Well, it’s been a fun ride, but with the recent release of Just Dance 2014 for Playstation 3, we’ve probably seen the last fitness game that’ll ever be coming out for the Playstation 3.

Sony, of course, has been turning all its attention to the PS4, and game developers in general have pretty much followed suit. And even before this, the number of games made exclusive for the Playstation Move seems to have been declining. Sony has announced an improved camera and continued support of the Move controllers for the new PS4, but time will tell if motion gaming catches on with the new system.

Just Dance has been such a hit for Ubisoft that they’ve decided to release it for every platform: the Wii, the Wii U, the Xbox 360, the Xbox One, the PS3, and the PS4. They’ve done a pretty remarkable job of porting it to every platform, so the experience is virtually the same across every one.

On the PS3 version, you start out by calibrating your Move controllers, simply by pointing it at the Playstation Eye camera and pressing the Move button, and your controller will glow blue. If a second player is playing, you can set that controller up the same way (it’ll glow red). It did take me a bit of time to figure out how to go back to 1 player, as the system would constantly force you to keep calibrating the second controller even if you tried to turn it off. After a while I realized all you have to do is put the second controller aside and eventually the system will realize no one’s using it and shut it off.

When you start the game, the opening menu is simple; in the center of the screen is a recommended song you can start dancing to right away. You can also scroll continuously to the right to select specific songs. One nice thing about Just Dance 2014 is that none of the songs themselves are locked–every song is playable from the beginning. Instead, what’s locked are different variations of the choreography that’s available on certain songs. Here are all the different variations:

• Classic – The standard, default choreography, all of which are unlocked from the beginning.
• On Stage – Multiple dancers interacting with each other in a “dance performance”, which are a lot of fun not only for the dancers but also for onlookers.
• Extreme – These are more advanced dance routines, not for beginners.
• Battle – This is a mode where you compete against another player in a “Street Fighter” like battle–the better you dance, the more you’ll increase your life line and decrease your opponent’s.
• Mash-Up – Here, different dance moves (and the original dancers) from other songs and from past versions of Just Dance are pieced together to form a unique dance.
• Sweat – Songs are choreographed with maximum exercise, fitness, and aerobic activity in mind.
• Sweat Mash-Up – A combination of Mash-Up and Sweat modes, these are 5 points to unlock.
• Others – Several songs have very unique choreography. Gwen Stefani’s Rich Girl has a “Chair” dance. Far East Movement’s Turn up the Love has something called “Sumo”. And Nicki Minaj’s “Starships” lets you dance to the Charleston. Each of these are 50 points to unlock.

Dancer Card – You can click the upper right-hand corner to create a “dancer card”. This will allow you to provide your nickname, an avatar (you choose from a set of cute cartoon faces all blinking at you), your country, your gender, and your age. The choices are 0-9, 10-14, 15-19, 20-29, 30-39, and 40+. Once you set up your dancer card, when you click on it you’ll see at-a-glance your style (how accurate you are), your kCals burned in Sweat Mode, your favorite songs, your average star rating, and your online level.

The Dancing: The dancing itself works pretty much the same as all other Just Dance games. Each song’s choreography is designed for 1-4 different players. If you’re playing with 2 or more players, each player will use his or her Move controller to select a character to follow, and can also choose his or her dancer card so that statistics will be properly tallied.

Each player then holds the Move controller in his or her right hand and follows the on-screen dancer’s moves as if looking in a mirror. What’s nice about playing on a PS3 is that the motion controls are much more precise than on a Wii, but unlike on an Xbox 360 you don’t need to all squeeze into a certain area. When you hit a special move correctly, the Move controller will vibrate in your hands to let you know.

The animation on screen, as usual, is usually done with tongue firmly planted in cheek. For example, here’s a zombie dancing to Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive”.

I’ve played this game on the Xbox 360 and the Wii U, and for some reason my scores on the PS3 version were much higher than on those  two systems; even my first time through a song I’d easily get 4 or 5 stars. This means that either the motion controls are much more forgiving on this version or that my dancing had improved to the point where I’m infallible. I’ll let you guess which one is the truth 🙂

Other options on the main menu include the following:

Just Sweat – This mode allows you to play several songs in a row for 10, 20, or 40 minute programs. You can also turn on “free mode”, which turns on a calorie counter that tracks you calories for any song in the game.

Shop – As you play the game, you’ll earn points, which are tallied by a yellow “M” throughout the game. You can use these points to “purchase” unlockable content for the game. These include:

• Alternate Choreography. Here’s where you can unlock “On Stage” , “Extreme”, “Sweat” and “Battle Mode” choreography for songs.
• Mash-Ups & Co. Here, you can download Mash-Ups and Sweat Mash-Ups of songs.
• New Songs. Unfortunately you can’t use your points to unlock new songs–you’ll need real money for that. Ubisoft cleverly weaved a list of purchasable songs into this menu so you’ll always be reminded of it when you’re unlocking content. They even offer a free song, Katy Perry’s Roar, for you to learn the download process (when you select a song you’re sent to the Playstation Store to complete your purchase). When you buy a song, you’ll get avatars thrown in for free.

