I decided to try out Punch Out for the Wii. Reviews of this game have been overwhelmingly positive. Reviewers love the nostalgia of the game–the characters and personalities are the same as the original Punch Out for the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) from 1987 and Super Punch Out that was so popular in arcades. It still has the same kitschy quality of its prececessors, but has been updated with slicker looking characters (still cartoony, but with a 3-D feel).

And of course, you have the option to use Wii motion control. The game developers basically allow for the game to be played using three different controller configurations:

1. Holding the Wii-mote sideways (mimicking the buttons of the old NES controller)
2. Boxing with the Wii-mote and Nunchuk and using the Nunchuk control for ducking and weaving.
3. Boxing with the Wii-mote and Nunchuk and using the Wii Balance Board for ducking and weaving.

The consensus of most reviews is that the game is best played using just the Wii-mote–this yields the quickest response needed to play the game properly. Of course, this’ll give your thumbs a nice workout, but not much else. In this review, I’ll focus in on #2 and #3, and let you know how well this works as a fitness game.

The game concept itself is great for both those who remember the original series and those who don’t. You play the part of a little boxer named Little Mac and work your way through a boxing circuit, facing a series of 13 colorful characters with increasing degrees of difficulty. Each boxer is bigger than you and has his own personality and very, very annoying traits and mannerisms, so annoying that you can’t rest until you’ve beaten the snot out of them. I should probably also mention that this game has never quite been politically correct: each character is a walking stereotype of the country they’re from, from the Frenchman who bleeds croissants to the Japanese guy who bleeds sushi, to the guy from India who rides on a magic carpet. I suppose what makes it all okay is that they offend everyone equally, and with tongue firmly in cheek.

Once you beat all 13 it doesn’t end there: the game actually goes into a “Title Defense” mode where the vanquished boxers come back, angry and harder to beat.

The controls take a little getting used to. Like in Wii Sports Boxing, you mainly thrust with your hands to throw punches. I found Wii Boxing to be more responsive, and I preferred the way that Wii Sports Boxing allows you to block punches by putting your hands together in front of your face and weaving back and forth (with Punch Out, you use Nunchuk joystick to block, dodge, and duck).

But then again with Punch Out, the boxing is much more involved. Each boxer has a different pattern (which can in fact change through the course of playing the game), and as you go through each one you need to identify the pattern and have quick enough reflexes to strike or duck out of the way when a boxer tips off which way he’ll go (conveniently, the boxer will glow red right before he strikes, but in some cases you have a fraction of a second to respond).

Here’s a video of me boxing Super Muscle Man (who was the final fighter in earlier versions of the video game)

The characters and the storyline make the boxing more immersive–there’s something about being taunted by a giant Frenchman or a giant blonde muscleman from LA that just makes you want to pound the stuffing out of them. And of course the graphics and animation, while still cartoony, made it a more complete experience than Wii Sports Boxing. Unlike the repetitiveness of Wii Sports Boxing (which you can eventually beat easily by looking for patterns), Punch Out provides a good variety of fighters that use a variety of techniques and require you, as in real boxing, to look for their weaknesses to beat them. Listen to your coach between rounds to learn what the weaknesses are (or, if the coach is telling you how much he likes chocolate, chances are you’ve figured it out already).

It takes some time, but the game is nice enough to give you a practice mode where you can box against a “holographic” version of each opponent to learn their strenghs and weaknesses without affecting your won-loss record. It’s a classic Wii workout game in that it’s so fun and so addictive that you can work up a real sweat without even realizing you’re working out. Case in point: by the time I won this fight against “Mr. Sandman”, the final fighter between you and the title, I had lost over 100 times (but in the losses got great exercise)!

While the balance board addition was a good thought, the responsiveness was just too poor to use seriously. The Wii didn’t quite respond accurately when I bobbed and weaved on the board–either the timing would be off or the screen would display something completely different than I was doing. At the end of the day I stuck with the nunchuk controls.

So the question is, was it a good workout? Yes it was. It wasn’t an exhausing, full-body workout, but I most certainly did sweat and get some good aerobic exercise. Unlike the boxing games in Gold’s Gym Cardio and EA Sports Active, this one immerses you in the storyline which provides plenty of motivation for you to continue.

