Susan's Wii Exercise Games Review

Kris - you wanted to know about the Wii Fit Plus (WFP). Probably the best place for future release information (not necessarily the best place buy) is Game Stop's site. It looks like the WFP will be coming this Fall, sometime in September assuming there are no production delays. It will be packaged with the Balance Board for around $90. The game will also be sold separately for those that already have the Balance Board probably for $50-$60.

For those of you that haven't heard about it, the Wii Fit system was an added accessory (a rather major one) for the Nintendo Wii platform. The accessory is the Balance Board that can determine your weight, BMI, balance and movements. The game that was packaged with the original Wii Fit was billed as an exercise game for everyone.

At first it was kind of fun. The more you played, the more games you unlocked. The little Balance Board character was cute. Each member of the family could keep their own profile so it remembered/kept track of your progress. I stuck with it for about a month, then quickly got bored. Here was my problems with it. Many of the games were 2 or 4 minutes in length and there was a lot of chatter by the virtual trainer or I had to sit through long the score calculations in between. Most of the time the virtual trainer said the same things over and over again which gets annoying after awhile. There was no easy way to bypass them either. A few of them like the step, boxing and running games were 10-30 minutes long so I actually felt like I was getting somewhat of a workout.

The only thing I ever broke a sweat over was the boxing game, especially at the end when I got to punch the punching bag like a mad woman! The running game made me keep pace with another character (one of my friends said she got one of the dogs as her pacer!) so that limits how fast you can run. If I ran too fast, it would make my character trip and fall behind, which was funny for awhile. The step game is pretty good, but the Balance Board isn't all that high. I did see a 3 inch add-on at Best Buy the other day packaged by Everlast. Maybe those would give me a better workout, but that's another $30.

All in all, the original Wii Fit was a little too much like a video game and not a way to get fit. I think it was a way to get people thinking about fitness more than anything. There was no way I would have lost any weight by playing just those games. Outside activity (which you could log in the game) was definitely needed to burn more calories. Honestly, I think I got more of a workout playing the original Rayman: Raving Rabbids game.

The Balance Board as a scale is interesting too. I've noticed that my weight can fluctuate up to about a pound depending upon how I'm standing on it. Anymore, I tend to weigh myself three consecutive times and take an average. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the Balance Board is on carpet, though, the extra little "feet" were supposed to take care of that.

The upcoming Wii Fit Plus looks like it is a game upgrade, Wii Fit version 2 if you will. I think the Balance Board will be the same. The plus part, I believe, is the way the game will allow you to put together and customize a routine so that you can go through a 20-40 minute routine without stopping to change and select new games. It looks like you can also have it help you customize routine based on the areas of the body that you want to work on. And of course, there are new games to hopefully keep your interest.

I think the WFP was supposed to be a competitor to the EA Sports Active game or vice versa. I've gone through the EA game for 3 days now and am getting a decent workout every time. With the 30 day challenge, it has created different 30 minute routines for every workout day. I can also put a custom workout together myself if I didn't want to go through the 30 day challenge or when I'm finished with it. The EA game definitely has a more exercise focus rather than a gaming focus. I am, however, struggling with the resistance band. There really doesn't seem to be a good way to work with it and hold the Wii controllers at the same time. I've had the game get stuck a couple of times because it didn't think I had performed the move correctly. Since the resistance band is like a rubber band, I'm also kind of afraid that it will snap back at me a the most inopportune time. Maybe I just need to come up with a new accessory that will be the ideal mix of the Wii controllers and the resistance band. I'll make millions! LOL.

There are a few other exercise focused games for the Wii, but I don't know much about them. You can check them out for yourself if you're interested. Here is a list of games that I've talked about or have heard about:

• EA Sports Active


• Gold's Gym Cardio Workout


• Jillian Michael's Fitness Ultimatum 2009


• Wii Fit


• Wii Fit Plus

Of course, there are tons of other Wii games that are not billed as exercise games, but keep you moving pretty well. If you've gone one, tell us about it. In the mean time, have fun and keep moving!

I've got to go to bed if I'm going to get up at 4 AM to hit the gym! G'night all!