The World Dance Floor option will show up if you’re signed in. A number will show how many dancers are currently online.

This is an interesting online mode where you can literally dance with players from around the world, earn points along the way, and even make friends. The good news is that you’re not personally identifiable, other than the name on your dancer card. There’s a countdown timer to “Happy Hour”, when you can earn extra points you can use to unlock more stuff.

There are a number of activities on the Dance Floor. You can participate in dance offs against other players, you can dance to the same song with everyone in the group and see who’s the best, and you can vote on which song to dance to next. It’s a lot of fun, and it really adds a new dimension to dancing.

Getting online was pretty easy–when it worked. I tried multiple times and kept getting the message “The Ubisoft server is unavailable at this time. Please try again later”. But finally, I was able to get through, just by having signed in already with my Playstation Account. Here’s what a typical World Dance Floor session looks like.

Finally, there’s another online feature called JDTV that consists of videos that other players around the world have uploaded. While this is a cute feature, it’s one I got bored of pretty quickly, as all the dances are strange, stylized “mash ups” of dances the the system does called “Autodance mode”. I would much rather see real and complete performances than these bizarre edits.

But overall, I’m impressed yet again with this latest version of Just Dance. Every time I think the franchise is about the jump the shark, they make enough improvements to impress me yet again. The song list is a great mix of contemporary songs and oldies, there’s enough variation in choreography and collectible items to keep from getting bored, and the new points system to collect and “buy” items to unlock is much simpler to understand than in previous versions.

The highlight, of course, is the new online features that let you compete and play with others around the world. it just adds a new level knowing that others around the globe are playing along with you.

Here’s a complete song list that lists artist, song name, number of dancers, and difficulty level of the classic choreography. They’ve done away with separate rating for difficulty and exertion, and have simplified it to easy, medium, and hard.

• One Direction – Kiss You – 4 – Easy
• Lady Gaga – Just Dance – 1 – Hard
• George Michael – Careless Whisper – 2 – Hard
• Kesha – C’mon – 2 – Medium
• David Guetta ft SIA – She Wolf (Falling to Pieces) – 1 – Medium
• The Girly Team – Flashdance-What a Feeling – 1 – Hard
• Disney’s Aladdin – Prince Ali – 4 – Medium
• Daft Punk ft. Pharrel Williams – Get Lucky – 2 – Medium
• Jessie J ft. Big Sean – Wild – 1 – Hard
• PSY – Gentleman – 1 – Medium
• Robin Thicke ft. Pharrel Williams – Blurred Lines – 2 – Easy
• Ray Parker Jr. – Ghostbusters – 4 – Medium
• Gloria Gaynor- I Will Survive – 1 – Easy
• Will.i.am ft. Justin Biener #thatPOWER – 4 – Hard
• Daddy Yankee – Limbo – 2 – Hard
• Ariana Grande ft. Mac Miller – The Way – 2 – Easy
• Nicki Minaj – Pound the Alarm – 4 – Medium
• Frankie Bostello – Love Boat – 1 – Medium
• Olly Mira ft. Flo Rida – Troublemaker – 1 – Easy
• Lady Gaga -Applause – 1 – Medium
• Mick Jackson- Blame it on the Boogie – 4 – Easy
• Imposs ft. Konshens- Feel So Right – 1 – Hard
• Mungo Jerry- In the Summertime – 4 – Easy
• Chris Brown – Fine China – 1 – Medium
• Louis Prima – Just a Gigolo – 2 – Medium
• Rihanna – Where Have You Been – 1 – Hard
• Ricky Martin – Maria – 1 – Hard
• Abba – Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight) – 1 – Easy
• Dancing Bros – Moskau – 2 – Hard
• Pitbull ft. Christina Aguilera – Feel This Moment – 1 – Easy
• Wisin and Handel ft. Jennifer Lopez – Follow the Leader -1 – Hard
• Village People – YMCA – 4 – Easy
• Far East Movement ft. Cover Drive – Turn Up the Love – 2 – Hard
• Bob Marley – Could You Be Loved – 2 – Easy
• Nicki Minaj – Starships – 1 – Hard
• Ruts hen Planeten – 99 Luftballons – 2 – Easy
• Robbie Williams – Candy- 2 – Medium
• Katy Perry – I Kissed a Girl – 1 – Medium
• Bog Bog Orkestar – Isidora – 1 – Medium
• Gwen Stefani ft. Eve- Rich Girl – 1 – Easy
• Duck Sauce – It’s You – 1 – Medium
• The Sunlight Shakers – Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In – 2 – Easy
• Sammie – Misunderstood – 1 – Medium
• Sunlight Express – Nitro Bot – 2 – Medium
• Jason Derulo – The Other Side – 1 – Hard
• Ivete Sangalo – Dancando – 1 – Medium
• (Free download) Katy Perry- Roar