Ultimately, I’d give this * * * for workout intensity, and * * * * for fun. If you like Wii Sports Boxing, this is a nice little step up.

Review of EA Sports Grand Slam Tennis

Overall rating: * * * *

The most true-to-life tennis video game available today, thanks to the MotionPlus,

June 15, 2009

Reviewer: Nutwisystem

A few days ago, Nintendo released the next big improvement for the Wii controller, continuing a long line of improvements starting from the Wii-mote, to the Nunchuk, to the Wii Balance Board. It’s the Wii MotionPlus, an attachment to your Wii-mote which allows for much more detailed and accurate motion sensing of your arm and wrist movements as you play games. With games like Wii Sports, you controlled players by moving your arms up, down, left, and right. With this attachment, your movements are captured in much finder detail.

There is a growing list of games that use the Wii MotionPlus, but the first one I was excited in getting was EA SPORTS Grand Slam Tennis. Here’s my review.

I ordered both the MotionPlus and the tennis game from Amazon. Grand Slam Tennis did not come bundled with the MotionPlus, so I bought it separately; I figure when Wii Sports Resort (which will be the “killer application” for the MotionPlus) comes out, it’ll be bundled with the MotionPlus, so I’ll buy one now, and get a second one when I get that game. (It also comes bundled with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 which is also available today, but I personally didn’t feel like spending money on a golf game just yet, although I regret it because the reviews are phenomenal).

As usual, the game came from Amazon packaged snugly.

The contents looked in great shape.

I opened the Wii MotionPlus first. It had an instruction manual, and an extra Wii-mote sleeve, embedded in which was the MotionPlus unit, a small, solid plastic part.

Installation could not have been easier. Just slip your current Wii-mote out of its current sleeve, and slip it into the new sleeve. Connect the connectors and snap it into place.

Make sure you moved the wrist strap through the hole designed for it. Then, switch the “lock” button to “locked”.

Voila! You now have a much improved Wii-mote with better and more accurate motion detection.

Next step was trying the tennis game. I opened the box and put the disc into the Wii, and proceeded to set up an exhibition game between Roger Federer and Pat Cash.

The first impressive thing I noticed is that EA got the licensing agreements for all of the Grand Slam events. The graphics are amazingly precise, from the clay courts of France, to the grass courts of Wimbledon, and the hard courts of Queens and Australia.

You’ll also notice that there’s a chart you can pull up after the game that shows the amount of calories you burned. So while it won’t replace any of the other exercise games here, it’s a nice diversion when you feel like having a ton of fun and burning off a few calories.

In short, If you get past the cartoony characters, this provides the most true-to-life tennis video game available today, thanks to the Wii MotionPlus controller.

For the latest version, see the updated Review of EA Sports Active 2 for the Wii.

Well, this is the week a lot of us Wii fitness folks have been waiting for: the release of EA Sports Active. I’ve been a fan of EA Sports titles for years, having enjoyed games like John Madden Football, Tiger Woods Golf, and NBA Live for years on the PC and consoles like the Playstation. The question, of course, is whether EA Sports can take their great talents and skills in developing couch potato sports games and parlay it into a great game for working out to rival the Wii Fit and other games in that genre. The answer is a resouding yes.

The box came impeccably packaged, as they always seem to from Amazon. Inside shrinkwrapped plastic….

…was a beautiful pristine new box. The size of the box was a little smaller than I thought it’d be, having been spoiled by the Wii Fit box.

Opening the contents of the box, I was a little taken aback. Again, I had been spoiled by the Wii Fit, where opening the box was like Christmas morning, with the space-age balance board and all the accessories that come with it. This was a little more subdued, with two bags and a game case.

Opening all the pieces in the bag, at first I wasn’t too impressed. There were two straps, a piece of velcro, what looked and smelled like a gigantic rubber band, and what turned out to be a leg strap.

But I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt to the good folks at EA, so I followed the instructions to construct the giant rubber band. The instructions in the booklet aren’t the clearest, and the pictures are certainly not large enough to be of much use to anyone, so I figure I’ll walk you through the process here.

