ShareThis"Wii Fit"Platform: WiiGenre: SportsPublisher: NintendoESRB Rating: E, for EveryoneGrade: 3.5 stars out of 5If you have zero desire to take your fitness and health seriously, it's highly doubtful that "Wii Fit" will change your life and suddenly motivate you to buy yoga mats or run a 10k. But if you've had a passing interest in aerobics but are turned off by uber-gym memberships and 40-person yoga classes, "Wii Fit" may be right up your alley.The key piece is the balance board, a peripheral that looks like a smaller step for aerobics classes. Small scales built inside intuitively track your shifting balance and weight. Paired with a series of activities and exercises grouped into four tracks, this provides the basis for a typical 30-minute workout.Yoga, aerobic, muscle and balance are the four group types, and each has about 15 activities/exercises each. Many are fun, though gamers will most likely gravitate toward the balance exercises since those are more sports-related and less gym-like. No matter which activity you choose, you will definitely work up a sweat if you go at it for 30 minutes or more.However, experts have been saying pre-launch that "Wii Fit" doesn't gauge body mass index properly and that the exercises are not enough to truly shave off love handles or make one ripped. There are ways to cheat the game and trick the balance board to do enough to progress statistically, but why bother? And what's to gain with that? No matter whether it's a real gym or the "Wii Fit," the results are going to be based on individual dedication."Wii Fit's" ability to become your in-home gym and personal trainer is a huge misconception. Anyone expecting that will be sorely disappointed. At its core, "Wii Fit" is yet another extension of the Wii and its continuing efforts to get people off their rears and onto their feet. For that, it gets gold stars. For the purported revolutionary fitness results, it comes up a tad flat."The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian"Platforms: DS, Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation 3, PC, PS2Genre: AdventurePublisher: Disney InteractiveESRB Rating: E, for EveryoneGrade: .5 starGoodness gracious, if this game can keep you playing for more than an hour or so, you deserve your own closet that transports you to Narnia. Otherwise, I can see no other earthly reason why anyone would stick with this, because the controls, visuals, strategy and overall gameplay are viciously cruel to gamers.The plot is loosely based on that of the book/movie, but in all honesty, outside of the characters being appropriately named, you wouldn't recognize it as anything other than a dungeon/forest role-playing game. The turn-based attack system is flawed, and requiring young gamers to learn what items are used for what purpose without ever explaining it to them is about the least-effective gameplay method ever devised.This does not even count for the horrible visual effects, which make tracking your characters versus other solid objects/enemies/animals quite frustrating.Anyone who cares for his child or relative or friend should steer that person clear of this game. Otherwise, the odds of the DS being hurled into a wall will rise substantially.(E-mail Chris Campbell at game_on_games(at)mac.com)
Looking at 'Wii Fit' and 'Prince Caspian'
Submitted by SHNS on Tue, 05/20/2008 - 16:35
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