CantGetAWii
WiiChat Member
Huffing and puffing. Aching all over. Sweat glistening on a furrowed brow. All this just from lifting the balance board out of the box.
Behind that nimble white exterior lies a weighty stash of blubber-monitoring tech, all designed to compliment the Wii Fit software and rate you from fatty to flimsy.
Now, we needn't tell you that fitness is hardly team NGamer's strong point. We think tiny meals are an insult to large plates, and exercise is what's done to young girls with spinny heads and pea-green puke.
As such, it'd be wrong to cast a health-conscious critical eye over Wii Fit (just as we wouldn't trust Rosemary Conley's review of a Big Mac) so instead we ask the simple question: is Wii Fit actually fun?
Ski Slalom
Although easy to ace with your hands (see Laz-E-Boy box, far right), the Ski Slalom is one of the more sophisticated indicators of the balance board's ability to supply control to a full-fat game.
While carving a path is tricky, it shows enough nuance of control to prove the balance board could quite happily be used in a standalone skiing title.
Thinking of SSX Blur, where some find the nunchuk a tad over-sensitive, the body's sluggish leaning certainly makes sense.
Forehead meets ball
You lean. You head the ball. Thus the name. And it's one of the best. Successfully weaving your bonce between the undesired boots and panda heads is not so much down to speed, but the ability to steady yourself - extra momentum can too often propel you into the path of a size ten Nike. A great grin maker, this.
Step Aerobics
The aerobics highlight is an intro movie in which a line of imported Miis performs a flamboyant chorus line bow - made all the more hilarious when said line is populated by Hitler, Jesus and Borat.
The task itself plays like the slowest bemani title ever designed, a zombie-like shuffle on and off the board, performed to an auditorium of enraptured Miis.
In fact, the slow lurching is reminiscent of old lady exercise classes. An evil sight indeed.
Snowboarding
If we needed any more convincing about the balance board's potential, Snowboarding did the trick.
Rotating the board 90 degrees and mounted in true boarding fashion, we weaved down a speed-slalom, altering speed with gentle forward or back positioning, just as it should be.
The speed of this straighter run (compared to Skiing) showed off some exhilarating moves. 1080 Snowboarding, here we come.
Bubble Maze
Hmmm, seems like someone took a cheeky peek in team Mario Galaxy's recycling bins: directing this bubble through a top down maze is alarmingly similar to navigating Bubble Blast Galaxy's birdseye labyrinth.
Still, the lean to steer controls work well, though once solved we don't see much incentive to return. As with Wii Play, many of these games could do with fattening up.
Hula Hoop
As with ol' fatty's gyrating antics in WarioWare, there's hours of cruel enjoyment in the sight of a panicked games journo trying to keep an invisible hoop around their waist.
Factor in directional body thrusts to grab extra hoops for a fun, if simple, game.
The Penguin Game
Okay. So the sight of your Mii tucked inside a penguin costume? Cute. But the game itself? Left us cold (ho ho).
Aiming to gobble as many fish as possible, you lean left and right to tilt the iceberg, sending ol' Happy Feet in the relevant direction.
Kind of like the polar opposite (again, ho ho) to Super Paper Mario's Tilt Island - where you tilted Mario away from falling obstacles - this scoffing mission isn't the deepest of Wii Fit's an-tarc-tics (whither).
Ski Jump
Whereas the football and hoop tasks both offer on-screen avatars that respond directly to your movement - giving a clear indicator of how movement affects the game - the Ski Jump is slightly more secretive with its calculations.
Crouched in what is best known as the impromptu outdoor toilet pose, your centre of balance needs aligning with the small blue dot for maximum speed.
It's the jump itself that mystifies, a sudden shift into upright never quite giving you the air you'd hope for. Is there a premium angle? File under hmmm.
Ball Puzzle
Not so much of a puzzle - any dolt can see that those balls clearly need plopping into those glowing holes - but getting your head around that board/body movement can baffle even the most spatially aware.
The trick is gentle learning, followed by sharp jerks to flip teetering edge balls back into the centre.
As a setup, it's infinitesimally simpler than Koroinpa, but then in that game you weren't controlling things with a big fleshy pillock.
That's you, by the way (nothing personal, we're also intending to mean both us and them).
Tightrope
Proving that Wii Fit is in fact some form of covert circus recruitment tool (it sends the details of highly accurate balancers to a shady carnival committee that then select victims for their strongmen 'grab squads' to seize) the tight rope game has you taking alternating steps to slowly shuffle forwards, while pausing to steady yourself when you begin to teeter.
There's also the matter of an anthropomorphic mantrap that needs bounding over with a sudden upwards tiptoe thrust. Quite simple to ace, but good fun nonetheless.
Boxercise
Gonna fly now! Flying high now! Yes, after an abandoned attempt to phonetically convey the Rocky theme tune, we resorted to its rather rubbish lyrics to help describe the joy of Wii Fit boxing.
Like step aerobics with added thumping, this time you step forwards off the board and thrust with the remote or nunchuk to replicate stepping into a powerful fist swing.
Nice to see a bit of remote and nunchuk action, but the game is just a bit shallow.
Candle Stare
After 11 games of intense bodily flip-flopping, you're going to want to rescue your brain from your right thigh.
As means of downtime, Nintendo offer this odd sitting challenge. Perched cross-legged on the board you simply have to sit as still as possible, watching a candle slowly burn down, listening to the soothing night-time ambiance.
Shuffle, and the candle will burn quicker, but it's probably for the best - we're certain we saw a butterfly get incinerated in its flame. Maybe this fitness is going to our heads. Need pie. New pie now!
Back in issue 14 we welcomed Wii Fit with these words: "It's a glorified tech demo." Having spent a good deal of time playing it - and simultaneously polishing our own horn ready for a spot of blowing - we think we were right.
As an exercise tool, it's tricky to judge, requiring more biological knowledge than we can muster.
We can tell you that yes, the Body Mass Index measuring seems to work well - it can, for example, identify that Matthew is bigger than Kim - and the ability to programme in weight goals to work towards is well judged. When it comes to reviewing it as a tool, we're a little stumped.
Sticking with the games is of greater benefit to us. These simple wobbling distractions are a sweat-tinged taste of things to come: a glorified tech demo.
However, what these slightly sneering terms fail to convey is just what a successful tech demo it is.
Entertainment value aside - although you can clearly see we've had a great time with it - not a single game falters technically: more than could be said for Wii Play's dubious Table Tennis and Fishing.
But more than this, they get you thinking. The obvious board-based gaming potential has been done to death by every games writer out there, but for good reason; the Skiing and Snowboarding are astonishingly accurate.
There's more still. The Tightrope Walking, with actual step-taking to move forward, has your synapses firing in a wild creative frenzy - could we one day be using real movement in an FPS ? Or could the 'stay as still as you can' portions could be put to great use in stealth games - where your avatar hides from guards as you struggle not to squirm on your uncomfortable white pedestal?
It's not about thinking outside the box, you see, but about how to best use the box.
When Wii Fit arrives, it's going to be big. You're going to see it all over the news stands, on the cover of Women's Weekly and Men's Fitness.
They'll be gabbing about it on This Morning and ol' Dermot and Natasha will be arsing around with virtual hula-hoops on the breakfast news. But despite all this, you'll have to ignore the 'fitness, fitness, fitness' message and think only of 'control, control, control'.
There's nothing quite like dictating digital actions with your whole body, and few things as much fun. Just think, all this is from a mere tech demo. Good work, Ninty.
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