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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