Yeah, this was also my first thought. It’s really not very healthy running up and down on the spot (your joints take a serious pounding), but it would probably work very well combined with a treadmill. Can’t help speculating on how to combine it with my exercise bike, which would be useful during the winter…
How’s the Yoga stuff?
It sounds like you get the complaints just fine. They are one hell of a workout. Hence the kicking of my ass.
I’ve never done yoga before so it’s been pretty fun for me. (I’ve done a little Tai Chi with my extended family.) The forms are interesting and challenging, particularly the one-legged ones like the “tree” pose. You score according to balance, which is a bit odd. I feel like the best way to do yoga would be with an instructor who could critique your pose; all Wii Fit does is show how much your weight is shifting around. (It’s usually accurate in saying that you’re unsteady, but you tend to already know that.)
As with everything else in Wii Fit, it’s not nearly as good as having a personal trainer, but it’s not a bad substitute.
So is anyone planning to develop something with actual fitness routines?
I finally got around to setting this up last night. These are some really early impressions (about 1hr). I’ve tried probably less than half the mini games errr ummm “exercises” so far.
- I had two of them pre-ordered from gamestop at $90 each. I’m going to give one to my dad for Father’s Day.
- According to the instructions it seems like only one balance board can be used at a time which is a shame since I could definitely see some interesting co-op opportunities.
- Pairing the board was a bit odd. I kept trying to do it from the Wii Home screen which apparently doesn’t work. Instead, boot the Wii Fit disc and when it asks you to pair the device, do it then and it works just fine. This wasn’t exactly explicitly mentioned in the manual. The manual mentioned something like up to 10 wireless devices can be paired with a wii, and the board uses player slot #4.
- Uses 4XAA batteries, completely wireless, nice big power button that you can hit with your toe.
- It’s surprisingly heavy, comes with some extra feet to raise the board for thick carpet. Oh and it works just fine on carpet. I was surprised how accurate the weight was (within 1 pound of my Tanita Scale).
- My BMI is 24 so I’m just on the cusp of being overweight. It lets you set a BMI goal and a time period to achieve it yet it doesn’t seem to draw up some sort of daily routine required to reach that goal so I’m not sure what the point is exactly except I guess to let you track your progress.
- I haven’t tried any of the strength games, did the aerobic ones, one yoga, and all the unlocked balance games up through the tight rope. I think the only thing that even got my heart pumping was jogging, and you don’t even use the board in that one. I did find running through the virtual park kind of fun though. The balance games are quite amusing. My 6 yr old’s favorite is the ski jumping. I like how the ski games not only let you lean side to side to steer but also forward to go faster.
- There is one game where you have to tilt a board to sink marbles into a hole. My 3 yr old was having some issues with shifting his body weight instead of his head/upper body. So my 6 yr old decided to help him by pushing him around sort of like a human joystick. It actually worked quite well! Instant co-op mode!
- Everything seems so balance centric in this game. You might as well call it Wii Balance. I half expected a mini game where you would have to balance on the edges of a row boat, practicing punches with your wii mote/nunchuck, while some old guy keeps rocking the boat to try and knock you off. Hmm…that actually sounds pretty cool.
- Calibration seems to work quite well and is very specific to the player. I’m guessing it adjusts stuff like sensitivity based on the player’s weight. So you have to go through all these menus just to switch players. When my 6 yr old jumped on the board with my profile he could barely get it to register weight shifts. So you really have to create separate profiles for every unique player.
We Ski
- I picked this up for $30 hoping it would be something like Alpine Racer from the arcades since it is released by Namco. Unfortunately, it’s not for the most part.
- I only had a chance to spend a few minutes in the free roam mode with this game so these are really early impressions.
- I do ski in real life and have gone several times (mostly blues and some blue/blacks).
- Don’t go expecting SSX. The pace is a lot slower. the trails are more tame (or can you say realistic?).
