Slashdot Mirror
Consumer Reports Gets Its Game On
Itninja writes "A few days ago Consumer Reports posted their first report on a specific video game: Wii Fit. From the article: 'Our testers ranged in age from 24 to 69 and included 10 women and five men. Users ran the gamut from regular exercisers to mostly sedentary folks.' Will this be a harbinger of things to come? Will CR be reviewing the next installment of Gran Turismo?"
If you're going to say that Wii Fit is not a work out I'd point you at the Wii Sports Experiment. For six weeks this guy played Wii Sports agressively and lost 9 pounds. Is that a lot? No. But it did take him from a BMI of "overweight" to "normal". I can't imagine something that gets your whole body in to the workout while providing you with motivation (BMI and weight tracking) could be anything but more effective. Even if only slightly.
Then you should applaud Consumer Reports entering the gaming review market. They don't have any advertising and don't have anyone to please but subscribers. They even refuse to take donated equipment for reviews because of cherry picking and anonymously buy their gear through regular retail channels.
If we get the money out of the review process and really see some honesty...There is one ad on the page with the article. It is for a subscription to Consumer Reports. If you really want the money out of the process, go subscribe. I think it is well worth it for their great, independent assessments of cars, electronics, computer hardware, etc. Without a subscription, for example, I'd never have known Dell has brought their laptop line from near the bottom of the heap to near the top (just under the premium vendors) within just the last year.
If you want people to review things impartially with your interests in mind, pay them already. Otherwise, feel free to put up with reviews that are closer to PR releases
I have had the opportunity to play with the Wii Fit for a few days now. I like it. The style is very much like Brain Age and other training games on the Nintendo platforms. Some of the Aerobics and Balance games are fun to play with other people. It isn't setup to be competitive, but if you rotate profiles it works fine. Unfortunately many of the games don't have enormous amounts of replay-ability. It isn't long before you master each one and need to move up in difficulty. After you've perfected each one they are kind of repetitive and it doesn't take many days to get very good. As for the workout aspect, some of the exercises can get you to break a sweat, but most of them won't. The running in place exercises definitely can if you really put yourself into it. Rhythm boxing is also pretty good. I didn't do much of the yoga and strength training exercises, but it looks like they would be effective if you actually followed along with them.
The use of BMI without any warnings about the flaws of BMI is a little disappointing, but generally it is accurate enough for average people. Still, it is good to be aware of what BMI is, and they don't do anything to help you understand that.
Overall, I like it. I'd give it a 7 out of 10. You can really use it to work on your fitness. It probably won't guide you to being a top tier athlete, but just to stay in a reasonable shape I have little doubt it could work. Like most things at first it will be great, and then you will likely grow tired of it. You have to keep using it to get results, and there is no magic there. Like anything else you only get out of it what you put in. It nicely tracks your weight and BMI over time and provides graphs so you can see your progress over time. At first the games are lots of fun, but after the novelty has worn off (like with Wii Sports) the fitness stuff will remain for those willing to take it seriously.
I'm looking forward to future games using the Wii balance board. There is a lot of potential there for some incredible gameplay.
I own a Wii Fit. I'm also a martial artist. I bought the thing mostly so me and my girlfriend can work out together a little on the weekends.
Turns out, there are some exercises in there - in the advanced section that you have to unlock - that are quite a good workout even for me. Remember that in many cases, it isn't how much weight you lift or how fast you do something, but the number of repetitions. Also, all that yoga stuff and balance training is quite a good addition to my usual training.
There are also parts that I don't like that much (like having to start with the baby stuff, no matter what) but all in all it definitely is good exercise - as long as you don't consider it a total replacement of all other activities, but it does a good job of reminding you about that.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
You are clearly unfamiliar with anything the Wii Fit does. No, it isn't some professional sports star training regiment, nor is it meant to be. The Wii Fit has things broken into a number of categories, Yoga, Strength Training, Aerobics, and Balance Games.
Now, I'm no fan of yoga nor am I knowledgable enough on the subject to critique it.
The strength training exercises are the standard group of exercises that you would normally do, pushups/side planks, various leg lifts, jackknives, all the Wii Fit does is watch your center of balance and in some cases count what you are doing. It also does almost all of these excercises at an excruciatingly slow pace, which if you know anything about most strength training exercises is the correct way to do it. 30 very slow and controlled pushups will put a burn in your muscles far beyond 100 rocket fast pushups.
The aerobics piece is basically the same. The game does very little more than give you something to play along with while exercising. How much workout you get is entirely dependent on the effort you put into it, not what the game is doing. As you spend more time on the thing it unlocks more exercises and more options. The hulahoop thing on TV eventaully can go into longer time frames and it measures your balance and movement control while you are doing it.
The balance games are pretty amazing themselves. They force you to shift your center of balance around and are far more difficult than they look. I had major reconstructive surgery on my ankle and I thought it was getting quite a bit better until I played with this for a while. I realized that all I was doing was shifting more of my weight onto the opposite leg rather than really rehabilitating. These balance games are forcing me to rebalance my weight and build the muscles required for better stability.
Finally it lets you do little body tests every day for weight and body control and tracks that information. The game isn't meant to make you fit. The game is meant to give you motivation to get fit yourself, let you set goals and track them. The little beast is very effective at giving you a solid measure of progress.
I don't think this has anything to do with Nintendo trying to be a "responsible" gaming company. They did it because there was a demand for it and those devices are flying off shelves. I think it is obvious to anyone who has actually played with one of these that you probably haven't seen anything other than some commercials. Also, your S=$ isn't that clever. They are profiting off of a real demand, not some enforced monopoly status like MS. And the S=$ isn't even that clever there.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.