Score
Gameplay:	9
Graphics:	6
Sound:	7
FunFactor:	9
PlasmaFactor:	9
Overall:	8

Wii Fit Review
May 28, 2008 by Peter Skerritt

After what’s seemed like months of hype—combined with disdain from hardcore gamers worldwide—Nintendo has finally delivered Wii Fit to retailers. Wii Fit isn’t so much a game as it is an entertaining fitness program that revolves around the Wii Balance Board, an impressive peripheral that measures weight and motion. The visuals won’t win any awards, and there’s no way to “beat” Wii Fit, but there are hours upon hours of physical enjoyment that can be had here.

Feel the burn, people! 

The first session with Wii Fit asks players for a few pertinent pieces of personal information, and then proceeds to weigh the player. The player’s BMI—or Body Mass Index—is then displayed, along with the player’s weight. These numbers may surprise some, and then seeing your on-screen avatar, or Mii, grow a bit of a pot belly if you’re overweight or obese may make you blush a little. That’s not necessarily a bad feeling, though, as Wii Fit relies on this a bit to generate motivation for the player. At this point, Wii Fit then asks you to create a personal goal and accompanying deadline for yourself. You determine how much weight you want to try to lose in a certain amount of time, allowing for flexibility and the ability to work this training into your regular routine. 

In order to reach this goal, Wii Fit presents players with a variety of activities centered in four general areas: Yoga, Strength Training, Aerobics, and Balance Training. Each of these four areas has its own set of activities that you can select to participate in. Yoga presents a variety of different stances and poses, focusing on keeping a player’s balance as the Balance Board detects your center of balance and grades you on how consistently centered you are. Strength Training challenges you to different exercises, such as push-ups, planks, jackknives, bends, and more. After some repetition and measured success in these Strength exercises, you’ll be granted the ability to increase the number of reps per session. Aerobic exercises put your body in motion, presenting Hula Hoop, step, and running activities. Lastly, balance exercises are as close to games as Wii Fit gets. These activities include ski jumps and slalom events, a table tilt exercise that closely resembles a tabletop game called Labyrinth, and a soccer event which challenges you to head soccer by tilting your weight from side to side. 

As players participate in these exercises, credits are accrued based on how many minutes of training that have been completed. As these credits build up, more activities are unlocked for use, which ramps up Wii Fit’s replay value even more. Despite “feeling the burn”, there’s always that feeling that you just want to try one more activity to see if you can unlock something else. These unlockables are good rewards to keep players interested and continue training until all everything is unlocked. There are also high scores that are tracked for each activity, so competitive players may be continually drawn back to Wii Fit in order to best their own records—or maybe a friend’s records. 

For each day of training, players can participate in a Body Test, which weighs the player and then determines the player’s Wii Fit Age after a series of balance tests. These tests are picked at random, and vary from a simple walking test to shifting your weight to control an on-screen ball as you direct it towards destroying some blue boxes. The tests don’t take long, and then all of your results are posted in graph form so that you can monitor your progress. 

It’s worth noting just how well that Wii Fit incorporates the Balance Board for use. Sure, you might be able to do a half-moon pose for Yoga, but how well can you balance? The Balance Board can tell you… and it’s eye-opening to watch after an activity is completed to see just how much (or how little) that your balance shifted. The Balance Board serves multiple purposes in Wii Fit and handles them all extremely well. It’s also pretty well-built, too; there is a weight limit of 300 pounds, but it stands up to regular wear and tear with few problems. If there’s one complaint about the Balance Board, it’s that the leg extensions, which are supposed to be utilized if the Balance Board is being used on a rug or carpet, aren’t exactly secure and tend to fall off if the Balance Board is moved. 

Sight for sore thighs 

Much like Wii Sports before it, Wii Fit isn’t exactly a graphics revolution. The visuals have plenty of jagged edges to them, there’s not a whole lot of detail, and the presentation looks extraordinarily simple. The good news is that the frame rate never falters, and that the graphics are functional enough to serve their purpose. Interestingly enough, the animations for the on-screen trainers are fairly impressive, as they demonstrate and then lead you in Yoga and Strength Training exercises. It’s similar to watching a virtual training program. 

The sounds of progress 

Similarly to the graphics, Wii Fit’s sounds and music are pretty average. The music ranges from peppy workout jingles to new age tracks to pose like a Warrior by. Chances are that many players will lean towards wearing an MP3 player while working out; however, there are specific audio cues for certain exercises that must be followed in order to score well. There is some in-game speech as well, mostly from your on-screen trainer. Once the trainer walks you through an exercise, there’s plenty of repetition in what is said… and some of the lines don’t even really pertain to what you’re doing at that point in time. The sound and music are by no means obtrusive or bad; they’re just functional and don’t really add to the overall experience. 

Measuring PlasmaFactor 

Going on personal experience, as a person whose workout routine consists of maybe a couple of decent walks per week, Wii Fit has convinced me to work out more regularly, and with more varied activities. The game is quite user-friendly and never really comes off as gruff or demanding; you may get a casual reminder if you miss a few days, but that’s about it. While some of the exercises are pretty demanding, many others are accessible for players of all levels of physical ability. The most rewarding part of Wii Fit is to see evidence of your progress as your weight drops and your scores improve in many of the activities, plus Nintendo’s trademark method of gradually unlockable content makes for a pretty deep experience that keeps players coming back. 

Cooling down 

Wii Fit is a good way for players to get some physical activity in without feeling like it’s a droll workout. It’s presented in a laid-back and entertaining fashion, but the game attempts to compel players to keep at it as they strive for weight loss goals. It’s very easy to set aside even 30 minutes of workout time and have it fly by while using Wii Fit as a fitness tool. There is plenty to do and even more to unlock just by sticking to your routine and giving some playing time to Wii Fit regularly. It’s by no means a replacement for heavy-duty time at the gym, and better fitness starts with a monitored and well-balanced diet, but Wii Fit gets you up and moving like very few other games before it. It’s not a game, but rather a healthy and motivating experience.