Nintendo Wii Fit Plus Review

Games & Activities

The original Wii Fit came with a disk with fun activities and exercises. The new Wii Fit Plus includes all of the original activities plus six new exercises and 15 new balance board games. It also adds a calorie tracker and the ability to create customized workout programs.

If you have the original Wii Fit, you can simply purchase the Wii Fit Plus the Plus upgrade for USD 19.99. You will be purchasing the software disk, as shown in Figure 6. This is the same disk that comes with the Nintendo Wii Fit Plus.

Figure 6: The Wii Fit Plus software.

Nintendo did a great job with this update.  All of the activities in the original Wii Fit software are also in the Plus – with, of course, many new activities and features. If you own the original Wii Fit and decide to upgrade to the Plus version, you simply put in the new disk and the device transfers over all your weight-ins and your activities from the original version. We have to applaud Nintendo for making the transition so easy.

Whether you add the Wii Fit Plus software to your original Wii Fit or you get it with the Wii Fit Plus package, you will find that the new software adds a lot to the functionality of the device.  In the original Nintendo Wii, some of the exercises were locked, or more or less hidden, until you reached a certain level of proficiency. With the Wii Plus, all the exercises are immediately available, which is a much preferable situation for the end user.

The new games, like the old are well-thought out and just plain fun. There are 5 areas to choose from including: Training Plus, Yoga, Strength Training, Aerobics, and Balance Games.

From twirling a hula hoop on your waist to skateboarding to riding a Segway on the beach, the games make you move. If you avoid the yoga and strength training exercises, you may not get much of a work out on the Wii Fit. However, you can create a well-rounded exercise program with the Wii Fit that will really make you move. We watch as an 8-year-old boy played and each time, he really worked up a sweat. For some, this will be the answer for the couch potato in their family.

The games are fun. They include things like boxing, step dancing, jogging, ski jump, and ski slalom. Each game works on a specific area like balance or fat-burning. Some like the table tilt where you work on your balance get progressively more difficult. Some like the tightrope walk and the obstacle course are always challenging. Each game requires some unique movements. For instance, the snowball fight makes you lean to the left and the right and use the remote to shoot snowballs at opponents.  In the golf dr
iving range, you go through the motions of the swing and on the screen you see the mechanics of your swing as it is tracked by how your weight shifts on the balance board. Since you can adjust your swing and/or your balance, you are able to get better as you play. Being able to make progress, makes the games even more fun.

In some cases virtual trainers guide you through the exercises, offering praise or criticism. You can get a little sick of their repeated rantings. Sometimes we found ourselves wishing that we could turn off the verbal and/or visual feedback. Also, there are times when you have to go through a step-by-step setup when you would appreciate an easier way to get right to the game.

The Wii Fit Plus has several enhancements. Some are pretty lame, like the ability to weight your pets, but some are useful like the new calorie counter. Every action in a game is assigned a metabolic equivalent of task (or METS) number. The calories used are then calculated against your weight. This type of assessment, like the BMI number mentioned earlier, has been attacked by some experts as not being completely accurate. You must remember that the Wii Fit is a game and that the assessments are a guide to your progress. The Wii Fit doesn’t take into consideration things like body frame size, so its assessments must be taken as only very general measurements.

The Wii Fit doesn’t have online functionality, which could be useful to some.  Although the games are fully functional, they do not allow you to compare your data with family and friends, as you can with some other games like the Nike Plus that allows iPod users to track how far they’ve run and compare it to others. Since the Wii has an online component, our bet is that next version of the Wii Fit will contain this type of online connections. Although this could be an important component in the future, we don’t, however, think that it makes the Wii Fit lacking in any way. In fact, the Wii Fit Plus has added a multiplayer option to several of the games which allows you to take turns with other family members and friends.

The Wii Fit Plus also offers a way to create custom workout programs. This was not available in the original Wii Fit.  You can accept Nintendo’s suggestion for pre-set exercises to work on certain areas of your body, or you can design your own custom workout from scratch. It allows you to create an exercise session up to 60 minutes in length. Unfortunately it only lets you put exercises from the yoga and strength-training groups into your routine. We longed for the ability to include aerobic games like jogging and rhythm boxing into our routine. Yet, if you want to use the Wii Fit Plus for serious exercise, you can create an exercise routine and simply add the other activities when you get through your workout.