In this review, I will not be talking about whether Wii Fit will make you thin—if you want that angle, Dean's got your back. I will not be echoing the oft-made complaint about the use of BMI and how it doesn't take into account muscle mass and such. Soccer moms, "non-games", etc.: all verboten. Instead, as I wrap up my fourteenth day with Nintendo's gigantic new accessory and accompanying software, I'm going to take a stab at telling you why I think it's done something a bit more nebulous and immeasurable: I think it's improved my physical capability.
I had a little "moment of truth" last evening. You see, I'm a pretty sedentary guy; early 30's, desk job, commute to work, park in the recliner at home for hours to play DS, have logged 100+ hours on some RPGs, and the like. As a result, my muscles haven't been used nearly as much as they were when I was working shipping in my early 20's. When I first brought Wii Fit home, there were a few yoga poses I just could not do; trying to stand on one foot and pull my knee to my chest would topple me within five seconds. But last night, after nearly two weeks of daily yoga and strength training, I found I could relatively easily last throughout the entirety of these previously-challenging poses. I credit Wii Fit with improving—at least slightly—my physical shape.
The key to how Wii Fit helped me get to this point, I think, is in how the software and hardware work together to give you feedback in practically everything you do. Wii Fit treats physical fitness like a game: you don't just watch some lithe fitness model do poses and try to approximate their movements; you are challenged and scored on whatever the Balance Board and Remote can sense you doing as you work through the various exercises. For me, this means that I am completely focused on what I am doing. Going through the motions is not an option. I am in it to win the "game of fitness".
Literally everything you do has a score attached, for better or for worse. Many of the scoring systems are excellent; I know what I have to try better at to best my score or the scores of my family (yes, Wii Fit has high score tables for fitness activities. How cool is that?) Some do, unfortunately, feel sort of contrived. In particular, though the balance tests that follow your daily weigh-ins are good and scored well individually, they're used to calculate Wii Fit's own instance of Nintendo's increasingly silly "x Age" measurements that have been making appearances in all their training games. I may feel physically invigorated over how I was when I started, but my Wii Fit Age is all over the map, at least until I become some sort of balance Zen master. I'd rather they have dropped the Age concept entirely and just charted my performance at the individual balance tests.
Thankfully, the other graphs are more useful. There's the much-maligned BMI, of course, but I ignore it as I already have an actual target weight in mind; Wii Fit tracks my progress toward this nicely. One of the neater features is how it asks you to think about the causes of larger weight gains; your answer to this question is remembered and will pop up when you look back at those bad days. Time spent in Wii Fit activities is also tracked in a bar chart, letting you look back at your dedication levels; for those who have existing extra-Fit workout activities as I do, those can be added as well. I do wish the weight chart had statistical smoothing, as I mentioned in my original impressions; it can be difficult to see a trend among the ups and downs of daily weigh-ins.
Time will, of course, tell if I stick with Fit in the months to come. I was a pretty dedicated Brain Age player, too, for about two months; what killed that for me, I think, was that it was really just got too easy too quickly. In contrast, I've got plenty of room for improvement with Wii Fit, in contrast; exercises I've not yet even tried, improvements in balance and movements that I can make in the existing activities, and so on. In the meantime, I'm quite pleased at how it's been to me so far. Nintendo's not just disrupting gaming; they're bringing gaming elsewhere as well. Wii Fit is an excellent example of their success at this.
I had a little "moment of truth" last evening. You see, I'm a pretty sedentary guy; early 30's, desk job, commute to work, park in the recliner at home for hours to play DS, have logged 100+ hours on some RPGs, and the like. As a result, my muscles haven't been used nearly as much as they were when I was working shipping in my early 20's. When I first brought Wii Fit home, there were a few yoga poses I just could not do; trying to stand on one foot and pull my knee to my chest would topple me within five seconds. But last night, after nearly two weeks of daily yoga and strength training, I found I could relatively easily last throughout the entirety of these previously-challenging poses. I credit Wii Fit with improving—at least slightly—my physical shape.
The key to how Wii Fit helped me get to this point, I think, is in how the software and hardware work together to give you feedback in practically everything you do. Wii Fit treats physical fitness like a game: you don't just watch some lithe fitness model do poses and try to approximate their movements; you are challenged and scored on whatever the Balance Board and Remote can sense you doing as you work through the various exercises. For me, this means that I am completely focused on what I am doing. Going through the motions is not an option. I am in it to win the "game of fitness".
Literally everything you do has a score attached, for better or for worse. Many of the scoring systems are excellent; I know what I have to try better at to best my score or the scores of my family (yes, Wii Fit has high score tables for fitness activities. How cool is that?) Some do, unfortunately, feel sort of contrived. In particular, though the balance tests that follow your daily weigh-ins are good and scored well individually, they're used to calculate Wii Fit's own instance of Nintendo's increasingly silly "x Age" measurements that have been making appearances in all their training games. I may feel physically invigorated over how I was when I started, but my Wii Fit Age is all over the map, at least until I become some sort of balance Zen master. I'd rather they have dropped the Age concept entirely and just charted my performance at the individual balance tests.
Thankfully, the other graphs are more useful. There's the much-maligned BMI, of course, but I ignore it as I already have an actual target weight in mind; Wii Fit tracks my progress toward this nicely. One of the neater features is how it asks you to think about the causes of larger weight gains; your answer to this question is remembered and will pop up when you look back at those bad days. Time spent in Wii Fit activities is also tracked in a bar chart, letting you look back at your dedication levels; for those who have existing extra-Fit workout activities as I do, those can be added as well. I do wish the weight chart had statistical smoothing, as I mentioned in my original impressions; it can be difficult to see a trend among the ups and downs of daily weigh-ins.
Time will, of course, tell if I stick with Fit in the months to come. I was a pretty dedicated Brain Age player, too, for about two months; what killed that for me, I think, was that it was really just got too easy too quickly. In contrast, I've got plenty of room for improvement with Wii Fit, in contrast; exercises I've not yet even tried, improvements in balance and movements that I can make in the existing activities, and so on. In the meantime, I'm quite pleased at how it's been to me so far. Nintendo's not just disrupting gaming; they're bringing gaming elsewhere as well. Wii Fit is an excellent example of their success at this.