Wii Fit (Wii)

The second most fun way to move your body.
5/21/2008 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | Page 2 of 3

The highlights of the aerobics section are the Hula Hoop games. If you're a guy who would consider using a Hula Hoop a bit effete, wait until you get to do your hip-gyrating without a prop. By constantly keeping your hips rotating, you keep an on-screen Hula Hoop -- or two or three or four -- spinning. It's challenging, tiring, and strictly from a fitness point-of-view, it's incredibly beneficial. Loose and strong hips -- as opposed to the tight and weak hips that most folks have -- are a key to better performance in any sport and will help you stay free from lower back pain.

The balance games are also a kick. Because of the way that the Balance Board can detect even the slightest shifts from your left foot to your right and from your heel to your toe, you get to do all sorts of oddball and surreal things. By shifting your weight on the board, you're able to do everything from walking a virtual tightrope, to slaloming at high speeds down a mountain, to guiding multiple balls into holes on strange-shaped free-floating tables. The games all work to give you a better feel for how your body works and how to better control it. They're also all really good ways to put your balancing skills up against a buddy.

And that brings us to the yoga section. Amazingly, this isn't the first attempt to bring yoga to the videogame crowd. EyeToy: Kinetic -- an otherwise stellar exercise and movement game designed for the PlayStation 2 -- had a yoga section that was flat-out boring. Yourself! Fitness for the PS2 and Xbox also had a yoga component, but it was a tad too advanced and complicated for most. Here, the yoga is as easy -- leaning to one side in half-moon pose -- or as difficult -- standing on one leg for a while in tree pose -- as you want it to be. What makes it addictive is that it's scored. An on-screen red dot shows you where your center of gravity is and your job is to keep it inside a small target area. When you feel that your karma is more powerful than your pal's, it's time to go head-to-head. Most swank yoga studios would be horrified by your jamming your forefinger into another member's sternum and sarcastically yelling, "Nice tree pose, loser!" Here, it's completely acceptable.

Some of the yoga postures may get your qi energy flowing in a bad direction, though. Several poses require you to look away from the screen, which greatly affects your ability to control your center-of-gravity dot. You end up craning your neck to see the screen -- effectively taking you out of whatever beneficial, aligning and calming position you were in.

While Wii Sports scratched the surface of how the console can be used to get people into shape, Wii Fit takes the next logical evolutionary step. The balance board is an insanely innovative peripheral and the development team -- overall -- was creative in building intuitive, fun and productive fitness-themed mini-games for it. It isn't a perfect product, but -- again -- the plusses far outweigh the minuses. It'll be interesting to see how future releases make use of the balance board, but in the meantime, there aren't too many gaming moments more satisfying than fragging a friend yoga-style.