My Fitness Coach (Wii)

...of a different review from my last game one, as this one was actually way worth the money.

Considering my age and lack of height, I am slightly steering into the overweight category, I still to this day partially blame it on an illness I had, because as soon as I got better my body seemed to find every piece of food I ate and distribute it somewhere on my body. I am not one for exercising though, I cycle weekly and walk just over a ...
...however, this did nothing for my weight loss as you controlled how much you did and there was not enough variety in each different section, it may be aimed at ‘losing weight’ but it never was able to do that for me.

Then I heard about My Fitness Coach, I did have a Davina McCall exercise DVD, but after using it, I not only got quite bored but I could barely move for a week afterwards, so I decided to give this game ago. I had traded ... more

This is a bit of a different review from my last game one, as this one was actually way worth the money.

Considering my age and lack of height, I am slightly steering into the overweight category, I still to this day partially blame it on an illness I had, because as soon as I got better my body seemed to find every piece of food I ate and distribute it somewhere on my body. I am not one for exercising though, I cycle weekly and walk just over a mile daily, however it doesn’t seem to get any weight off me at all, I don’t always eat the right things, but considering at college, ‘healthy options’ are almost three quid more than a fattening sandwich, it does start to get annoying.

When we brought the Wii back in 2008, we brought Wii Fit alongside it, however, this did nothing for my weight loss as you controlled how much you did and there was not enough variety in each different section, it may be aimed at ‘losing weight’ but it never was able to do that for me.

Then I heard about My Fitness Coach, I did have a Davina McCall exercise DVD, but after using it, I not only got quite bored but I could barely move for a week afterwards, so I decided to give this game ago. I had traded in a few games to GAME in the half term, and got a gift voucher with the money on, so decided to spend a little bit on this game. It was only £9.99 which is brilliant in my opinion for a game of this calibre.

What is My Fitness Coach?

My Fitness Coach is produced by UbiSoft and is exclusive to the Wii console. In the video game you get a combination of healthy and fun, and it allows you the user to create, engage and track your own fitness program.

Profile Creation

When you first use the game, you need to create a profile. This game is only cheap, and it does not use the Wii Balance board at all, if you have a balance board, then jump on their first to get your weight and then you have to enter it into this particular section. It’ll then ask you to measure your chest, bicep, waist and hips, you don’t have to do this, as I couldn’t because we have misplaced our tape measure, and even though we tried with a bendy ruler, it just wouldn’t work as well as I’m sure a tape measure would.

Setting up the profile is simple, you have to enter your age and height as well, and then I think they’ll base your workout on these things, so if you are slightly overweight for your height and age, then they’ll give you a more vigorous workout. They’ll also ask you to take a reading of your resting heart rate and then you’re moving heart rate.

Instructor

Then you meet Maya, a Sim like character who is incredibly lifelike, the graphics used to create this AI character is just fantastic, especially when she is taking you through all of the exercises, I have done game design at college, I hated every minute of it, but I know how hard it is to create something like this and make it so life like and intractable, so considering how cheap this game is, it’s out of this world.

Workout

After going through the profile section, you are then ready to begin. The reason why I prefer this game, to the exercise video, is because you can choose how long you want to exercise for. The first day I went on it, I only did 15 minutes and I suffered for days afterwards.

The workout begins with you choosing where you want to work out, then her getting the beat to the music, once she has done that, and then you will see a scroll bar at the bottom of the screen. It rolls from right to left and it tells you how long you have remaining for a particular piece of the workout.

The workout does let you rest a bit throughout, the instructor usually stretches out or gets ready for the next fitness bit, but it usually ends with me panting on the floor willing for the workout to finish. These 10 second or so segments are life savers through a 45 minute or hour workout, so take advantage of them.

You will find if you don’t like a particular exercise, then she’ll make you do it for 3 minutes straight, there was one of them, that I could feel messing with my back (swimming one) and she kept me doing it for about 2/3 minutes, and by the end I literally had sweat poring off me.

Exercise Regimes

When you start your exercise you get to choose from the following segments:

Cardio
Yoga
Upper Body
Core Body
Flexibility

Not only is that a wide range of things to choose from, depending on your profile and what you sorted out when you first went on the game, it’ll have a star by one of the types of exercises, this is the exercise that My Fitness Trainer recommends that you do to help you with your goal.

Music

On the workouts you can choose what music you want to workout to, I myself after a few sessions found the music they use quite boring, so I created my own CD with good up beat songs which I stuck into my CD player on full volume, when you have good music like that, it really helps motivate you and keeps you going.