Overall, if you’re using the PS3 for fitness, I’d definitely recommend Just Dance 2014. The fact that it’s stood the test of time vs. other games like Everybody Dance and Singstar Dance really shows the quality and sheer simple enjoyment this game provides.

Just Dance 2014, as all of its predecessors, is a great video game, but it can be a bit of a dilemma for parents. On the one hand, it’s a great way to have fun as a family and to get some great exercise. But on the other hand, some parents may feel uncomfortable with songs like “Get Lucky”, “Blurred Lines” and “I Kissed a Girl”. They’re all great pop songs with a fun beat that adults can dance do, but at times the lyrics are a bit more suggestive than parents might feel comfortable with, especially for kids aged 7-12. And when parents have taken to Amazon review boards in the past to complain, they’ve often gotten pilloried by grown-up fans of the game who accuse them of promoting censorship.

In a way, Ubisoft’s answer to these parents is Just Dance Kids 2014, available for Wii, Wii U, and Xbox 360. The gameplay is essentially the same as Just Dance 2014, with a few differences that make it more kid friendly. But they did a pretty good job of still making it a game that the whole family can enjoy.

The first difference is that a lot of the extras you see in Just Dance 2014 aren’t there. There’s no “Sweat Mode” and no “Mojo Points” to earn. The tracks have one routine, unlike Just Dance 2014 that has multiple routines per song. And of course, there’s no “JDTV” nor online play options. You also can’t create dancer cards nor track individual dancers (everyone plays as “Player 1”, “Player 2”, and so on).

The next difference is in the track list. It’s not the typical fingerboards-on-the-chalkboard-please-put-me-out-of-my-misery collection of sickening-as-molasses kiddie songs sung by women who breathed in too much helium. It actually has a soundtrack which, dare I say, is pretty cool. You have pop songs from stars who got their starts on the Disney Channel like Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, and Bridget Mendler.

There are also popular songs from groups like One Direction and Owl City that tweens in the family will enjoy; oldies like “Magic Carpet Ride”, “Footloose” and “The Hustle” that mom and dad will appreciate; a few kid-friendly songs from the likes of the cast of Fraggle Rock and The Wiggles; and even “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and “Hickory Dickory Dock” for the toddler in the family (the former which inexplicably has a difficulty rating of 2/3 stars).

Here’s a complete track list:

• 789
• Day O
• Do You Love Me
• Fireflies
• Footloose
• Fraggle Rock
• The Freeze Game – Yo Gabba Gabba
• Get Down On It
• Get Ready to Wiggle – The Wiggles
• Give Your Heart a Break – Demi Lovato
• Hickory Dickory Dock
• Hit Me With Your Best Shot
• Hit the Lights – Selena Gomez and The Scene
• The Hustle
• I Like to Move It
• Interstellar Simon
• Magic Carpet Ride
• Make It Shine – Victoria Justice
• Mary Had a Little Lamb
• One Thing – One Direction
• Party in the Kitchen
• A Pirate You Shall Be
• Power Ups
• Problem (The Monster Remix) – Becky G feat. will.i.am
• Put Your Hearts Up – Ariana Grande
• Ready or Not – Bridget Mendler
• Shout
• Skip To My Lou
• The Tiki Tiki Tiki Room
• Walking on Sunshine
• We Go Well Together – Goldheart

Each song is marked with 1-3 stars for difficulty and 1-3 sweat drops for energy level, something which has been in all the versions of Just Dance but which some reason was taken away from Just Dance 2014.

The other big difference is in the graphics. Instead of a faceless silhouette as your dance guide, your dance guide is a video image of actual kids, teens, and tweens dancing to the songs. My guess is that they decided to use real animated figures instead of abstract ones because they’re easier for kids to follow–there’s even a glowing trail on the dancer’s right hand that makes it extremely easy to follow. The animations themselves are whimsical and again, have a bit more realism and a bit less abstraction than the grown-up game.

I’m not sure if I was having a bad night, but motion tracking wasn’t working as well for me as it did on Just Dance 2014, which can always be a bit frustrating.

There are three dance modes. The first is “Just Dance”, where just like the grown-up version 1-4 players can dance to the song and are scored on accuracy.

