Fit a chance. I’ve got my goal set for the next two months, let’s see how it goes …
