"For the truly motivated, this might be worth it. For a fitness enthusiast... just keep up your regular jogging, which is free"

Wii Fit

Good:
+ Gets you off those buns and working that body!
+ Balance Board is comfortably sensitive
+ Presentation is very streamlined and menu's are easy to navigate

Bad:
- Balance Board has absolutely no way to accurately judge your fitness performance
- BMI is not a very good indicator of personal health
- Fitness options are extremely limited, which actually makes Wii Fit too simple for anyone who was expecting a true fitness program.


Who wants to get fit? I sure as hell know I do. I'm pretty sure everyone reading this wants to get fit too. Being fit is one of those things that almost everyone generally wishes they could be. Unfortunately not everyone is inclined to put out the effort required to obtain that sexy, steel bod. So here's the deal... Everyone WANTS to be fit, but not everyone has the motivation to be fit. Some people are lazy, some people just don't care, and some people suffer from personal issues or a body image that just won't change without some very hard work. Is there an easy answer to these problems? Not really. Real fitness requires hard work, and dedication. There's no way around it, and it's usually not a fun process. Nintendo seems to have served up the perfect tool to add fun to that equation, however, presenting Wii Fit as a great fitness program for families, and people who hate fitness. Finally, a way we can ALL enjoy becoming fit! "Great! This is going to change everything in my fitness devoid life" you cry. WelI, I can promise the majority of people buying this won't say the same for long.

Let's get this out of the way early... Wii Fit is not a game. Wii fit is a fitness tool. While the fitness sim tries to spice things up with a few mini-games, they're not enough content wise to make Wii Fit a valuable gaming purchase. The mini-games aren't the focus though anyways, and we'll get to those later. But the point is this: if you're looking into Wii Fit as an entertainment purchase, don't bother. It's not meant to entertain. What you are purchasing is a responsibility. If you can handle the responsibility required to use Wii Fit as intended, and truly make the effort to get into better shape, then Wii Fit does have its benefits. So, if you're ready and willing, what can Wii Fit do for you then?

Well, Wii Fit begins like this: First, Wii Fit will have you will create a personal Wii Fit profile. The game will immediately take into account several factors of your body. These include your level of balance, your weight, your height, and your age. Wii Fit will then determine for you your BMI( Body Mass Index), and change the shape of your Mii depending on this status. It will also quickly match these factors against your personal age, and determine your fitness age. After all these crazy measurements are completed (and most of you have properly hung your head in shame at your disappointing fitness age), you're taken off the chain. Wii Fit opens up a variety of exercises and mini-games to complete at your leisure.

From here on you're provided with four categories of exercise: Aerobics, Strength Training, Yoga, and Balance games. Aerobics centers around activities such as step aerobics and jogging. Strength training contains exercises such as push-ups and jack knifes. Yoga is, well, Yoga, and the balance games are a small pool of Wii Play style mini-games that utilize the balance board as a controller. The best part about all of these activities is how you're guided through each. All the exercises have a personal trainer attached that will show you exactly how to do the exercise properly, while also explaining the benefits of each. The game will also use the Balance Board to give you some indication whether or not you're doing the exercise correctly. The trainers can sometimes be criticizing, but they're never offensive and the game is always strongly encouraging. This is a phenomenal asset for those who start out slower than the rest.

To begin with, each category only has about half it's content unlocked. To earn more, you need to spend actual time playing the game. For every minute you spend completing a fitness exercise or game, you get a token. After you acquire enough tokens you're rewarded with more exercises. To begin with, this seems interesting. You're technically rewarded for working out, which is brilliant. On the other hand, it's somewhat annoying not to have all these exercises available from the outset. It's not as if the game is testing your skill level before determining if you should move on. It's simply counting minutes spent working out. What's also annoying is how the game limits the number of repetitions you're allowed at the start. You need to play each exercise multiple times to earn things like more reps, longer park running times, or harder step aerobic setups. For anyone who already tends to do these exercises and requires the harder setups to get a proper workout, this is really disappointing. The game essentially treats all people, fit or not, as on the same page. It's somewhat frustrating that Nintendo didn't take into account the wide variation of fitness levels Wii Fit users will come into the program at.

Another slightly disappointing aspect of Wii Fit is the way in which it promotes it's fitness exercises. There's no "daily training" to be had here. You simply pick a pose or exercise and go with it. Kind of disappointing for anyone who was hoping to have a slightly more spoon fed fitness experience (especially considering the game allows you to have a personal trainer). Proper fitness enthusiasts realize that most exercise consists of Sets and Reps as well. An example would be doing three sets of ten repetitions. So you would do ten push-ups, take a 30 second break, do it ten more times, take a 30 second break, and do ten final repetitions. Wii Fit completely ignores this and only allows you to do a very specific number of reps, usually choosing between something like three or ten with no middle ground. If you want to complete sets, you need to do it manually by selecting the exercise again from the menu. Worse, the game never explains that this is typically how you should be doing your exercises. It's just strange that the game does such an excellent job of explaining how the poses and exercises should be completed, but it doesn't actually explain how one would properly go about fitness training.

