In the perfect interactive gaming style of Nintendo Wii, the Wiifit doesn't require you to sit on your ass at all. It requires you to jump around like a lunatic and get your heart racing in creative and fun ways. I personally hate exercise and any form of sweat but this got me puffing without even realizing! I think that is the point though, that us couch potatoes don't have to go very far to get fit. It's not all cardio exercise though, it focuses on everything - it has yoga poses, muscle building exercises and balance games.

The Wiifit it knows almost exactly what you are doing. As some of you may have found there is a lazy way to playing WiiSports, you don't need to put a lot of effort in to hit your tennis ball hard or jump around in the boxing ring, but with WiiFit - you really have to do the work or it knows you aren't! This is thanks to the Balance Board.

Now freeze!

The Balance Board is about 45 cm long and 20 cm wide, it's nice and sturdy so you don't feel like you are going to break it when you stand on it. When you first start you need to choose a Mii (a character) and make one (if you already haven't) that looks like you. Then you hop on the balance board and it weighs you and does your BMI calculation. Now lets just say your BMI is not the best it could be (i.e me), then it tells you that you what BMI category you are in. Now if it happens to be obese or overweight, just to make you feel even worse it makes your Mii blow out like a little fat balloon to reflect your BMI! Nothing makes you want to get puffing more than a game telling you your fat and the health risks involved. All the time that you do your WiiFit it keeps a graph of your progress and lets you set goals for weight loss or gain. It also rewards you the more you play, which is good because you tire quickly of the beginning exercises (as they are pretty basic). You are rewarded with new exercises and health tips and also get to check your WiiFit age. From what I can tell this is calculated off your balance, as you do balance tests to find out your WiiFit age. This has a chance of also being depressing.

The graphics are very much the same as the Wii games. All virtual surroundings and the different little Mii's, except your trainer who is a virtual person, either female or male with quite annoying voices. The Balance Board talks to you on the screen and is the cutest thing throughout it all! When he wants you to step on him he tells you and then goes 'ouch!' in a cute little computer voice.

I really liked how the WiiFit trainer tells you how to do an exercise or what to do in the activity to get maximum results. Like with the yoga poses it goes through the exercise step by step and then gives you the chance to do it. The amazing thing is that it tells you if you are doing to exercise incorrectly. It can tell by your balance and the weight you have on the board, then tells you what to do to correct your pose. All of the exercises are like this, if you are jogging and going at an inconsistent speed it tells you to slow down and keep the pace steady.

The only downfall with this idea is that because a lot (or pretty much all) of the activities are involving the balance board, its essentially one player only. Well you can, but the other person doesn't have their exercises monitored or registered by WiiFit, so you have to take it in turns.

You use the Wiifit board for many different things and can be used of people all ages, sizes and fitness levels (unless you have a heath condition, pregnant or are over 150kg's) but you can't jump or run on it - that it done through the motion camera you put on your TV. So really all in all I would say it's well designed, and the activities are fun - hopefully more multi-player things to come and more activities to add.