He surprised me by purchasing EA SPORTS Active for our Nintendo Wii. We tried it out last night and it is sooo cool. We do have the Wii fit board and game, but I found it to be easy to slack off on. The Wii fit game doesn't give you a whole lot of guidance or a program for you to work with, but just lets you pick and choose the exercises you want to do. You can spend the whole time doing balance exercises and feel good about working out for 30 min. with no real results in the end. EA SPORTS Active focuses more on burning calories and getting your heart rate up with combining strength training exercises as well. You have your own personal trainer that makes a workout program for you. You are able to customize it a little if you just don't feel like running that day or some other exercise. You can also pick out the intensity of the workout you want and even what kind of music you want in the
background. The graphics are pretty good too. They have you start with a 30 day challenge which includes 20 workout days and 10 rest days that they plan out for you (great feature!). I like how I am already starting to sweat in the first minute or two of the workout (which rarely even happened for me with the Wii fit game). They also go back a forth from cardio to strength training throughout the workout with little rest, which gives it a lot of variety and doesn't bore you. At the end of your workout they entice you to work out again by telling you what new exercises they will incorporate into your workout next time (like practicing your tennis skills or kickboxing). They do have feature where you can workout with another person that we have yet to try. That will be a fun thing to be able to do together. The only thing I wish they would add was an option to keep track of your weight and BMI like the Wii fit does. The game does not require you to have a Wii fit board (although they will integrate it in some exercises if you have one), which I realize is probably the purpose of more sales for the product. The other thing I don't like is that I'm 23 weeks pregnant and can't get as intense as I would like to with the workouts right now. Maybe I'll have to do a little experiment to see how long it takes me to get in shape after the birth of the baby.So far I think this is a great game. My husband enjoyed it and is motivated to continue with the 30 day Challenge, which is great! What I really like is that we can do it together. If you have a Nintendo Wii and don't have a Wii fit board (or if you do) and are looking for some variety in your workouts BUY THIS PRODUCT. Can't wait for our workout tonight...
**Hubby, feel free to add any of your own comments/reviews on this game**
3 comments:
EA SPORTS ACTIVE is a decent game… Some things they could have done to improve it would have been the ability to play your own MP3 files from the SD card reader on the Wii… this would have done a lot to customize the workout – especially for music enthusiasts… or anybody how really likes to rock out while they work out.
Also, the resistance band that comes with the game is not suited for a guy like me (215lbs @ 6'-0") … I definitely need more resistance… I will be modifying a resistance band we already have around the house… by modifying, I mean: The resistance band that we already have has a handle at each end rather than just a strap… They are great for normal workouts, but when you have the hold the Wii remote and the Numchuck in your hands during the workout, a strap is much preferred over the handle at each end. I will have to convince Racquel to sew a loop of webbing strap on to the thicker resistance band.
The exercises take a little getting used to… not that I don’t know how to do a curl, but if you are not holding the Wii remote in your hand in the exact correct position, it won’t sense that you did the curl. Or, even better, when you place the numchuck into the special leg strap, you have to face the numchuck in the correct direction, or it gives you a little warning message when your little on screen guy fails to do a lunge – “YOU MAY HAVE THE NUMCHUCK PLACED THE WRONG DIRECTION”. The frustrating part about this all, is that it can detect that you have the thing in backwards… they really could have just programmed it so that if it detects that it is in backwards, then it will automatically reverse all of the motion inputs to correct the “problem”. In my opinion, the only problem was that the programmer was just a little to lazy to make this game truly user friendly. You can only ware the leg strap on the right leg and hold the Wii Remote in the right hand... But, they could as you at the beginning if you are left handed and would prefer to wear it on your left side. Again, this could have been the flip of one little switch in the game's program.
So, it was a little frustrating trying to get the exercises to “work” the first time through, but once you understand how the game wants you to move the controller, you get the hang of it. But, when you are working out, do you really want to watch the two-minute long in game video about how to do a curl? -I thought I knew how to do a curl… just not the Wii way. I try to stick with it for the 30 days… by then I’m sure I’ll have forgotten all about the user interface.
I’m too negative… it is a good game.
Congrats to Byron for getting more fancy letters! Passing those tests is hard I've heard so kudos.
I had sort of forgotten he did Church architecture - does he plan to do that long-term or does he feel it's a sort of conflict-of-interest with being called to the Organic/Simple Church?
Wow Byron...thanks for your addition to the review.
Rachael, I'm not sure if he plans to do church architecture long term. He's not that passionate about it, plus he prefers residential over commercial work. But yeah, the whole organic/simple church thing is a struggle for him at work sometimes (even if we aren't quite practicing it yet). We are just thankful he's employed as of right now, though!
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