Speaking of lacking a proper fitness guide, the Balance Board unfortunately also fails at being a useful fitness training tool. I'll give the Balance Board this first however: It's a very sensitive, very brilliant weighing machine. The board is incredible at picking out minute differences in your balance, and serves as an excellent determiner of weight. Unfortunately, this is all it does. It has virtually no way of telling you whether or not you are doing your exercises correctly. Sure it can tell how well I'm balancing on my foot during a Yoga pose, but it can't tell me if I'm holding my posture or pose correctly. The same goes for strength training. The board can tell when I've lifted my feet off the board for a jack knife, but it can't say whether or not I'm holding them well enough or reaching right. The silly thing is that your score and trainer praise are based on the outcome of what information the board collects. Take your feet off at the right times during a jack knife? 100% and excellent praise from your instructor... Even if you were doing them completely wrong! Do a Yoga pose expertly in perfect posture, but allow your foot to shake a little? Here's 70% and some admonition from your trainer. It's a disappointment to say the least, and it's unfortunate that the balance board is essentially a glorified, $100 weighing utility.

Wii Fit does include some mini-games to keep things fresh, however. Purported as "Balance games", these are basically some small time wasters that utilize the Balance Board as the input. Games include things like snowboarding, slalom skiing, catching fish on an ice berg, rolling a ball through a river maze, etc. While somewhat interesting diversions, realize that none of these games have any more depth than what you'd find in Wii Sports or Wii Play. In fact, most of them have less. What irks me about them more than anything isn't that they're poorly designed (although they are fairly uninspired). It's that the Balance Board didn't need to exist for any of these games to exist. One could just as easily tilt a Wii Remote and get virtually the exact same effect. All Nintendo has done here is changed the input slightly. The games don't prove that the Balance Board is valuable as a gaming device, but instead help to prove how unnecessary it is. It doesn't help that the board can sometimes take a while to recognize your actions correctly in some mini-games. For instance, there's a clear delay between the time you apply pressure to the front of the board, and the time it takes your skier to dive forward in Slalom. The Ice Berg game doesn't feel wholly accurate either. It's somewhat disappointing to be handed such plain, dull, mini-games that use the Balance board unimaginatively... Even if they're not really the focus to begin with. And believe me, these games aren't going to do a thing on their own to improve your basic balance.

But while real fitness and mini-games aren't the titles strongest points, aesthetics are definitely in Wii Fit's favor. The game has the same "clean" presentation that most other "Wii" titles have carried with them. Menus are large and very easy to navigate. If you want to get a particular exercise or game done, it's little effort to get right to it. There are easy to read charts that help to record your daily BMI and weight, and the game even allows you to password save this data for the privacy inclined. Wii Fit doesn't provide any unnecessary graphical clutter either, keeping the visuals to a minimum so as to keep it's purpose firmly in mind. Audio wise there's not much to speak of, though the ever cheerful, in-game trainers will talk to you and guide you verbally through exercises. For the most part, the fitness sim keeps to simple and calm workout tunes. Overall Wii Fit provides a very streamlined polish.

I realize I've been fairly negative for most of my review. But when you take all these things into consideration, Wii Fit leaves us in an awkward position. For $100, you're not getting the world's greatest fitness tool. You're essentially getting a weighing device that has some digital pressure sensitivity attached. For anyone who's a true fitness enthusiast, or even a more general one, I can't stress enough the disappointing nature of Wii Fit's training routines. It lacks honest fitness training, doesn't hold a new fitness enthusiasts hand enough, it has absolutely no way of accurately judging your workout and effort, and it doesn't offer enough fitness options. The whole bit about never needing to pay gym fees again is silly too. If you truly want a workout body, Wii Fit will never tone you the way a personal trainer or proper work out could. I think enough has already been said about the BMI fiasco as well. All I can add is my personal experience with it. A friend of mine who is half a foot shorter than I, but weighs 50lbs more than I in solid muscle, took the BMI test. Wii Fit told him he was well overweight, and gave him a poor fitness age. I think that alone speaks for Wii Fit's "accuracy" when it comes to judging one's level of fitness.

Yet, despite all this, Wii Fit still has many redeeming factors. For one it's definitely made some people more conscious of their health. For another, it actually will get you off your feet. Even if you don't do the exercises correctly you can still work up a decent sweat. If you really, truly make use of the game's exercises consistently, then Wii Fit can be good for you. It might not build any awesome muscle, and it certainly can't compare to proper hands on instruction, but it will get the heart pumping and the body moving. So even if it's not a cure all fitness tool, it certainly is one that can work well enough if given the chance.

That being said, you can get EXACTLY the same result from regular jogging (which is free!) or a pair of $5 Yoga dvd's. The main thing to remember here is that Wii Fit will give back what you put in, just like any other form of fitness. And for that reason, I'm giving it a five out of ten, simply because there's no accurate way to determine Wii Fit's individual value. It could be useless for one person and phenomenally helpful for another. And while a five sits right in the middle of those two, I'm only giving it a number because I'm being forced to. It's not a game, and it's value comes on such a personal level that Wii Fit doesn't require or inherit a numerical score at all, period.

So here is what Wii Fit comes down to: If you're a private person who fears the gym and lacks the motivation to do some daily running or take up a few Yoga classes, then Wii Fit might be for you... Might be, assuming that you retain the motivation to use it properly on a constant basis. Those who don't may find themselves staring bitterly at the $100, weight measuring, brick they purchased several weeks back, that did nothing to "cure" them of their fitness woes. Then again, those who do use it to its full potential will likely reap the excellent benefits of a regular, if not complete, workout. For people who are already true fitness enthusiasts, regular joggers/walkers/bikers, or are currently taking aerobics classes of any kind, Wii Fit won't be able to offer you anything you don't already have... Heck, it may in fact offer much less. So there you have it. This is Wii Fit. Purchase at your discretion ;-).

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 06/06/08, Updated 06/10/08

Game Release: Wii Fit (US, 05/19/08)