After coming back from University today I finally got a chance to have a play on "Wii Fit". I had read a lot of reviews and now I shall add my own:
First of all - it is great fun. Especially the more game based exercises are very motivating (like jogging through a virtual park or balancing lots of hula hoops), while the muscle exercises had be panting and perspiring within seconds (though I think they would be rather good for Garry).
Sadly - cheating is easy. The balancing board is brilliant, but still rather limited. I got full points (as in 100/100) in an abs exercise simply because I put my legs back down in time, while the game completely missed the fact that I barely got my shoulders of the ground (the idea was to do a V shape with your body while lying on the ground by raising your torso and legs at the same time). I did not intend to cheat, it was just a case of me having no abs and hence needing at least a few months of practice to get the exercise right - a fact that the game just did not manage to take into account. Still, obviously it is more about you exercising and cheating yourself has little point - so you could argue that the points you get at the end are secondary. Still and accurate evaluation would help as it is often hard to tell just how well one is doing and if one is improving.
When you first sign in you will be weighed and have to give the game your height and age. As my Wii is set onto English, I found that bit rather hard as I simply do not know how many feet I am and you could not switch to metric and stay with English, which I thought was a shame. My BMI (nicely enough it does not actually tell you your weight, but just your BMI) was satisfyingly enough in the upper third of the "ideal weight" box, but the game then insisted that I needed a goal of sorts and suggested if I shouldnapos;t aim for a "perfect" BMI of 22. In order to do so I have to loose about 6() kg. Now, I honestly do not know how much I weigh, but unless I have gained a lot of weight since leaving Luxembourg it should be around 65 kg. My ideal weight is 62 which I am happy to aim for, but the suggested 6 kg would put me onto 59 which would actually push me into being underweight. O.O Not too sure. It also asked me what sort of time frame I had in mind for my goal starting with 2 weeks. 2 weeks? For 6 kg? Honestly It did not give me a realistic suggestion but relied on me to know how much time I would need ignoring the fact that if I indeed lost 6 kg in 2 weeks it would be incredibly bad for my health not to mention almost impossible to do unless I starved myself. On the other hand I can imagine that some people who know more about how thin you have to be to be just as underweight as models these days than about health might aim for something unrealistic like that and would either ruin their health or their self esteem in an attempt to reach it during the suggested time - especially considering that this was in no way a case of me actually being overweight.
A similar lack of helpful suggestions can be noted during the game its self. Although it does point out that you should always warm up beforehand it gives you no idea how to do so, or what order of exercises would be advisable. Personally I do not find it very hard to find a sensible order that warms me up, gets the blood flowing, burns fat and finally cools me down again, but then I have exercised regularly for the last year and have taken several classes where warm up and cool down were essential to keep people from fainting (which does not mean that I got it right either, I am really just making an educated guess). Still, I feel that quite a few people who will and have bought Wii Fit are just the type who would not attend classes or go to actual gyms because of a lack of time/opportunity to do so or simply being uncomfortable when exercising around other people. So, again, I feel that some advice would be appreciated by most and as it is a game those who would not appreciate it, could always skip that bit.
There is also no time frame recommended (the body generally only starts burning fat after 30 minutes of exercising), which again I feel would be helpful.
My last criticism would be that the trainers keep telling you to think of "your ideal body" whilst exercising. Now, I see how this would be motivating for people who play to loose weight, but for someone like me who just wants to stay in shape and had to change her mode of exercise due to outside influences it is rather pointless and ever so slightly insulting - as if the fact that my BMI was only in the "ideal weight" category rather than ON the ideal weight line of 22.0 automatically made me unhappy with my shape and eager to loose fat.
All of these are obviously just minor points and if you look past them you will find a very motivating game ready to help you keep in shape with the right mix of serious exercise and fun activity. Still, I feel that the obsession with body images have had a little too much influence on this game...
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