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Being a married guy in my mid-thirties, things have changed for me. I’ve become more responsible, wiser with the finances, and I grudgingly have to be more constructive with my time. Sometimes though, life gets in the way of health. We spend so much time getting everything done around the house that it is easy to lose track of ourselves. A lot of people are caught in the “fast food nation” mentality and we would rather eat quick meals, play iPhone games and watch reality TV. I must say, that the idea of a fitness video game may seem unorthodox, considering how the media portrays gamers, but I feel that the growing genre is the future of healthy living.
Your Shape Fitness Evolved is Ubisoft’s attempt to get couch potatoes up and moving toward better heath. I feel that even though the Wii remote as an input device may be limited, the game still manages to read inputs well enough to succeed.
Disclaimer: This is NOT Gambus working out.
The first thing that I noticed about Your Shape is the incredible user interface. All of the visuals have a futuristic, clean look to them, kind of like going to an Apple Store. A woman’s voice greets you and talks you through the whole profile setup process, which asks you for your weight, age, height, etc. After you set up your profile, you will be able to do many things from the start, such as specific area workout, classes, dancing, kickboxing, cardio training, power training, going to the store or even going to the Zen Zone for some relaxation.
The overall look of this game reminded me of the future fitness video at the beginning of Metal Gear Solid 4, depicting a VR fitness center. With all of the advancements in the tech from Kinect, Wii U and mobile devices, we are inching our way into a virtual workout center.
These workouts will make you ache. The first day that I played this, I was sore all day long. The game is just played with the Wii U Gamepad and a single Wii remote, which has both benefits and drawbacks. At first, I was hoping that the Wii U camera had built in body tracking like the Kinect, but sadly that wasn’t the case. However, using just a single remote makes the game very accessible.
This is how Gambus reacts too when success is reached.
As you work out, the Wii U gamepad will display information including burned calories and the time that you have left before the workout is over. Once you are done with a workout or activity, you will see your performance, a score and the amount of coins that you earned. You can then go into the store and purchase extra workout activities and even new trainers to work out with. This game has a lot of stuff going for it in the content department.
Overall, Your Shape Fitness is a really good title to pick up if you would like to lose some weight in the comfort of your own home. There are plenty of things to do in this title; heck, there is even a cookbook in this game with lots of tasty looking healthy recipes. Granted, I would rather have some full body tracking to keep my workouts more focused, but what Your Shape offers is still inspirational.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
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