Nintendo Wii Review: Wii Fit

Got Wii Fit at launch; didn't want to say much about it till we'd spent a few days with it. We were all over it the night we got it, then somehow went a week without touching it again. But that's not to say it's bad; far from it. We just got busy and, as adults so often do, put fitness on the back burner.

If you have a Wii, this should be in your collection. Plain as that. Sure, it's almost twice as much as a normal game, but the Balance Board has a lot more tech to it than the Zapper or Power Pad. It can weigh you, sense your balance, posture, and a bevy of other pressure-related things. It'll get you doing yoga before you know it, strength training, aerobics, and all sorts of other balance/fitness-related minigames. It keeps track of how much you do each activity, much the way Brain Age did on the DS for its mental monkey bars, allowing you to unlock more activities, and more advanced forms of those already available. It tracks your total time in each category of activity, weight, BMI, Wii Fit age (based on actual age, balance, BMI, weight, height, etc.), and also allows you to enter real-world activity into the log to keep track of how much you're doing outside of the game, though it doesn't seem to let you enter specifics of the activity besides how hard of a workout it was.

It keeps comparative records for anyone who plays on the console as well. All this adds up to a competitive and addictive experience, which is something I never expected to say about doing the Half-Moon Pose or simulated slalom skiing. If you keep it near the TV, you'll be compelled to do it every day, trust me. And it's fun.

The various menus between activities can slow down the pace, but opening up longer runs, more reps, and entirely new activities helps you ramp up and stay busy longer.  Personally, I think the small cooldown between activities works fine, and considering most people investing in this sort of workout probably have at least a little room for improvement physically, starting small and building up makes sense. 

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Mark Buckingham (not to be mistaken for the comic book artist) is an avid freelance writer, gamer, techhead, reader, movie watcher, pianist, and hockey player. Try to keep up.

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