Our Wii Fit congratulated me today on five weeks of uninterrupted daily use. It could have been longer, but our holiday in Tenerife threw a spanner in the works.
With nearly forty hours of time racked up on the balance board, I still have a lot of fun working out on the Wii Fit. A couple of other titles, bought at the same time as our Wii, are still sitting on the shelf in their cellophane. That says enough, I think. The Wii Fit disc resides on a near-permanent basis in the Wii’s slot.
Although I can’t claim to have lost much weight by playing them, the balance games are still my favourite. I have achieved four star scores at all except Zazen, Ski Jump and Snowboard Slalom, at which I’m still pretty average. Football Heading, Ski Slalom, Table Tilt, Tightrope Tension, Balance Bubble and Penguin Slide, on the other hand, are much more my cup of tea.
Of those that offer advanced play modes, I have achieved four star scores there, too, except for Ski Slalom, at which I’ve so far only managed three stars in the more difficult setting. Heading, on the other hand, boasts a top ten score chart containing nothing but my perfect (655) scores. It took me quite a while to work up to that and I got plenty of criticism from Sarah for spending too much time on it.
Next favourite are the aerobics, of which the Super Hula Hoop, Rhythm Boxing and Step Plus are my activities of choice. I frequently also do the Jogging, although I enjoy it much less (and we have the much superior cross-trainer, if I really want a decent running session).
Getting four stars at the boxing is tough and I’ve only managed it once, even in basic mode. In advanced mode, I can’t even remember the moves it tells me to do, so it’s a bit of a non-starter, really.
I was useless at the Step games when I started, but am much improved now. I’ve managed to get within a couple of points of the maximum score, but a perfect routine still eludes me. Of course, it’s ultimately not about the score one achieves, but the exercise itself.
Less appealing to me are the muscle and yoga routines. Some of them are very hard for one who’s not very limber. Others are just really knackering; which is the point, I know, but since my main goal is to lose weight, I’m better off with a longer aerobics session. I’m lucky if I can score two stars on most of the yoga and muscle activities.
It has to be taken with a pinch of salt, but my Wii Fit age is usually a good few years younger than my actual age when I take my daily body test. Once or twice, it even told me I had the body of someone in their late twenties, although I’m sure it must have been a very fat young man, whoever it had in mind.
All in all, the Wii Fit is a terrific piece of software and very reasonably priced, when you consider that it’s supplied with the balance board. The Wii Fit was virtually unobtainable in most of Europe until a couple of months ago. Every time a few units came in, they were sold within minutes, so we had to be very patient before we finally managed to get hold of one. Nintendo has quite a hit on its hands.
Sarah, on the other hand, doesn’t like the balance games and prefers the yoga and muscle exercises. As you might imagine, she’s also a lot better at them than I am. Where our tastes meet is with the aerobic activities, which we both like to do.
The Wii Fit has garnered some criticism in certain quarters as not being a serious tool for anyone trying to get fit. It’s also said that almost no-one still uses it after the first month.
In the case of our family, that’s clearly not the case. Sarah and I still use it daily and enjoy doing so. Even Eloïse manages at least a body test on most days. If used with discipline on a daily basis, it can absolutely lead towards becoming fitter. As for those who don’t stick with it, you can’t blame the product for that. You may as well write off every diet that’s ever been devised, too, because there will always be people who abandon those after a few weeks, too.
If I have any criticism of the product at all, it’s that you can’t skip certain text screens when logging in for a new session. Some of the dialogue gets very repetitive when you use the system on a daily basis. It’s a minor quibble, though, with an otherwise excellent product.