There’s also “Freeze and Shake”, which is kind of a cross between “Red Light, Green Light” and “Simon Says” where in the middle of the song you’ll see icons next to your avatar telling you to shake your Wii remote or to freeze, and you’ll get points for following the instructions correctly. While I assume this mode was meant to appeal to younger players who are frustrated because they can’t do the dance moves, but want to get points for following instructions, this feature kind of fell flat for me. Even as an adult, it was hard for me to focus on the dance moves and constantly be looking in the upper left-hand corner to see whether I should shake the remote or move it.

The third mode is “Team High Score”, where all the players will dance, and while a “spotlight” shines on a certain player’s avatar, that player will dance while the other players will shake their remotes vigorously to collect the “stars” that the player generates. Again, probably a good feature for young players who want to feel like they’re earning points just like the older players, but not a very appealing feature for everyone.

So while I appreciate the addition of these extra modes to try to make it more fun for the family to play together, I’m not sure if these particular modes will be appealing to anyone except for the very young players to “fit in”. That said, I’d definitely like to see future versions continue to try to come up with ways the whole family can play together.

On the Wii U, you can use the Gamepad to navigate menus, which is a plus. Also, any time any of the song start, someone can pick up the Gamepad and start “Dance Director” mode, where one player can direct players to dance like animals, zombies, slow-motion dancers, a mime, a ninja, a cowgirl, etc. Then, it’s up to the person controlling the Gamepad to decide which of the players danced it better.

There’s also a “Parents” section of the game that has six options: “Play Tracker”, where parents can view the gameplay history; “Progress” that shows top scores for each of the songs in each of the modes, as well as the number of times each song has been played; “Medals”, which shows achievements of various kinds; “Options”, which lets you toggle lyrics, next move icons, progress meter and usage tracking on and off, and also lets you choose your language (English, Spanish, French).

There’s also a “Philosophy” option that lets you read a personal letter from the development team. It reads:

A message from the Just Dance Kids team: we’re a group of designers, artists, producers and programmers. But we’re also a team of parents and kids. Our goal is to make a game we’d be proud to take home and play with our own families. And to do that, we’ve hand-picked age-appropriate songs that capture younger kids’ imaginations, engage older kids with chart-topping tween artists, and get parents into the mix with timeless dance classics. We believe that in addition to enhancing children’s physical well-bring, brain development, and self-esteem, dancing is a highly beneficial co-play activity for kids and parents. That’s why we’ve included gameplay modes specifically designed for collaboration between all ranges of developmental abilities. From our family to yours-stay happy, stay healthy, and keep an eye out for those raccoon – The Just Dance Kids Team

I definitely appreciate this team’s philosophy, and they did do a very good job of making a game that’s really family-friendly. But I was a bit disappointed that the new modes weren’t as compelling as they could be. Also, there are plenty of songs and features on the grown-up version of Just Dance that are perfectly family-friendly, and kids who see their friends with Just Dance 2014 may feel a bit cheated that Just Dance Kids 2014 doesn’t have the same level of features or songs. I almost wish that instead of “penalizing” parents by making them purchase a new $29.99 game that’s “family friendly”, Ubisoft could just incorporate some of the songs and features of Just Dance Kids into the regular version of Just Dance and provide parental controls for parents who are sensitive about the more suggestive songs.

But that said, if you’re a parent who has young children, Just Dance Kids 2014 has a great selection of songs and dances for kids aged 6-12, and you can rest assured that you won’t be blushing trying to explain what certain songs are about.

While I have (and will continue to) spend the majority of time on this blog reviewing the Wii and Wii U for fitness, there’s a new competitor for fitness gaming that I wanted to bring to your attention. No, it’s not the Playstation 4, and it’s not even the Xbox One.

It’s your iPad, iPod Touch, and iPhone. And if you’re like me and have an old treadmill, stationery bike, or elliptical that’s been sitting around doing nothing more than being an over-priced coat rack, dust that thing off and be prepared to breathe brand new life into it.

A company called Blue Goji has just released a new app for iOS for fitness called “Goji Play”. Sure, there have been a lot of fitness apps already. But the cool thing is that for $100, they also sell a set of game controllers and a sensor that’s designed to attach to your old exercise equipment, turning exercise on them from a boring, mindless experience to one where you can interact with a game as you’re exercising–and how well you exercise is tied into how well you do in the game.

There have been attempts to do this kind of thing in the past, but if I were a betting man I’d put it on Blue Goji. Their founders, Kai and Charles Huang, were co-founders behind the multi-billion dollar Guitar Hero franchise. So you know they know a thing or two about using creative peripherals and accessories to make a game fun.

I was so excited when I heard about this, I went ahead and bought one for $99. It came right away via Priority Mail.

