Topic: Exercise Games

What are everyone's thoughts on the 3 main exercise games out now (EA Sports Active, Biggest Loser, and Your Shape)? I am interested in getting 1 of these games, but with all the reviews on here being at 7 it's hard to tell which one is better than the other. Opinions?

really depends on what you're looking for.  for example, Your Shape doesn't have ground exercises like crunches.  if you look at reviews from less well-known sites, they go into a lot of details on all the exercises.  most major review sites nowadays give terrible reviews.  just impressions and then a score.

Out of them all, EA Sports Active has the biggest options. Your Shape is the most fun. Biggest Loser is just not as good. All of them have their pros and cons, and none should make you want to return them. My personal choice is for Your Shape, but none of them are as good as a decent gym.

Biggest Loser: ** 2 stars (Disappointment)

Hate to say it: I was all psyched up to use Biggest Loser only to be disappointed.
If you try the moves and try to follow the trainer (Word of advice:
The trainer's left leg is really YOUR RIGHT LEG and vice versa.

Advantages: You could get a great work out on some of the challenges (key word: SOME)

Disadvantages: The movements of the trainer's body movements are the OPPOSITE from YOU. (They show their Left leg doing a movement, but the Announcer says: Use your RIGHT leg doing the same movement. So really you are not following the trainer, you are following the announcer)

I HATE how its hard to maneauver the moving over the options to change your weight, Age, etc with hand movement: Sometimes it works, sometimes, you're not low enough, sometimes you didn't hold it long enough for it to change over to the next screen.

I also hate: How I put in 1974 and it says: "31" Last time I checked I was 36. But thanks for making me feel younger than I am. lol.

The biggest hate thing I have with Biggest Loser is:
after like a 5 minute exercise it tells you to Drink water, trust me the 5 minute exercise does not dry my mouth out that quickly to desire water.
Then it takes a bit before it gets going for the next movement.
-- Biggest loser does not make your body sore the next day (which would mean you got a good workout of muscle soreness)
---
Dance Central- *****5 stars: I love it

Advantages:
- You feel the muscle soreness from the dance routines the next day
- There's lots of options to choose from for songs and Levels of: Warm up, Workout mode, Moderate, Hard etc
- The Freestyle is kinda fun.
- Lots of songs to choose from. Love that
personal Favourite: Poker face (Lady Gaga) and Push it: Salt n Pepa.
- Makes you Sweat (if you are new to the Dance world- like I am)
(Now I have some dance moves for the dance floor. Can't wait)

Disadvantages:
- The Sensor doesn't always see you on the camera if you are not in a wide enough room. (I have an apartment and sometimes the room is not enough for the sensor)
- Most of my movements you can't see my feet (Tried over and over again to adjust the sensor but no help)

What I hope for future ones?
ZUMBA workout, that would be wicked.

I would like to see perhaps a workout that is geared towards people who are rehabilitating their body from an injury. (on doctor's orders of course) Light aerobics for example: If you have a knee injury to give some sort of exercise program that did not incorporate the person to use knee impact to work out other body areas ex: Push ups (Female) or Fire Hydrant, or Knee Donkey raises on the floor. Etc.

(I want to work out the rest of my body, but I was put on order if I needed to kneel I would need to use a cushion which would not balance out my other leg unless I used 2 cushions and would I be doing the technique right if I used cushions as support?) That sort of thing.

I would love to see a Nutritional plan and Exercise program for Beginners to Advanced Fitness People.

I hope Kinect comes out with a Line Dancing Dance move. I would love to see how that works.

Good thing about Kinect: No Dance Pad WOOHOO. I hated that the most.
Plus we are already ahead of Wii (No accessories to move our body)
and PSP. (Our huge competitors)

SagaciousTien: Thanks for your input on Shape. Do you have any input on the Active one? I'm thinking of buying that one. It comes with a Blood pressure band for your wrist.  Was $59.99 at EB Games for Friday and Saturday, but as of January 3, going back up to regular price of $100.00 plus tax CDN.

I hope our Guide to Kinect Fitness Games might help out

One big plus for Your Shape is the DLC. They are releasing a bunch of different DLC's, sometimes including exotic workouts like Bollywood Dancing. In total there will be twelve packs of DLC if I remember correctly, so possibly a lot of variety could be added.

okay, I tried out the Biggest Loser demo that's on XBL.  wow.  it's much better than I expected.  And the thing that surprised me was the breadth of exercises and the floor routines!  Do the other exercise games have floor routines?  I must be so much more out of shape than Stormgirl (but I did try out the demo after an hour of Dance Central) but I was tired after the demo.

So now, I might actually pick up an exercise game.  I liked the demo of Your Shape (on the Kinect Adventures disc) but it was too short to actually gauge it.  I loved the boxing game in YS, but there wasn't anything else to try out.

I actually have to consider Biggest Loser now.  While the graphics are meh and it made it look like my body was just covered with cottage cheese, I was impressed by the routine.  The video showing the BL games looked bad though.

as for stormgirl's mention of the wrong limb.  it seems to be like any other kinect game.  you mirror the motion.  I didn't have a problem with that part.

man, I need more demos!

Hi I dont want to start a new thread since my question is similar. I am also looking for a fitness "game". My favorite is so far Your shape but only because it seems like the most people prefer it on various webs.
I tried the demo on kinect adventures but it is only the boxing minigame. I liked the minigame but the demo sometimes got stuck(froze)especialy in menus - does it happen when you play full game from cd?

Basicaly what I dont know is does any of those games contain a fitness program that also includes some warm up and stretching? I would like the game to be inteligent and healthy e.g. after making me work out in virtual gym I want it to make me stretch the muscles I was working on.. Also it would be great if I could customize the training plan a bit - e.g. remove exercises that would put too much strain on my wrist since I had it injured some time ago. The last thing I would like it to keep some training diary.
Well and I hate when I have to spend too much time in menus...

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I realy need the game to motivate me to come back:) I would like to think, that I would be able to motivate myself, but I know it is not true:)

Which of those games do you think is closer to meet these requirements?
Thanks,
M.

@mithali Welcome!

EA Sports Active 2 has a warm-up and cool down section with relaxing music, and is also a good motivator to keep you coming back as it devises a schedule for you to stick to. You can also create custom exercise plans to focus on individual areas, then save these and return later, making them longer or harder as you wish.

Hope that helped!

Hello James!
Thank you very much! From this point of view the game sounds exactly like what I want. But now I've read that this game does the worst job on tracking the player from all of the kinect fitness games. That even though you have a lot of space it will lose you. And also that it has a lag. E.g. someone wrote that when running, the avatar started to run like two steps later then the palyer and stoped also with the similar lag. Do you know something about these two things...?

From user reviews I've read it would be the best not to buy any of the games for kinect except for dance central and kinect sports:)) Thats just disappointing.

There is definitely lag in the detection, and when the sensor loses you it's impossible to proceed, which can be a pain. I was doing some press-ups when it lost me, then when it found me again I could proceed just by kneeling and leaning forwards and backwards, which was a bit wrong. It's certainly not terrible and offers a huge amount of content, but the detection isn't flawless and I wouldn't want to mislead you.

For my money the best detection is from Mel B but it's also the simplest - it doesn't offer much motivation to return and you can't do custom workouts. It's a minefield!

Yes, its really hard to choose something:) I still hope there will be some more precise "game" of this kind in near future. Everyone is excited about the UCF Trainer or how its called... so maybe that will be it:)
Until that I guess I will try the Mel B program which is half the price of EA sports here and hopefully I will be able to motivate myself to use it regularly:) For fooling around I got kinect Sports and Dance central which are really great:)
Thank you for the info!