EA Sports Active: First Impressions, The Good and the Bad

After being an owner of Wii Fit for quite a while, I have to admit it does get repetitive, and the lack of certain features (workouts, less “trainer” comments, calorie count) is quite annoying. Exploring fitness options for the Wii I bought “My Fitness Coach”, which made me sweat heavily during the very first session, but at the same time proved a massive disappointment – awkward interface, no scale functionality, annoying voice-over and exercises not being much fun and no feedback on how you are performing them.

Some time after that I found a video advertising “Sports Active”. It looked like a good contender in the fitness category. The interface didn’t look shabby and the leg strap promised some good feedback on your exercise progress. My expectations were quite high when I was placing my pre-order on Amazon.

And I wasn’t disappointed! So let’s see what the game had in fact to offer:

The Good:

Calorie count.

Each workout before it begins calculates an estimate calorie count, which than you can compare yourself against. I found it quite motivating and not that hard to burn more than expected.

Adjustable trainer feedback

For now I’m quite happy to have full feedback and a lot of trainer motivational chatter, but my experience in general has been that over time you will eventually want to tone it down. And guess what? You can!

Music selection

There are over 40 tracks from different genres. And as an added benefit you can pick and choose using a custom play list. Overall the music is quite nice and I found it fitting will with exercise routines.

Workouts

This is definitely a plus when coming from Wii Fit. Sports active comes with a 30 day challenge feature and quite a few standalone workout presets. On top of that you can also pick & mix any of the exercises available into a routine of your own.

Accessories

The leg strap is very professional and sturdy. However the resistance band at first glance looked a bit flimsy, but in fact works pretty well. I could even say surprisingly well.

The Bad:

No weighing via the Balance Board.

This one always amazes me. The game does have add-ons for Wii Balance Board users, but not being able to optionally weight yourself instead of using sliders seems a big thing to miss.

Accessories

You have to assemble the resistance band yourself. Found this a bit disappointing, and still not sure whether I have done it right…

The journal survey

The journal as a concept is great, but I really dislike the survey bit of it. Mainly due to the question selection, the food and exercise ones are fine, but around five questions about mood, how energetic I feel, how important is exercise today, etc. are tedious to enter, and are not things that really do change that much on a daily basis.

The Conclusion

As you can see there are definitely more pluses than downsides. The exercises themselves are fun while providing an appropriate challenge. Lastly the game offers an added benefit in the option of playing with a friend when you get the extra peripheral set.

I surely enjoyed getting back into shape with Sports Active.