Here’s how it works:

First, find your old elliptical, exercise bike, or treadmill that’s been collecting dust. Here’s mine, a ProForm 650 CardioCrossTrainer. At one point in time I was so eager to get in shape that I spent a few hundred dollars for this thing, thinking that if I invested that much money into it, by gum I’d make the most use out of it. As you can see, it’s in my living room, but has been converted to an expensive hat rack and coat rack.

I then opened up the box from Blue Goji. Under the packing slip was a Quick Start Guide that starts out “Disregard the guide inside the box”. (They just launched so there are of course still wrinkles to iron out.)

The packaging is beautiful and very efficiently packed. So it makes a great gift for anyone on your Christmas list with an old elliptical, treadmill, or exercise bike (which is just about everyone in the world).

 

In the box are the following:

1) An Activity Sensor that you clip to your pocket or waist. The concept of the activity sensor is a lot like the EA Sports Active sensors of yesteryear, today’s FitBit or Nike+, or tomorrow’s Wii Fit Meter. It’s a device that tracks your movement and sends it to a console (in this case, your iPad or iPhone).

2) Two game controllers. Each has two buttons that you’ll use to interact with the games as you’re exercising.  You strap the game controllers to the handles of your stationary bike or elliptical trainer using a velcro strap. You’ll need to position the controllers so you can easily press the buttons while you’re exercising.

The instructions aren’t very clear, but you hook them up in the order that you see them in the box: the blue and yellow X and Y buttons attach onto the left handle, and the red and green A and B buttons attach to the right hand.

Once you attach the game controllers, it magically transforms your old exercise equipment into a high-tech gaming machine.

 

 

3) Two foam “batons”. If you’re using equipment that doesn’t have handles, like a treadmill, they provide foam “batons” that you can strap the game controllers to and hold while running.

4) A micro-USB charger. Chances are you already have this if you have an Android phone or a Kindle, but you can never have enough of these.

Setup is pretty easy.

First, the game controllers come with AAA batteries installed already, but come shipped with a plastic tab to prevent the batteries from draining during shipment. You just have to separate the controllers from the straps and then pull a plastic tab to activate. When it comes time to replace the AAA batteries, that’s pretty easy too.

Next, you need to charge your Activity Sensor by plugging it into a micro-USB charger for at least 20 minutes, but preferably for a full charge (you’ll know it’s fully charged when the blue light goes off).

Finally, you go to the iTunes Store to download the Blue Goji App–just click here to download an app called Goji Play.  You can save yourself some time by also downloading all the games at the same time (just click on the “Related” tab or click on the links in this widget.

Happily, as of the time of this writing all the games are free. I imagine somewhere down the road Blue Goji will start charging for games, especially if they start getting more sophisticated with the graphics and gameplay (it’s all pretty simple now), so enjoy the all-you-can-download while it lasts.

When you open the app for the first time it’ll walk you the process of configuring the controllers. You turn on the activity sensor and shake it until the app recognizes it; after that you can clip it to a pocket or belt. Then, you’ll be walked through turning on the game controllers and pressing each of the buttons.

One thing to bear in mind is that the app only works with the iPad 3 and above, iPad Mini, iPod Touch 5th Generation, and iPhone 4S and above. I tried to use it on my iPad 2, and the game controllers wouldn’t recognize it at all. but my iPhone 4S worked like a charm.

Optionally, you can connect to your MyFitnessPal account, if you have one. I actually had one from years ago that like my elliptical I dusted off.

In the Goji Play app you can set goals. The default is to exercise for 20 minutes a day for 7 days, but you can adjust it.

Once everything is configured in Goji Play, you won’t need to open it again–you can just open the games themselves.

Most of them are first-person games where you can view an obstacle course, whether it’s on a ski slope (APO Snow), a ball rolling through a course of blocks (Smash the Blocks) or riding a bicycle on a road (Spin or Die). But other apps look promising as well–there are apps inspired by Galaga (Ralaga), Zaxxon (Zaxxon–evidently they got the trademark permissions for this one), Tetris (Beat Drop), a racing game (Super Moto X) and a slot machine (Slots).

Once you’re ready to play, you can put your phone or tablet in front of you, if your exercise equipment has a ledge for putting a book on it. Here’s what my iPhone looks like on my elliptical.

I loaded up “Smash the Blocks”, which is sort of a cross between Pac-Man and Sonic the Hedgehog. You play as a smiling yellow ball that rolls down a path at breakneck speed, trying to avoid obstacles and collect diamonds along the way.

You can download and play the game on the iPhone as a regular mobile game, but it’s frankly not the most impressive game when you’re just mashing with your fingers. But play it with the Blue Goji equipment, and it transforms into a really, really fun game that involves your whole body. As the ball is merrily rolling down the path, you press the Y button with your left thumb to move the little guy to the left, the A button with your right thumb to move him to the right, and both together to make him jump.

