I’ve had a chance to spend some time with Wii Fit Plus. Before diving in, let me just give a little background on the core game, Wii Fit.

Last year Nintendo launched Wii Fit bundled with the balance board peripheral, kicking off a wave of exer-games that had gamers and grannies alike stepping, leaning, squatting, and hopping their way to fitness bliss. While you can find plenty of Wii Fit knock-offs at the store these days, the original is still considered by many to be the best.

However Wii Fit got its share of legitimate criticism. Its quirky approach emphasizes “awareness of your body” over the sort of exercises that most would consider essential to a basic workout. Wii Fit focuses on posture, balance, and breathing rather than breaking a sweat and going for the burn. It makes no attempt to provide a structured exercise plan, or nutritional suggestions. And it tracks your progress using a bizarre unit of measure known as your Wii Fit Age, which heaps its highest praise on those who can stand completely motionless.

As the name suggests, Wii Fit Plus is not a sequel. It’s an expansion. Expansion packs have been around on PC games forever. Likewise, Xbox 360 and PS3 games are often extended with downloadable content. But on the Wii, this sort of thing is unusual.

Wii Fit Plus includes all the balance games and exercises from the original and adds some new balance tests, 15 new minigames, 3 new strength exercises, and 3 new yoga poses.

More importantly, it adds “My Wii Fit Plus”, a mode where you can play through preset sequences of themed exercises, or roll your own routine. The preset sequences retain the game’s quirky charm. There are exercises for people who recently overate, have trouble sleeping, and even for those who struggle to stand completely motionless.

My Wii Fit Plus brings you to the enchanted world of the balance boards stinky locker room

The expansion puts a greater emphasis on calories, using the difficulty of the activity and your weight to estimate calories burned. You can also see the real food equivalent of the number of calories that you’ve burned, or would like to burn. For instance, you can tell the game that you’d like to burn the equivalent of a piece of fried chicken, or you can look at the exercises that you’ve done so far and realize it only amounts to a single slice of cucumber.

The progress graph now includes a place to track your waistline, and the number of steps you’ve taken that day (pedometer not included). The game won’t ask you for this information, you have to be proactive about entering it yourself.

There is now a mode for weighing babies and animals. And why not? It wouldn’t be Wii Fit without a few non sequiturs.

If you misbehave the balance board will know. And it won't be happy.

And there are also new multiplayer modes, which I haven’t tried yet.

Best of all the transition from Wii Fit to Wii Fit Plus is seamless. When you first start up Wii Fit Plus it will read your save file from Wii Fit and import it automatically. You don’t lose any progress in the transition, and you don’t have to worry about any games being locked when you jump into Plus.

Speaking of games, I have yet to play all 15 of the new games, but those that I have tried have been a lot more entertaining than the original Wii Fit balance games. It feels like the developers had a stronger grasp of the weight sensing technology, and they’ve put that experience to good use in some genuinely entertaining minigames.

Nintendo priced Wii Fit Plus at $20.00, and that feels about right. It is a robust upgrade that refines the functionality of the core game and addresses many of its greatest weaknesses, and also offers some great new content.

Have you tried Wii Fit Plus yet? Do you feel it was worth the price to upgrade? Have you put together any custom routines?

Look at that Svelte Mii! He certainly cuts a dashing figure.

I erased my old Wii Fit profile and its sporadic data, and started off fresh. Begrudgingly, I’ve entered my height as 5′8“. In the image above I’ve obscured my birthday for reasons I now can’t remember. I’m sure there was a good reason to do so at the time. Oh wells – let’s get to the hot BMI action!

Oh, the Mii has undergone some changes. It's a bit more... horizontal now. It can't stand to look!

Overweight. That can’t be good.

Statistically balance boards that beat around the bush are more likely to get tossed into recyling bins. Just say it. I should be down around that 22 line.

27 and 22 don’t seem too far apart. But this graph sure makes it look like a long way. My Mii may be smiling, but I assure you, he’s crying on the inside.

I'm 1.93 into the health risks zone! Way to go.

That serious health risks line is kind of worrisome. I like my health the way I like my tuna – boring and predictable. This risky business is not for me.

178 Huh? I guess that's better than 871. I'm reaching, aren't I?

Wii Fit is being cagey. My weight is somewhere just below 178, but it won’t tell me exactly where. However it will tell me, boldly and in a red font, that I am overweight. Thanks buddy. Could any good news come out of this initial consultation with the cruel balance board?

Hey, it's not all bad. Apparently my balance is okay. That's pretty impressive considering I was drunk when I took the test!

Despite having sucked down some boozes ahead of time, I managed to tipsy toe my way to a respectable balance score. Let us end this first encounter on a positive note and regroup after basking in its glow. Right about now I could go for some mozerella sticks dipped into a hot fudge sundae to help me get over the humiliation of the Wii calling me fat.

Super Mario soars through the night's sky bringing obesity, diabetes, and an early grave to the youth of America. Wa-hooo!

For the most part, I agree with the first part of the article. The gist -Wii Fit doesn’t offer many exercises that actually require you purchase the game. For example, you could do lunges just as well without a fancy balance board. Also, Wii Fit doesn’t do a good job of separating advanced exercises from simple stretches and balance activities.

It’s true that Wii Fit doesn’t really provide you with much that’s unique. It’s a lot like an exercise video. You could Sweat to the Oldies without Richard Simmons, but by following his bouncing short-shorts and soaking in his affirmations you feel a bit more motivated to work out. In other words, spritely Richard just makes it more fun. Additionally, a Tae Bo video includes activities that may not be suitable for beginners. It’s up to the viewer to set their own pace.

Like an exercise video, Wii Fit gives you something to follow along with. It also goes a bit further by providing incentives to keep trying new activities, and giving you specific feedback.

But it’s not the criticism of Wii Fit that’s the problem, it’s the bizarre conclusion that the article draws:

Overall, I give Nintendo credit for trying to make a game that tries to get people to be more active, which is more than can be said for other video game manufacturers. However, this will not do anything in terms of chipping away at the American obesity problem. *In fact, I’ll go out on a limb and say that the video game industry needs to follow the route of the tobacco and alcohol manufacturers, and state that excessive use of their product could lead to inactivity and obesity, rather than try to make a half-hearted effort at increasing American activity levels.

*Emphasis added.

It seems the point of the article is that since Wii Fit isn’t as effective as a live personal trainer, all video games should carry warning labels that they contribute to obesity and poor health.

If we were to follow his advice we would need to add warning labels to crossword puzzles, novels, knitting needles, and the the trusty rocking chair. While we’re at it I suppose we should also add warning labels to food, since excessive use contributes to obesity.

Unsurprisingly, if you follow the article all the way back to its source you’ll end up at a site peddling a weight-loss program.

By targeting the popular game Wii Fit (even if it is a year late to the party) and challenging gaming in general, the author is sure to drum up attention. Gamers love a flame war. And by tapping into fear mongering there’s a good chance the article might get picked up by mainstream outlets too. So it’s a marketing win/win for the author. Nice job, I guess.

In internet talk the act of making provocative statements to inflame readers to rile up attention has a name, Trolling. It’s seldom appreciated, but often effective.

By posting this, I’m violating the cardinal rule – “don’t feed the troll”. However if you can look past the sensationalist statement in the article, there are some valid critiques of Wii Fit. They just don’t add up to the bizarre and unfounded conclusion.

via Destructoid

Oh hey – now that that’s over with, let’s watch some Sweatin’ to the Oldies!