The first step, like it says in the book, is to lay one end of the giant rubber band over the black strap. The big loop should be facing you (unlike the picture in the instruction manual).

The next step is pretty simple. Take the big loop and thread it into the little loop, making sure you trap 2-3 inches of the red rubber band inside the knot you’re making. Tighten it and you’ll come out with this:

Voila, you have what’s called a “resistance band”. No, it’s not some folk rock group or an armed militia of any kind. It’s literally a giant rubber band that you’ll be using in exercises. Here’s a view of what it looks like (pardon my ugly feet)

The rubber was so thin I thought for sure it would snap at the first use. But to my shock, it didn’t. In fact, as cheap as the materials seemed at first, believe it or not it provided a surprisingly good workout (see the “Upper Body Exercise” section below for details).

The next step was trying on the knee strap. Here’s what it looks like from your vantage point after putting it on (pardon my ugly thigh). It’s literally a strap that you put on your thigh which carries the nunchuk for certain exercises, such as running. Much more effective than the Wii Fit, where they tell you to “hold the Wiimote or put it in your pocket”. Again, more details below on how you use this in actual exercise.

Okay, so now we’re ready for the game itself.

The creators of EA Sports Active said that they want this game to be to Western styles of exercise as Wii Fit is to Eastern styles of exercise. In other words, while Wii Fit focuses on things like balance and yoga, EA Sports Active would focus on things like strength training, coordination, and motor skills.

When you start the game, it’s a lot like other exercise games. You choose a character (it doesn’t look like you can use your Mii–instead, you’re constrained to looking like a cool fit dude or dudette), you configure your height and weight, you choose your music options, and you choose whether you want a male or female trainer. Like the other exercise games, there’s also a calendar you can use to track your progress (one thing I wish a game company would come up with is a consolidated calendar that tracks across games. All of these calendars are useless for those of us who like to mix up different exercise games).

This is where things start to look different. You have the ability to choose from scores and scores of exercises, ranging from cardio exercises, to upper body workouts, to lower body workouts, to sports simulations that help you with coordination and specific skills. You can choose the exercises a la carte (one thing I love is that you can play any exercise immediately, instead of the annoying and overused “play more to unlock” features of Wii Fit and games like that). Or, you can have the Wii pick a ready-made workout regimen for you to target specific goals. There’s even a “30 day workout” mode which does all the setup work for you–you just take 20 minutes a day to go through their program.

Here’s a sample of some of the games. I’ll go through the exercise types.

Cardio

This is one shortcoming of the Wii Fit. Their cardio exercises are limited to running in place or hula hooping, and believe you me, there’s only a certain amount of hula hooping a 39 year old guy can do.

As you can see, your workout always starts with a projection of how many calories you’ll burn. Certain games use the Wii Balance Board (but it’s by no means required to get the most out of the game). Then, there’s a video introduction which shows you exactly how to play the exercise.

The boxing game above was the first I played on EA Sports Active, and as you can see, after a shaky start I really got the hang of it. It used the Nunchuk and Wii-mote for the boxing maneuvers, and the Balance Board to register kicks. Not much cheating here–the system is smart enough to know when you really kick and when you just lift your leg. All in all, a fun and great workout. The controls were surprisingly responsive–I say surprisingly because other games such as Samba Di Amigo and Gold’s Gym Cardio didn’t register arm movements and punches nearly as accurately. But it looks like the engineers at EA Sports figured it out.

Similarly, the dance game (which are basically step exercises) seemed more responsive than the same game on the Wii Fit. I’m not sure what’s goofier, a bunch of Miis dancing or a bunch of cartoonish EA Sports Athletes doing it. Bottom line, all you have to do is not be afraid of looking as goofy as them, and you’ll get an exercise that rivals any step class at the gym. I found you can skip the beginning and intermediate exercises and go straight to the expert.

The running game is a lot like the Wii Fit too, only this time you’re going around a track. I prefer the Wii Fit’s scenery, of course, but the graphics in this one are interesting too. This is a game where you use the knee strap to put the nunchuk by your thigh. It seems to register movements pretty well. The one minor annoyance, if you can call it that, is the overly exuberant coach giving you a bit too much positive reinforcement. I want to hear my coach yelling at me if I fall on my face!