But the coolest thing is that the faster you’re moving in real life, the faster the little guy goes. This makes you feel like you’re really controlling the game with your whole body, in an way that I haven’t even felt with Wii Fit and the Balance Board (the only time I’ve come close before was with the Cyberbike, but if you recall, that was a pretty subpar piece of exercise equipment, compared to my much higher quality elliptical.

The games themselves aren’t the most impressive in terms of “modern graphics”, but to me, that’s actually a plus. It’s more important that the gameplay itself be fun and addictive enough that you can really get into the game and almost forget that you’re exercising.

And when you’re done playing, you can click the blue Goji Play button and see a synopsis of the time expended, calories burned, and miles traveled while playing, as well as how much you’ve tackled of your daily, weekly, and monthly goals.

I tried another game called “Super Moto X”. This was a sidescroller driving game where you’re trying to outrun a police helicopter or race against other drivers. You can use the two buttons on your left hand to switch lanes to avoid obstacles and other cars, and the A button to give yourself a boost or the B button to drop if you’re flying too high. And of course, you pedal, run, or eliipticize as fast as you can to give your car energy. This one sort of reminded me of the old Mattel Electronics racing game where you’re a red blip trying to avoid other red blips coming in your way. Intriguing game, but the iPhone screen was just a little too tiny for me to really enjoy it to its fullest; it probably would have been much better on an iPad.

I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised by how pleasant the experience was.  The setup was seamless, the reporting in the app beautifully designed, and there’s enough of a variety of games to keep it interesting. And just between trying out these two games (and re-trying them to try to better my score), I ended up burning up 44% of my exercise goal for the day, without even realizing it.

The experience wasn’t without its glitches. For some reason I kept having to flip my phone in landscape mode 180 degrees when going between the app and the games. Also, the instructions weren’t precise at first where to put the buttons, so it was a little bit of trial and error. But considering this is a brand new product just launched a few days ago, I was impressed by how smoothly it was all put together.

So overall, I was impressed. While Microsoft and Nintendo spend enormous resources trying to prove their platforms are the best for fitness gaming, I think Blue Goji is a dark horse, nimbly showing that the iPhone and iPad can be great for exercise gaming as well. It’s $100 well spent, especially if it’s going to help breathe new life into investments you’ve made in much more expensive exercise equipment. I look forward to seeing what else this company has to offer in the future!

You can buy yours on Amazon or directly on Blue Goji’s site.

____________________________________________________________

 

Update 10/20/13

I downloaded and played a few more Blue Goji games.

The first was “Beat Drop”. This game was sort of a cross between Tetris and Bejeweled, as you’re dealing with falling colored blocks and have to match 3 in a row to clear it. You use the X and A buttons to move a cursor to determine where the next block is falling. The twist is that as the levels get faster, you need to constantly move in order to activate “cheats” that help you clear blocks. Also, if you stop moving, the game will freeze.

The next game I tried was called “Ralaga”. No, this isn’t Scooby Doo’s version of Galaga. This seems to be a game loosely based on Galaga where you’re constantly shooting at spaceships coming at you. You need to constantly be moving in order to keep the “power” bar to the left going, and each time you get hit, your “health” bar goes down.

So far, same impressions as the last games. The games themselves aren’t very impressive in themselves, but when you add the exercise component they become strangely addicting. I was admittedly starting to get tired of Beat Drop, but by the time I realized I was I’d exercised for 20 minutes!

 

I’ve reviewed every Just Dance game since the original on in 2009. While I’ve given the spin-offs and rip-offs less-than-stellar reviews, the main games in the series (Just Dance and Just Dance 2, 3, and 4) have always gotten 5 out of 5 stars from me. While the basic mechanics of the game have been the same since the beginning, Ubisoft has done a great job of improving accuracy and adding to the feature set in each new version.

This iteration is no exception. Just Dance 2014 should really be called Just Dance 5, but Ubisoft has wisely veered off that numbering scheme and started to name the titles by year, given that they’re releasing a new version every year anyway. They’re covering all their bases by releasing it for the Wii, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U, Xbox One, and PS4 all at the same time.

When you start out the game, the opening menu is simple as always. In the center of the screen is a recommended song you can start dancing to right away. You can also scroll to the right to select individual songs.

In the upper right-hand corner you’ll see a yellow icon with an “M” in it. These refer to your “mojo points”. The points system is much easier to understand now than in previous versions of Just Dance; here, they serve as “currency” that you can use to “purchase” locked items in the game.

One nice thing about Just Dance 2014 is that none of the songs themselves are locked–every song is playable from the get-go. Instead, what’s locked are different variations of the choreography that’s available on certain songs. Here are all the different variations:

• Classic – The standard, default choreography, all of which are unlocked from the beginning.

