Saturday, January 16, 2010

The Biggest Loser Review


Based on the amazon reviews, this sounded like a fun product and a good workout. After using it once, I already have 3 major problems with it.
1. It is quite hard to move the Wii remote arrow around the screen. It seems to move way too fast/far with a small movement of my wrist. When I'm trying to select OK, or to adjust my weight loss goal on the screen or select a day on the calendar, it makes it hard to get the arrow in the exact right place and hold it there long enough to press "A." This is such a basic part of the interface that you'd use each time you play, so it was quite frustrating. I have Wii Fit and several other Wii games and have never had that problem.
2. The user interface does not seem as intuitive as I'd hoped. It says you can change your work out schedule to determine your own off days. It was initially set up so that my first workout was Saturday and Sunday was an off day and then I work out the next few days in a row. I wanted to change it so that Sunday was the 2nd workout and Monday was an off day. It wouldn't let me do this. I could have moved the first workout to Sunday, but not the second. It was confusing & there was no tutorial or anything to explain how this process works. Maybe now that I've done the first workout it will let me move the 2nd workout to today (Sunday). We'll see.
3. The cuing was awful. I have been doing workout DVDs since I was 12 and have had Wii Fit for a year. I was expecting more pointers on form (especially because it's harder to tell what the cartoon Bob & Michelle Aguilar were doing vs. a real person in a video) and some kind of vocal cue before starting a new exercise. Well sometimes I'm on the ground facing left for a plank pose (I don't have room to face forward based on my living room configuration) and not looking at the screen straight ahead. Several times they had started the next exercise without me knowing and I lost "points" for that exercise because there was no vocal cue. I have done some workout DVDs where there's a visual cue--maybe a small flashing sign like "up next squats." No such thing on the Biggest Loser Wii game.

All of this being said, the workout was pretty solid and that's why I gave it two stars. I did the intermediate level and it was the perfect challenge. Some stuff was easy for me to complete and some I couldn't quite do all the reps. I did have a light sweat going on the whole time. But am I really going to be motivated to play this game when I have many other options that are equally good workouts with none of the frustrations? We'll see, but I'm skeptical.Get more detail about The Biggest Loser.

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