Upper Body
The next series of exercises are for upper body strength, and they use the giant rubber band.

Again, I wasn’t expecting too much. I have a weight set at home which I use for most of my upper body workout. Still, I figure I’d give it a shot.

The exercises are a series of curls, shoulder presses, and lifts all using the resistance band. By holding the Wii-mote and Nunchunk in your hand, along with the straps for the resistance band, your virtual trainer can monitor your progress and shout encouragement.

I have to admit, this was much more effective than I thought it’d be. First of all, the rubber band never broke–that’s one strong piece of rubber. Secondly, the instructions in the videos were extremely useful in targeting specific muscle groups. After doing a series of exercises I did feel the burn in a muscles I wasn’t expecting. I won’t say this is a huge tool for massive muscle growth, but it’d definitely great for muscle toning and overall fitness.

Lower Body Exercises
These exercises consist of lunges, squats, and jumps to help your lower body. They use the Nunchuk knee/thigh strap at keep tabs on whether you’re doing them properly. The one annoyance with using the Nunchuk was that the cord was always getting tangled up, but that was easily fixed by holding more of the cord in my hands so that too much wasn’t dangling.

I found these very effective as well. Very similar to the types of exercises you’ll find in a game like My Fitness Coach, but far more effective because of the virtual coach keeping tabs on your progress through the movements of the nunchuk with your thigh. Again, the responsiveness seemed spot-on.

Sports
Okay, this is the part I know a lot of you have been waiting for. Yes, EA Sports Active does have a lot of sports games on it.

It’s important to set your expectations for these sports games as to what they are and what they aren’t. These aren’t replacements for console sports games or simulations. If you want to play simulated games, you’re still better off with Wii Sports or an upcoming game like EA SPORTS Grand Slam Tennis, especially using the new Wii MotionPlus controller add-on which will greatly improve the performance of your Wii controller (available June 8). Wii Sports Resort also looks like it’s going to be a great game (available July 26).

More accurately, these should be considered exercise routines that happen to use sports visuals to make exercising more fun and engaging. As long as you go in with the expectation that it’s more of an exercise game than a sports game, you’ll be very pleased. Here’s a sample of sports:

BasketballThis series of exercises helps you with balance and coordination. With the basketball game, you basically have to take a ball off a cart and then pass or shoot it. The game is more about timing and strength then about accuracy; for example, to shoot the ball you just have to thrust up with enough force and the ball will go in. You can choose to use or not use the Wii Balance Board. Whatever the exercise lacks in fitness value, it makes up for it because it’s so fun you’ll do it over and over.

Inline SkatingThe inline skating game reminds me of the Wii Fit Skiing game, in that the more you crouch, the faster you go. A nice game for balance control, although again, I’m not sure of the fitness value. What I do know is it shouldn’t be long before some troublemaker on YouTube posts a viral video dubbing in flatulence noises every time the virtual trainer raises his leg.

Baseball
Again, not the most accurate simulation of the sport (to catch a ball, for example, you have to lunge with your arm using the right timing), and there’s nothing like the “game simulation” you’d find in Wii Sports, but it’s certainly a lot of fun and provides great calesthenics and upper body workout.

Throwing and catching are basically done using upper body arm movements–the repetitive movement is what gets your heart pumping and your arms moving. The picthing game is a load of fun–you basically try to knock down a stack of cans.

Tennis
Your tennis game is certainly not going to improve with this, but again, these exercises are a great way to get your blood circulating and your upper body moving. You use tennis-like movement to simulate serves, volleys, and smashes. The controls are remarkably accurate, more so than Wii Sports.

Volleyball
Last but not least, there’s volleyball. Again, you don’t simulate an actual game, but you get a pretty good workout by serving, setting, and bumping. The game controls are very impressive with this one. If you don’t time a bump correctly, for example, the ball may end up flying behind you instead of over the net. Similarly, if you don’t bump with the right force or at the right angle, you may not make it over the net. It’s as realistic as a video game can come to the real thing.

Conclusion

So, my conclusion?

Workout Intensity: * * * * * Fun: * * * * *

Wii Sports Active is available at Amazon.