• On Stage – Multiple dancers interacting with each other in a “dance performance”, which are a lot of fun not only for the dancers but also for onlookers. These are each 10 points to unlock.

• Extreme – These are more advanced dance routines, not for beginners. They’re 25 points to unlock.
• Battle – This is a mode where you compete against another player in a “Street Fighter” like battle–the better you dance, the more you’ll increase your life line and decrease your opponent’s. These are 10 points to unlock.

• Mash-Up – Here, different dance moves (and the original dancers) from other songs and from past versions of Just Dance are pieced together to form a unique dance. These are 5 points to unlock, or throughout the year you’ll be able to unlock one for free each month.
• Sweat – Songs are choreographed with maximum exercise, fitness, and aerobic activity in mind. These are 10 points to unlock.
• Sweat Mash-Up – A combination of Mash-Up and Sweat modes, these are 5 points to unlock.
• Puppet Master – Like Mash-Up mode, except that a human is controlling which dance steps the players will dance next using the Wii U Gamepad.

• Others – Several songs have very unique choreography. Gwen Stefani’s Rich Girl has a “Chair” dance. Far East Movement’s Turn up the Love has something called “Sumo”. And Nicki Minaj’s “Starships” lets you dance to the Charleston. Each of these are 50 points to unlock.

Dancer Card – One relatively new feature is the ability to click the upper right-hand corner to select or create a “dancer card”. This will allow you to provide your nickname, an avatar (you choose from a set of cute cartoon faces all blinking at you), your gender, and your age. The choices are 0-9, 10-14, 15-19, 20-29, 30-39, and 40+, a set of groupings that sort of reminds me of Logan’s Run (a joke that only folks who are 40+ will understand).

Once you set up your dancer card, when you click on it you’ll see at-a-glance your style (how accurate you are), your kCals burned in Sweat Mode, your favorite songs, your average star rating, and your online level. It’s nice not having to go by “Happy” or “Sunny” anymore.

The Dancing: The dancing itself works pretty much the same as past Just Dance games. Each song’s choreography is designed for 1-4 different players. If you’re playing with 2 or more players, each player will use his or her Wii remote to select a character to follow, and can also choose his or her dancer card so that statistics will be properly tallied. Each player then holds the Wii remote in his or her right hand and follows the on-screen dancer’s moves as if looking in a mirror.

The animation on screen, as usual, is usually done with tongue firmly planted in cheek. A zombie is dancing to Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive”. The song “The Love Boat” is set to a scene of the eponymous cruise ship sinking in the background.

As with previous versions of Just Dance on the Wii, don’t expect the motion detection to be as precise as the Kinect, although it is impressive how accurate they’ve gotten it over the years.

The Wii U version makes nice use of the GamePad to include people who for whatever reason can’t (or won’t) participate in the dancing. Karaoke mode allows that person to sing along to the words (which are displayed on the GamePad screen), and if the singing is good, it’ll earn M points. Alternatively, the person holding the GamePad can use the GamePad’s camera to film the dancers in “Autodance” mode, which will produce a 30 second video that’ll be automatically edited in a stylized way and then can be saved or shared or uploaded to JDTV (see below).

Other options on the main menu include the following:

Just Sweat – This mode allows you to play several songs in a row for 10, 20, or 40 minute programs. You can also turn on “free mode”, which turns on a calorie counter that tracks you calories for any song in the game.

Shop – As you play the game, you’ll earn points, which are tallied by a yellow “M” in the corner of the screen. You can use these points to “purchase” unlockable content for the game. These include:

1. Alternate Choreography. Here’s where you can unlock “On Stage” , “Extreme”, “Sweat” and “Battle Mode” choreography for songs. As of the launch of the game there are 24 of these to unlock, ranging from 10 to 50 points.
2. Mash-Ups & Co. Here, you can download Mash-Ups and Sweat Mash-Ups of songs, as well as different Party Master modes. There are 77 of these to unlock, which should keep you pretty busy. All are 5 points to unlock, and there’ll be a “free one” to unlock each month of the year (as long as you’re connected online you’ll get a pop-up each month that alerts you to the free mash-up and avatar that’s available for you).
3. New Songs. Unfortunately you can’t use your points to unlock new songs–you’ll need real money for that. Ubisoft cleverly weaved a list of purchasable songs into this menu so you’ll always be reminded of it when you’re unlocking content. They even offer a free song, Katy Perry’s Roar, for you to learn the download process (when you select a song you’re sent to Nintendo’s eShop to complete your purchase). When you buy a song, you’ll get avatars thrown in for free.

It’s really nice to be able to use the Wii Gamepad to navigate the store.

