The Wii Fit

Friday I stopped by Sears/K-Mart on the way home on the off-chance they'd just received a Wii Fit or two, but they hadn't. Not only did they have not have any in stock, but the girl said they'd received four units at release (late May), and that was it. Now I knew this thing was in high demand but I didn't realize just how limited its supply really was.

That night Liz and I went out for sushi. We stuffed ourselves, so Liz wanted to stop by Marshall's and do some shopping, to "walk off the full tummy". Next to the Marshall's is a Toys R Us, so I said I'd pop in while Liz parked the car, just on the off chance they had a Wii Fit in stock.

I found the Wii Fit display stand and lots of Wii Fit peripherals and accessories. Wii Fit Towels, Wii Fit Yoga Mats, Floor Mats, carrying cases. You name it, Nintendo had it...all except for the Wii Fit itself. I looked around. Mucho units of Guitar Hero for every console. Rock Band? Check! But no Wii Fit. Then the sales girl approached and asked if she could help me.

I smiled, assuming I already knew the answer, and said "I don't suppose you have any Wii Fits in stock?"

She smiled back and said, "Actually we do."

I stopped and stared. "Really?"

"We just got some in," she said.

I promptly called Liz and told her to bring the $20 Gift Card she had with her in the car.

"I'll be right there," she said, hanging up on me, and almost seconds later she was.

Thoughts of Marshall's and clothes shopping were thrown out the door.

We were getting a Wii Fit!

As we paid for it I asked the girl, "Is this the last one? Do you have any more?"

"Why do we want another one?" Liz asked me.

"Shh," I replied, "it wouldn't be polite to say in front of the sales girl that we planned to sell the second one on eBay."

Liz did not let me buy a second one :P

In the car I said to Liz, "Do you think Nathan wants one? I'm going to call him."

Nathan didn't want one. And we didn't go back and buy a second one, either.

So now, without further ado, I give you my review of Wii Fit.

* * * * *

THE WII FIT

Is it fun?
Yes, it is, and it has a few "Easter Eggs" as well. It's also rather rude. When you "register" your Mii at the Wii Fit Plaza, it asks for your height and age, then it calculates your BMI, which I disagree with. The BMI is archaic and fails to take into account that some people have a slender frame, while others, such as myself, are built rather solidly with broad chest & shoulders. But that's a problem with the BMI, not with the Wii Fit.

The Wii Fit then conducts its first Body Test where it measures your Center of Gravity (CoG) to determine if you stand with your weight more on one side of your body than the other. Most people probably do. You then play your first "mini game" of sorts where the Wii Fit asks you to shift your weight from one side of the Balance Board (BB) to the other, in varying increments. You're presented with two bars showing how much of your weight is being distributed to either side of your body, and a target line where you have to shift your weight to the left (but not all of it) to get the measurement bar to hit the target bar...and keep it there, for three seconds.

Easy enough the first time because the target bar is rather large, but the Wii Fit then repeats the test with you needing to shift your weight to the right, and now the target bar is smaller. Shift too much of your weight and you go past the target bar and need to shift your weight back a bit, but just a bit! Now hold it for three seconds...and...shift your weight back to the left, to hit an even smaller target bar. Do this five times in total, with the target bar getting smaller each time, and do so within 30 seconds.

(What I liked is that during almost every event there is a mini-map in the top right corner, which shows where your CoG is on the BB. This plays an important role in some of the mini-games.)

After the tests the Wii Fit adjusts your Mii avatar per the archaic BMI, and because I have a 27.9 BMI I'm on the heavier side of overweight, so my avatar got a substantial beer gut. Then because I failed the Balance Test I got told my balance is not so good and I probably trip over a lot when I walk.

Yeah. Thanks a lot. How much did I pay for this thing, only to be insulted by it?

I will admit that later, when Liz went through the same tests only to receive the same results and insult, it was a lot funnier :D

We each "played" on the Wii Fit for half an hour or so and I actually worked up a sweat, doing the Hula, running on the spot, then doing some Yoga and strength-building exercises.

Saturday we slept in and the Wii Fit stayed in its cubby (it fits quite neatly into one of the alcoves in our entertainment unit). We did some cleaning around the house, watched some TV, then I got ready for the Cub Scout camp that night.

Sunday when we returned home JE couldn't wait to fire up the Wii, so Liz showed him what to do, but when she logged in with her Mii she got insulted again. Sort of.

Too lazy to work out yesterday? it said.

Wow! Such impudence coming from a video game, even a $90 one. I can't recall if it said the same thing for me when I logged in, it probably did.

JE played the Wii Fit, a lot. Liz said that she'd been unable to adjust JE's height, so his Mii was about a foot & a half taller than he really is, which meant he was actually underweight. His Mii avatar was rather skinny when standing next to Liz and my own.

