Wii Fit?  Wii don’t think so
May 06, 9:30 am

When it comes to exercising, I fall into a mindset that is fairly common in the western world. I want to be active and get fit, but dragging myself out of my house and onto the treadmill is no easy task.

For starters, exercise can be expensive. Your average gym membership falls somewhere between £30 and £80 per month. Second, it’s hard to fit exercise into your daily schedule, especially when you have a sedentry job. Add to that a long commute (according to the RAC, the UK have the longest journeys to work in Europe), other commitments like homework, housework or family, and suddenly spending your already shortened free time sweating like a pig in a room full of strangers doesn’t look too appealing.

So what’s the solution? One idea is to make exercise more fun and convenient. That’s where Wii Fit comes in, the latest lifestyle offering from Nintendo. Part with £70 and you receive a Wii balance board (a set of wireless bathroom scales that track your balance as well as your weight), the game, and its promise to “change the way you think about exercise.” It’s already gone down a storm in mainstream circles (there were rumours Woolworths sold 90 copies per minute on launch day.) But is it actually any good?

Exercises are broken down into four categories - balance, aerobic, muscle and yoga. But before I could start pumping some iron (yeah, right!), I was treated to a quick Wii fitness test. Taking into account my BMI and a couple of tests on the balance board, the game declared my fitness age as 38. Ouch! Time to get fit then…

Note: You will look NOTHING like this when exercising

I decided to jump in at the deep end and try out some balance exercises. It is in this category that you find the more “gamey” parts of Wii Fit - shifting your centre of gravity on the balance board to perform tasks such as walking the tight rope and navigating through a river in a bubble. Maybe it’s because I generally have poor balance, but I found many of these exercises quite tough. After four days of attempts, I still can’t figure out how to swivel my hips properly for the Hula Hoop game. But when you consider that you’re supposed to use Wii Fit every day, it makes sense that some of the games require more time to master than others.

Muscle and Yoga exercises both use the virtual coach.  When registering for the game, you have to choose either a male or female trainer to explain the exercises and offer encouragement.

The Muscle exercises guide you through various repetitions involving squats, press ups, sit ups and so on.  You follow the moves of your on-screen trainer and timings from a Cooking-Mama-ish scrolling bar to complete each exercise routine.  Again, the difficulty of the exercises can range wildly depending on your personal strengths and weaknesses. The press ups were torture to my scraggly arms - however, despite messing up half of the exercise, I still got awarded three stars out of four, making me an exercise veteran. Wha?

Yoga was a big curiosity. I know fellow Frag Doll Jinx seems to love it, but all that stretching seemed a bit dull to me. Again, you have your virtual trainer to help you through the poses - from words of encouragement to noting your progress through the alignment of your balance via the balance board ("Your leg’s wobbling!"). However, with the balance board the only real way for the game to tell whether or not you’re positioned correctly, there’s a strong reliance on you quickly understanding the on-screen demonstration rather than taking much guidance from your tutor.

My favourite mode is jogging - more specifically, the Island Run.  This game - as with the majority - can be unlocked by accumulating enough minutes of time doing other excercises. Essentially this means that as long as you stick with it, the game will allow you to advance no matter what your level of skill. The Island Run is a great little mode, putting you onto a virtual lush landscape, with any and all of your fellow user-created (or Mii Channel-downloaded) Miis to keep your company, as you run on the spot to move through the world.  Unlike the other exercises, jogging requires you to step off the balance board, place the Wiimote in your pocket, and uses your movement to track your progress. Run too fast and you’ll be chided for having an uneven pace, knocking down your overall score. Although, to be honest - as experienced in the muscle games - sometimes the ranking seems like pot luck.  But hey, when you’ve got Brian Blessed and Pat Butcher as jogging buddies, who’s complaining, right?

But for all the innovation and fun that Wii Fit brings, there’s no getting round the fact that it probably can’t replace a gym membership or a real-world exercise routine. 

And in fairness to Wii Fit, it doesn’t really try to provide that. What it does provide is a top up or tune up, for those days when you can’t be bothered to go to the gym or jog around your street. The unlockable exercises (mostly spread between yoga and muscle) mean there’s a lot to keep you busy - if only for a few months until you get bored and shove it underneath the TV for all eternity. You can also unlock harder versions of most exercises, increasing your reps or time spent working.  Whether Nintendo will make the leap into new exercises via downloadable content is a temping idea for the future.  But I must note that all of the exercises - bar jogging - don’t have a two-player feature, which is a real shame.

So do I think it’s worth £70? Definately. Wii Fit undoubtedly has a good stab at getting us off the sofa and into a healthier lifestyle, through a wide range of exercises and allowing you to set your own goals. It’s a great example of how much diversity videogames can offer.  However, with copies of the game sold out across the UK, good luck getting your mitts on them.  Best get jogging off down to your local game store sharpish then, eh?