So you jumped on the Wii Fit Bandwagon a few years ago when the game first came out and were impressed with the system, the balance board, and the game. Then where is the balance board now?
Well, if you stuffed the board under the bed after you got bored silly with the simplistic workouts and lack of customization that the Wii Fit served up, you may have a good reason to pull the balance board out again and hook it back up to the Wii. It may now have a place back in the living room with the Wii wheel, the Zapper and the rest of your Wii accessories.
The newest version of the Wii Fit aims to address all of these complaints and get you back on your balance board and back in shape. The Plus model is the sequel to Wii Fit and although there are the same workout routines as in the Wii Fit, it also comes with a bunch of new functionality and features. It is really just new features added to the same interface but the overall effect is that is makes the game and the workouts much more realistic in terms of the time it takes to actually complete a workout that is customized for you.
There are issues with this latest game as well, but they are not so glaring as the problems the Wii Fit had and the improvement that has been made to the interface, the additional exercise routines, and the customization more than make up for minor quirks. This new game is also much better positioned to go head to head with the immensely popular EA Sports Active which took advantage of the shortfalls in Wii Fit.
The reason the Wii Fit originally got so much press and so many people excited about exercise again was the revolutionary Nintendo technology that tracked your movements via the Wii Fit balance board and the nunchuk and mimicked these movement to the TV screen. You wanted to “score” 25 sit ups just like shooting down 25 alien spaceships and so it piggybacked the exercise with our love of playing games, our competitive nature, and groundbreaking new gaming technology. You also wanted to get it right when the game told you that you were doing something wrong or your center of balance was off. And the virtual trainer cheered you on!
The main problem with the game though was that while you could find little 2 minute exercise routines to follow, but there was no cohesive way to create and save a workout routine. The menu system was confusing and the overall effect was that it would take you 30 minutes to do a 15 minute workout circuit with lots of menu switching along the way. And that was after you knew what you were doing. Ultimately, the cool technology wore off, and all but the die-hard Wii Fit fans either switched to another game like EA Sports Active or they just quit using the Wii for exercise.
The new Plus model does fix most of the shortfalls of the first version Wii Fit. There are now custom workout routines that you can create and save. If you want to do some sit ups, then jog the track for 10 minutes, and cap it all off with a yoga routine, you can stitch all of that together and the game will save the exercises for you to play again another time. This is huge.
There are now suggested routines that come pre-programmed for things like aerobic workout, calorie burn, warm up, etc. I did not find this as useful as I know some other people might find it, but I do think it is a nice addition. Also new is the Training Plus module that shows all of the new features in a quick access menu so you can get up to speed quickly with the new features in the Plus. And finally, the new game content like skateboarding is nice. It definitely adds some fun and spice to the system and should keep many of the people that complained about the dull workouts in Wii Fit happy.
Overall the Plus is a solid upgrade to the original. It is not all new, but more like needed content and features that should have been there in the first place have now been added. And it is still not the best workout game for the Wii and the Wii Fit Balance Board. But, it is definitely a solid game and a good introductory game for working out with the Wii.