- Basically the board is only used for steering left/right. It doesn’t seem like leaning forward or back has any effect. The remote/nunchuck are just used for mushing with the poles. It would have been nice if each controller part tracked each pole independently . Again, I see so much potential here for a more realistic and immersive control scheme and it just all seems so dumbed down for the kids and the masses. There does seem to be a bit more to the controls like how to tackle moguls but I haven’t read the manual or done the ski school thing yet. So there might be a bit more depth I haven’t tapped into yet.
- The leaning to steer does feel pretty good though. It actually felt a bit like I was skiing…sort of. Heh I found myself trying to keep my weight on the down hill skill but ummm yeah without the slope it’s kind of awkward.
- Sense of speed is ok. You have to mush quite a bit to traverse some spots or just to give yourself a speed boost.
- The mountain is small, and I mean way small. You could probably hit every trail in 30-45 min. Kind of nice you can watch yourself ride the lifts (or just skip them) with some classic namco soundtracks like ridge racer going in the background.
- The slopes are pretty well populated. There are all these people to talk to. what is this, animal ski crossing?
So far it’s a pretty fun toy. The kids are really enjoying it. I see a lot of potential in the balance board. It’s built quite well. As far as “fitness”? Well, I need more time to find out. At least it gets your butt out of the chair.
It seems that pairing thing isn’t mentioned in the Wii Fit manual, but it’s definitely in the separate Balance Board Manual that comes in the box.
Heh I guess I haven’t read that one. It’s just not exactly consistent since you can pair all the wiimotes in the home menu.
My wife and I are enjoying it so far. My only complaint would match Tom, it’s a little annoying just picking different balance and exercises to do to make up a workout. It would be great if you could set up a 30-45 minute window and have it tell you what to do.
I haven’t looked yet, but can you compete against other Wii users to hit BMI goals or anything?
I went to the Nintendo World Store the other day and they had some 40 Wii Fit stations set up. Each and every single one was being used with kids, teens, adults, and even grandparents. It was insane.
Arise chicken!
For those of you that may not know, I own a wii. I also own the wii fit and when wii fit plus came out I ran out and got my grubby little hands on it first thing. The long and short of it is, I really like it and think it’s definitely an improvement to the wii fit, although there are some things I wish it included.
The new aerobics games are really fun. Snowball fights where you get to pelt the mii of your mom in the face? Hells yes. The chicken game where it dresses your mii up in a little chicken suit and you have to flap your arms like a moron in the safety of your own living room to try to land on different platforms? Hard and fun. The marching band game where your Elite Beat Agent and DDR fans can get their fill of marching to the beat on the board while flicking your wrists so your mii can get in on some color guard action. The better you are at this game the more your maching band grows. Screw it up and people will leave you to go follow the beat of someone else’s drum.
I enjoy the new yoga and strength exercises, but what I really love are the routines. Being able to plug in the things I like to do all in a row rather than having to stop, switch menus and select them is a big plus. The only failing here would have to be that you can’t seem to add any of the aerobics games to this list. Maybe there’s a way and I just haven’t figured it out, but I’d like to get some boxing game action in there along with my bridges and jackknives. The little bundles of routines the game offers are also pretty fun to go through if you don’t want to set up your own.
The calorie counter is also welcome, though I’m not sure how accurate it is. Ah well, it’s still nice to have a vague idea of what you’re doing. The other calorie thing, the list of stuff you can then eat, is kind of silly. It’d be nice if they designed some kind of interface so you could input what you’ve eaten that day rather than looking at just a list of food items (some very random) and their calorie counts, but whatever. It lets you dress your mii up like a giant chicken and flap your arms so hard your shoulders will hurt for days. I’ll let the weaknesses slide and say it’s good and if you’ve already got the wii fit you should go get this.
Edited to add: Oh it lets you weigh your pets too. Which, I admit, I was excited to do. It created little miis for them which are customizable. But then it doesn’t let you dress them up like a chicken or force them to do any exercises so, eh. The little meows still make me giggle though.