JE loved the running, and he scored pretty high on it, too. When I did it the first time I got about a 40% Burn Rate, JE scored in the 60s, I think because he managed to "run" at a more consistent rate than I did. During the "running" event your Mii chases his Trainer, and you can pass them if you "run" fast enough but then you get told off. I put "run" in quotation marks because if you just shake the Wiimote, your Mii still "runs", so you don't really need to run to make your on-screen avatar run around the Island. Yes, Island. Your Mii actually runs around an Island, which is kind of neat. The view is First Person so if your TV was at eye-level it would almost be like running around a cartoon island, complete with village, beach, rock tunnel, etc.

There were two Easter Eggs in the running event. The first was discovered by inappropriate use of the Wiimote, by which I meant we shook it, rapidly, which caused our Mii to run flat out for several seconds then fall flat on his face, complete with thud and grunt. It was amusing enough to do it several times, even if we did get told off for running too fast :P

The second Easter Egg was discovered by running fast enough to pass the Trainer at just the correct time. Now this could be construed a Spoiler so don't read this paragraph if you want to discover everything yourself...and there might not be much more to discover. By passing your Trainer just after a Dog passes him, you would stop auto-following your Trainer and begin Auto-following the Dog. By following the Dog you can visit/unlock other parts of the Island. If you run faster than the Dog when another Dog passes the first Dog, you start Auto-following the second Dog, and can take a different route yet again.

JE loved passing the Trainer and chasing the Dogs.

The Ski slalom was fun, but it wasn't really like real Skiing. For one the controls need to be reversed. If you know anything about real Skiing you know that to turn left, you shift your body weight to put more weight on your right foot, and vice versa. So if Wii Fit's Ski Slalom were like real Skiing, putting weight on your right foot would actually make you turn left, but it does not, it makes you turn right. This is a minor annoyance and can apparently be changed in the Setup, if you want to bother with that sort of thing. What was neat was that leaning forward shifts your weight forward and makes you go faster, and putting a lot of weight on one foot made the turn to that side really sharp, whereas just a little weight to one side made for a gradual turn. I'm sure if you practice enough with the Slalom you'll get the hang of it and belt out some really fast times. After a few runs I nailed every gate and recorded the fastest time, but I hadn't been going overly fast so my time was still in the 30-second range. While my time was listed as "professional" level I still only got two stars instead of the maximum possible four.

And what would Skiing be without the Ski Jump! When the gate opens make sure your weight is centered, and forward, and get down low! Using the Minimap get the CoG marker forward of center and onto the sweet spot for an extra burst of speed then at the end of the jump, stand up, quickly! Don't jump, just quickly stand up and your avatar will jump by himself. Now stay balanced for maximum flight time. After some fitful starts we all managed to get in some respectable jumps, but we discovered we had to use our own Avatars, which meant backing out to the Menu and the Wii Fit Plaza each time we wanted to switch over. If I tried to use JE's avatar, my extra weight was more than enough to "fool" the BB into thinking JE (who was supposed to be Skiing) had straightened up and 'jumped', so my avatar would jump way too early.

In the Ski Jump we discovered, not necessarily an Easter Egg, but amusing extras nonetheless. Failing to jump in time, or landing while off balance, causes your Mii to take a tumble and roll down the hill. Now a rolling stone may gather no moss, but a rolling Mii Ski Jumper does gather snow, and you end up with a comical snow ball with skis sticking out, rolling down the hill. Like forcing your Mii Runner to take a dive, this was also amusing enough to repeat a couple of times.

Does the Wii Fit have longetivity?
I would say Yes. When you just start "playing" you have a limited number of minigames/exercises to play, but as you accrue Time Played (& it does track how long you spend playing each day) you unlock more minigames. Some of the minigames take quite a bit to master, but are fun nonetheless, so you'll find yourself coming back to replay them and beat your highest score, which leads to unlocking new minigames which you may play as well, thus unlocking even more minigames.

Will it help me lose weight?
Are you going to cheat like you always do? When was the last time you went to the Gym? Still keeping the membership current though, right?

The Wii Fit is not a serious piece of exercise equipment like a treadmill, but it's a heck of a lot more fun to run through a cartoon village than stare at the wall of your bedroom for half an hour. And go to the gym? That means getting my gym bag together, and driving to the gym, then waiting for the elliptical machine or the treadmill (I can see your Timer, you know. I can tell you've been on that thing for an hour. Hey! Don't go hitting reset and starting over just because your 30 minutes are up! There's people waiting here, you know!) Or you could use that Stair Master thing in the corner that nobody seems to use, and after 5 minutes on it now you know why. (I can't feel my legs! How long have I been exercising? 5 minutes? That's it? No Fucking Way! The Timer must be broken! Uh oh. I think I'm going into cardiac arrest...or having an asthma attack, and I'm not asthmatic!)

What the Wii Fit will do is get you up and moving, and maybe even get your heart pumping a little more, and what it will also do is keep track of your progress, so you don't have to. Instead of sitting on the sofa for an hour, you're up and jumping around, you're doing windmills, twirling imaginary hula hoops, maybe even doing push ups. Any exercise, no matter how limited, is better than sitting on your arse all evening.

That's what the Wii Fit will do for you, and how often do you get to exercise naked? Can't do that at the gym now, can you? Actually I don't really use the Wii Fit naked...Liz makes me put socks on.