The World Dance Floor option will show up if you’re signed in. A number will show how many dancers are currently online. This is an interesting online mode where you can literally dance with players from around the world, earn points along the way, and even make friends. The good news is that you’re not personally identifiable, other than the name on your dancer card. There’s a countdown timer to “Happy Hour”, when you can earn extra points.

There are a number of activities on the Dance Floor. You can participate in dance offs against other players, you can dance to the same song with everyone in the group and see who’s the best, and you can vote on which song to dance to next. It’s a lot of fun, and it really adds a new dimension to dancing.

It is a little bit of a hassle to get online, as you need to login with your Nintendo ID, accept a network services agreement, and then if you want to access additional features you need to login (or set up) a uPlay ID and accept the Privacy Statement there. I did have a lot of trouble signing onto Ubisoft’s servers; I’d either get the message “The Ubisoft server is unavailable at this time. Please try again later” or the screen would say “working” but the status icon would just keep spinning and spinning until I had to reboot the Wii U. But when I did get through it was a lot of fun.

Finally, there’s another online feature called JDTV that consists of videos that other players around the world have uploaded. This was a feature available on the Xbox, but it’s now available with the Wii U when someone films the dancers in “Autodance”. You can view the most recent, the most popular, and featured videos, as well as your own.

Overall, I’m impressed yet again with this latest version of Just Dance. Every time I think the franchise is about the jump the shark, they make enough improvements to impress me yet again. The song list is a great mix of contemporary songs and oldies, there’s enough variation in choreography and collectible items to keep from getting bored, and the new points system to collect and “buy” items to unlock is much simpler to understand than in previous versions. The highlight, of course, is the new online features that let you compete and play with others around the world. it just adds a new level knowing that others around the globe are playing along with you.

Here’s a complete song list that lists artist, song name, number of dancers, and difficulty level of the classic choreography. They’ve done away with separate rating for difficulty and exertion, and have simplified it to easy, medium, and hard.

Five out of five stars. Highly recommended.

I’m going to make a bit of a bold prediction. As we’ve mentioned, Nintendo will be allowing owners of the Balance Board to download Wii Fit U for free to try for a month starting on 11/1/13, and will unlock the FULL game (retailing for $49.99) for free for anyone who purchases the $19.99 Fit Meter.

My prediction is that it’s going to be very, very hard to get a hold of one of these $19.99 Fit Meters for a few weeks, if not months. Why? Because remember the huge numbers of people who bought Wii Fit back in the day, to the point where there were month-long shortages. For the most part, those Balance Boards are still out there and still working. Even though Wii U sales have been somewhat anemic, there are still 3.6 million of them out there, a lot of those have balance boards already, and those who don’t can easily pick up a used or new balance board on eBay for a lot less than what Nintendo will be selling them for.

There’s been a lot of speculation about the color of the version they’ll be selling on 11/1. From all appearances, there’ll be one color at launch: black and grey. But sources have confirmed that there are at least two other colors being developed; one with a white face and a green outer ring and one with a white face and a red outer ring to coincide with the launch of the Luigi and Mario Remote Pluses, respectively. Personally, I like the green color the best, as it looks a lot like the early units that Nintendo was demoing, and it also matches the general milieu of the Wii Fit game and logo color.

Seeing how Nintendo has priced the Fit Meter at a surprisingly affordable cost, especially when compared to the cost of a FitBit ($100-$130) or a Nike+ Fuel Band ($150-$180), and knowing their inability to plan these kinds of things out very well, it’ll stand to reason that there will be a run on these the first few weeks.

I’ve been looking for pre-order links on all the major retail sites, but so far the only one I see one on is Amazon (update #1: as of 10/10, NewEgg is also offering it for pre-order; update #2, Gamestop now has it too).

Preorder Nintendo Fit Meter on Amazon

Preorder Nintendo Fit Meter on NewEgg

Preorder Nntendo Fit Meter at GameStop

While I’m not necessarily a fan of Amazon when it comes to pre-ordering, they do have their policy that if the price drops between now and launch date (which is highly unlikely at a price point of $19.99), they’ll drop the price to match. Also, while it may be tough to get one of these on launch date, once you download Wii Fit U you’ll have 31 days to use it before you have to unlock it, and there’s a good bet your Fit Meter will come way before that.

If you want to pre-order the physical game itself (that will include a physical version of the game plus the Fit Meter), pre-order links are already available on most retail sites. While these sites are all over the map in terms of reporting the release date and the pricing, Nintendo has confirmed on its site that the Wii Fit U + Fit Meter bundle will be available at an MSRP of $49.99 and available on November 1. The package bundling Wii Fit U + Fit Meter + Wii Balance Board will be available at an MSRP of $89.99 and available on December 13.

• Walmart
• Gamestop
• Best Buy