Space

Our living room is pretty tiny, so if you want to exercise in a small room it might be a bit tough as she does require you to move about a lot, I tried exercising with my sister yesterday and it was very hard to do the exercises with both of us in the room. You don’t need a whole lot of space, however if your coffee tables in the middle of the room, you might need to move it for when you are doing exercises as you do take up the whole room really if you are trying hard enough. You may also have trouble if you’re doing it in a room where you can’t lay fully stretched on your back, we struggled to begin with as I had made a mess in the living room.

Comparison to Wii Fit

Okay, you have to compare this game to the Wii Fit. There is no other way about it, I found the Wii Fit to be brilliant when I first started it, however I have barely used it in 2009 as it just started to get on my nerves slightly. The trainers on that game started repeating themselves all the time, which did get quite annoying after a while, as well as that if you did crunches for a certain amount of time, you would then have to find the wii remote to click on another excerise. It was time consuming, but this game gives you 15 + minutes of pure exercise with no breaks other than the resting periods.

Annoyances

It does ask you repeatedly throughout if you found the exercise easy, or if you were working hard, or if you were struggling to catch up. This usually meant me having to go in search of the wii remote again just to answer this. It did get on my nerves, but I understand why it’s there, if you click the no sweat one, then she’ll increase the difficulty of the workout, if you struggle to keep up then she’ll lower the difficulty. It makes sense, but it did get quite tedious after a while.

Final Opinion

In about a week I managed to lose about 4 pounds already, I have been really good with my eating habits as well and enjoying the lovely weather by going out for long walks and cycling. You can also get extra credits with the game by doing things like walking or cycling which is fantastic that it takes them into consideration.

This is probably the best game that I have found on the Wii so far, so far all of the others have been tedious and really didn’t take use of the technology that is out there now. It might have been nice with this game to include the Wii Balance Board every now and then so they can check your BMI and weight, so that no one cheats, however for what you are paying you really get what you think you should get.

I wish I had a lot more time, as I would spend quite a few hours on this a day, like most exercise videos or things like this, you do have to be careful with overdoing yourself, the next day after my first session, my stomach was killing me as I had done quite a few crunches the day before. If you make sure you do as much as you know your body can handle then you should be fine. Remember, no pain, no gain.

Graphics

I think the graphics in this game are amazing; I’m going to compare them to the most recent game I’ve brought which is Wii Music. In Wii music you use your mii’s which are little floating heads and bodies with no legs or arms and are pretty tacky looking however with the Fitness Trainer, you get a pretty life like looking trainer, which is so interactive it’s fantastic. She really shows you every exercise fantastically well.

Sound

I wasn’t too keen on the music provided but I think that is my own taste coming through. It is very easy to understand what she is saying, and the nice beat in the background will keep you motivated as well. Overall the sound is pretty good, I’ve heard better before and that is why it’s got a 7/10 not a 10/10.

Attention Span Needed

To be honest, If you really want to lose weight then this game is for you, you will find yourself going back to it, so you don’t really need much of an attention span if you are committed to losing weight. If you’re not, then I think you may have trouble coming back to the game, because it is hard, it can be painful afterwards and some people may not want to deal with that.

Price

At £9.99 you really are getting a bargain here, it is a fully interactive fitness game, which gives you fantastic workouts, all of which change daily. To get it for this price, either go into your nearest Game store and look at the pre-owned section or go onto amazon.co.uk.

Is it Fun?

It actually is surprisingly, I really found myself enjoying it, you do look like a bit of a twit doing some of the exercises but you can make a joke and giggle out of the game if you wanted to, especially with the difficulty control, as you can get people who hate exercising doing the worst of the worst kind of exercises.

Should You Buy This Game?

It might have been nice to have a bloke AI as well as Maya, she’s very good, but I think the choice would have made the game even better. Maybe the guy could do more vigorous exercises compared to Maya or something like that.

The game itself is fantastic, I brought it pre-owned from Game at £9.99 but I’m sure you can get it other places for good prices as well. If your looking on Play.com you are looking at paying £18 so stay away from that and maybe look at amazon which has it for the same price that I brought it for.

If you look at this game in comparison to the Wii Fit then I think the Wii Fit is better for more having fun exercises, however this game is much better for actually losing weight and toning yourself up. The price difference is amazing, I think the Wii Fit is still about £70 but the Fitness Coach is just a tener.

(C) 2009 Kirsty

 

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