I’ve only been using it a few days, but I can tell you this much – Yes, it does help you.
Now, if you’re thinking ‘I’m gonna get a Wii Fit instead of a gym membership and get into that swimsuit!’ then I’m going to laugh at you. But. As my faithful (I think I have two now!) readers know, I screwed up my knee big time not all that long ago, and it’s been hard for me to do things like run or rollerblade or ice skate. So I want to do some Yoga balancing and strength training. I figured the Wii Fit and it’s balance board might help. And it does.
The Ugly
It’s honest. I’m overweight. It knows it. There also aren’t enough in-game explanations for the Fit Games. They just assume you know what the hell to do. Not so much. The book’s directions didn’t help much, and the Mrs got livid at the balancing until we sorted out what was wrong.
The Bad
While the UI is very intuitive, the leaning left and right to balance or aim doesn’t work quite how you think it should, so I got my ass handed to me playing soccer (you’re supposed to dodge shoes and head the balls) and anything with a slalom. On the other hand, the forward/backwards stuff is much easier. Also, you can’t skip through various intro texts, even if you’ve seen them a million times.
The Good
It really helps with your center of gravity. Seriously. Within one day, I’m remembering to walk better (I lean back a little bit) which makes my knee feel much better. Also, the Yoga can be set to rank-novice so they do the poses for shorter. I feel the stretch in my arms and legs and they make noises to remind you to breath. I’m totally in love with Rhythm Boxing, by the way. It’s just fun and sweaty. Wii Running was … weird, but kind of fun. If you don’t mind looking like a prat running in place. The scale matches my Weight Watchers scale, so I know it’s accurate. Which … actually that’s pretty good! A good scale can cost you up to $60, and the Wii Fit was $100. The trainers are amusing. The Mrs picked the guy, I picked the girl, and they’re both pretty helpful. If you’re screwing up while in a motion, they say things like ‘You’re leaning to the left. Look here.’ And they help you that way. I wish their mouths moved.
By the way, even though the ugly and the bad annoy you, the games are actually really fun. All your Mii characters are there with you. Since we’d made Cousin Dan and Jane (they’re coming over to bowl in two weeks), it cracked me up to have them doing step class with me.
As a sidebar, you can use this to measure your pets, so naturally we got our cats over. They are 12 and 9 pounds, so that’s not all that bad.
After 40 or 45 minutes of jumping around, I worked up a light sweat, could feel the burn in body parts, and best of all had FUN!
This is a Wiin.
Edit: The Mrs pointed out one other annoyance. She’s a lefty and the game doesn’t recognize that.