Ashley Davis and Anthony Burch wish they were Brad Nicholson. They long to have bulging muscles, a healthy immune system, and one of those — how does one say it —rockin’ bods.
Davis and Burch are lazy, however, and rather than spend the necessary time to work out, eat well, and achieve truly Nicholson-esque stature, they prefer to play exercise games for very short periods of time at industry events.
Anthony: I have to admit, I’ve never played the original Wii Fit.
Ashley: It’s okay. I’ve played it, but it’s more useful for watching others make themselves look silly.
Anthony: Wii Fit Plus seems like a fitting sequel, then. The first game I played forced me to flap my arms like a bird and land on scored targets.
It was kind of enjoyable in that it was decent at figuring out where I was shifting my weight, but it was about as silly and gimmicky as you’d imagine.
Ashley:The game that I played was one that I had heard a lot of people talking about; it essentially plops your Mii into a gauntlet.
The best way to describe it is Wii Fit mixed with a platformer.
Anthony: You’ve gotta alternate tapping your feet on the board to simulate walking or running to correctly time movement onto moving platforms, or around Big Evil Swinging Wrecking Balls.
And occasionally you “jump” by crouching and then straightening your legs.
Ashley: You’re still moving around and utilizing the pressure sensitivity of the board, but it’s leaps and bounds more fun than any other game in Wii Fit.
It isn’t just like, “Hey, we’re going to put you on a virtual bicycle and make you move your feet to pedal for five minutes.” It’s more like, “You have to run through these moving platforms and jump over these rolling logs, and if you mess up, you die!”
Well, not die, but you do lose playtime.
Anthony: And there is still a biking minigame, but it seemed to be focused around quasi-nonlinear exploration of a virtual park or something.
I thought the obstacle course was entertaining once I got used to it, but the board was REALLY bad at understanding when I was alternating steps and when I wasn’t.
Like, sometimes I was going too fast for it to recognize anything so it stopped dead, and other times I tried to stop on a dime but my character kept moving for like three more steps.
Ashley: The board was not as responsive as I would have liked, but the game itself presented a fun way to exercise, which is what I think Wii Fit games should be all about.
Anthony: Yeah. I would be much more willing to integrate that into some sort of workout routine than just a vanilla “hey, tap your feet a lot” minigame.
Like, practicing typing using Typing of the Dead is more fun than trying to play Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing.
Ashley: Hahaha, great analogy.
Anthony: And since it’s fun, it makes you wanna come back more, and thus makes you exercise more. It’s a relatively well-designed trap.
Ashley: It seems that Wii Fit Plus has a lot more of these unconventional games than the first one.
Anthony: Yeah. I didn’t see any that were as simple as what I understand the first Wii Fit games to be.
Ashley: At least, from what I saw.
Anthony: That said, though, ain’t no way I’m buying a Balance Board just for Wii Fit Plus.
Ashley: I am much more tempted to than I was with Wii Fit.
Anthony: Fair enough. I’m definitely more tempted to buy this for, like, my mom or something.
Ashley: If I wasn’t broke, the chances would be even higher.
Anthony: Or Ash, because she’s got a fat ass and face.
Ashley: Aw man, don’t do that when she’s not around to reprimand you for it.
