After calling all over Anchorage, I purchased the
LAST COPY from Gamestop. Everyone else was sold out! First warning about this game,
it doesn't use the Wii Balance board at all and only uses the Wii controllers to enter your person al data, not for the exercises themselves. It is more like an interactive workout DVD.
You can always play this game as a guest but then it states it will be unable to track your results and progress.
This game starts by asking you to create a profile, name, age, sex, height, then it asks what home equipment you own. (step, stability ball, hand weights, heart monitor). Then you must enter your weight.
For the initial fitness evaluation, you should allow 30 minutes or more and have a tape measure handy.
You are then asked to measure your; biceps, chest, waist, hips, and thighs. Next you are told to take a resting heart rate. The game talks you through the process very well, even times you, and and does the math for you telling you your resting heart rate. The measuring portion is much more vague. It doesn't tell you where you should be measuring exactly (example on the widest portion of your hips or if you should be putting weight on the leg you are measuring etc). You can skip the measuring if you want also.
Next, it asks you to do jumping jacks for two minutes keeping up the pace set by a dark outline character. It give support and encouragement during this part of the test and tells you how much longer you have every so often. When the two minutes are up, you are directed to count your heart rate again. It gives you your elevated heart rate and the percentage of your maximum heart rate at which you were working during the exercise (mine was low as I was trying not to wake Lilith so I wasn't jumping too hard). Then, it asks you to enter your activity level for the last six months.
You are asked to do squats in time to the shadow figure again until you cannot do anymore without compromising your form or until you reach 50. You are asked to do the same thing with push ups till 40 (I was given modified push ups but I suspect this was due either to my sex and or the activity level I had selected; sedentary). Then you are asked to do crunches up to 60. Finally, you are asked to do a toe touch stretch and select how far you can reach. The game will ask you to repeat this evaluation after every 10th workout to measure your progress.
Based you your results the game gives you recommendations as to what type of workout it thinks will help you improve the areas where you didn't preform as well as you could. You can choose from, weight loss (it said I should be doing this), cardio, upper body strength, core body strength, lower body strength, flexibility, and lower body strength.
Since I chose weight loss, it asked me to enter a goal weight. Then it asked me to enter what days of the week I could work out and for how long (15-60 minutes). Then you can start to work out, (group workout was listed but greyed out. I am sure once I have been working out for awhile it will become an option as well as more music and environments or it could be a two player option but if it is, the book and the game said nothing about it).
The game states that it will modify each workout based on what goal you have chosen but if you don't really have a particular goal, you should choose cardio as it will give you the most balance of exercises from each area. Cardio also has more intervals, which are periods of intense exercise followed by periods of less intense exercise. Weight loss tends to have a more constant level of effort with fewer intervals.
You can always choose a different daily focus from your long term goal. I choose flexibility first because I was trying to pick something that I thought would be quite. I could tell however that the workout was still empathizing weight loss like it says it will because the were a lot of dynamic moves (moves that will raise your heart rate).
You can also get credit for different workouts that you do on your own like swimming and running.
The available environments are; urban oasis, empress dojo, rooftop vista, forest glade, island paradise, alpine retreat, desert springs resort, and meditation garden.
During each workout you have a scrolling meter at the bottom of the screen that shows you the exercise you are currently doing, the next exercise coming up (especially useful if the next exercise requires equipment like the step), and the difficulty of the exercise (1-5). It also tells you if you have a rest or water break coming up. There is a timer on the left hand of the screen also.
You can pause at any time and change the difficulty, music, turn off the trainers comments, or end the workout early. You can get the instructor to demonstrate an exercise in more detail by using the tutorial. After each workout (even if you stop early), the game tells you how many calories you burned and when you are scheduled to work out again, if you have set up a goal.
Before each workout the instructor ask you to indicate how you are feeling and based on this will give you more or less encouragement during the workout. After each section for the work out, you will be asked how hard it was for you and based on your answers, will adjust the difficulty level for your next workout. Your workout results are stored and updated in the progress area after each workout. You can check your progress from the main menu.
After you have worked out for 3 days the game unlocks; desert springs resort and dance music. 5 days; alpine retreat and techno music. 7 days; island paradise and house music. 9 days; forest glade. 11 days; roof top vista.
Each time the game has to load a workout, fitness test, etc, it will give you a workout tip while it is doing so. Some of these tips are ones that I hadn't heard before and are generally very helpful.
I like this game a lot. I do wish it incorporated the balance board. It really has no way of knowing how hard you are working out or if you are doing an exercise correctly because it doesn't use the balance board or the Wii controllers (other than for entering your information). It does ask you how hard you felt the work out was etc. and if you are fine with that, then this game can give you a really good workout. I has lots of options to change and vary your workout. I love that it lets you incorporate fitness equipment that you have (although it is hard to get to the step or ball quickly as they just appear for the computerized instructor but you have to move them into position for your self and sometimes they really don't allow time for this).
Over all I like this game much more than the Jillian Micheal's game but not quite as much as the Wii fit. I reviewed both of those games also. I think this game would be the best workout game out there if it incorporated the Wii controllers or the balance board but I respect that it doesn't. I much prefer that to a product that claims it does and fails to deliver like the Jillian Micheal's game. I am sure that eventually someone will design a game that has this much variety and allows for different fitness levels (like this one does) that will utilize the Wii controllers and/or balance board (and will unfortunately cost much more than the $29.00 I paid for this game), but until then, I think this game is pretty good. It gives a good workout and has enough options to keep the boredom level down with repeated play.
Buy yours HERE!
