The original Wii Fit sold over 18 million copies in its first year (it currently ranks as the fifth best selling video game of all time) -- so it was little surprise when Nintendo unveiled Wii Fit Plus at their press conference this past week. Wii Fit Plus will be compatible with the Balance Board peripheral that shipped with the original game (you'll be able to buy either the game disc or a bundle with the balance board) and includes new games and training workouts.
We checked out three of the new games while touring Nintendo's E3 booth. The first found our avatar dressed in a chicken outfit. The goal was to fly above the water and land on as many target pads as possible in a given amount of time -- by standing on the balance board and flapping our wings, we were able to take off and steer ourselves (shifting our weight to the right or left) to three landing areas. Ridiculous as we're sure we looked, the game was fun and controlled well.
Our second game was also another new activity shown in the Wii Fit Plus trailer -- swinging our hips into numbered balls to sum up to ten. We found it took a fairly forceful shake to the up/down/right/left in order for the board to register the hit; other times we accidentally hit the ball opposite the one we wanted when we returned our hips to the center. Doing mental math while trying popping our hips from side to side? Not an easy feat either.
The last game we tested pushed our hand-eye coordination to its limits. Our goal was to direct colored marbles to their appropriate containers by tilting the Wii Remote or leaning to one side in order to seesaw the marble in the direction we wanted. The game started us out with one marble at a time; we'd see a blue marble, then tilt the controller to the left and then lean to the right in order to create a path for it to fall into the blue container. Soon the game began spitting marbles out in succession, and we lost major points by dumping a ton of marbles into the wrong tubs.
While we didn't have the opportunity to check out more of the main workout sections of the game, it's clear that Nintendo is marketing Wii Fit Plus directly against the recently released (and hugely successful) EA Sports Active. They share a few similar features, such as the ability to custom build a workout and a selection of workout 'games.' EA Sports Active itself will be releasing an expansion pack later this year -- time will tell which brand consumers will flock to for their Wii workout needs.
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