The Biggest Loser Ultimate Workout
With 800% less annoying commercial breaks than the TV show!
Posted December 4, 2010
Fitness games certainly haven’t been in short supply for the release of Microsoft’s Kinect motion controller. With specific fitness games like Your Shape: Fitness Evolved, Zumba Fitness, & EA Sports Active 2 as well as dancing games like Dance Central and Dance Masters, The Biggest Loser Ultimate Workout has some stiff competition even with the branded design of the game. The developer, Blitz Games, has transformed popular trainers Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels into digital form and basically brought them into your living room to motivate you into shape. A similar game (The Biggest Loser) was released on the Wii and DS systems last year, but Ultimate Workout has been updated for the high-definition Xbox 360 and adapted to track your movements via the Kinect. For those unfamiliar with the televisions program, The Biggest Loser is a motivation game show of sorts, pitting overweight contestants against one another to compete for a cash prize, but ultimately to learn how to live a healthy lifestyle.
You are asked to setup a profile the first time you pop in the game disc. After entering a few details about yourself (like your weight, be honest!), the Kinect camera takes a full body scan of your shape and creates a digital persona of yourself inside the game, pretty inventive right off the bat as well as darn accurate. You are also asked to record a video diary of your progress just like the show. While the presentation of said video diary borders of cheesy, it’s a fantastic way to keep track of your progress in losing weight. Hypothetically, you can look back at that double chin your former self was sporting 3 months ago in the first video diary and be proud of your progress. The game then launches you into a preliminary fitness test to gauge what you can handle and away you go.
The game definitely nailed how much I could take right off the bat and pushed me just a little bit farther than I could take during my first week. I was out of breath on most of the sessions, but one cool aspect of the game is the ability to tell the trainers to slow down a bit via the Kinect microphone. This helps the game adjust the level of exercises and gives the player a bit of control. There’s a variety of workout plans in the game that alternate between upper / lower body, cardio / cardio boxing and yoga. These exercises alternate along the week and it certainly helps keep things fresh. At the end of each workout, the trainers have you do stretches to keep you limber and basically cool down. At the end of the week, you have to weigh in (with your own scale) before increasing or decreasing the intensity level of the workout for next week.
Given the branding, the game is also structured around the Biggest Loser format. The “weigh in” has you competing against the CPU players. You can also compete in challenges which are fairly strenuous exercise for a short time, like kicking or jumping rope. These don’t contribute to the overall game show structure considerably, but can be fun diversions. There’s also a ton of great content in the game regarding tips for staying healthy. Similar to the show, you can find out your risk for things like heart disease or diabetes. There’s also a bevy of healthy recipes for those looking to overhaul their eating habits. I tried a couple of them myself and they weren’t half bad for a healthy alternative to something like a hamburger.
But everything isn’t perfect with the game. Outside of the exercises, the main problem with the game is the poor implementation of motion tracking within menus. The game uses a system in which you hover over an option and have to wait for a progress bar to fill up to actually select said option. It’s difficult to pull off and waiting for that progress bar is a waste of time. To make matters worse, there’s no controller support. The menu system also doesn’t allow you enough time to read about the menu option which you hover over it. It’s just a terrible UI decision, hopefully something third party developers will avoid on the Kinect in the future.
If you hate exercising alone, the game does support multiplayer workouts. You can join up with 3 friends online over Xbox Live and do a workout together. Their virtual representations are in the gym with yours and you can also chat with your friends over the microphone in the Kinect system. This really isn’t a competitive type of model, but rather another way to motivate each other to complete the workout. For the achievement lovers out there, the game also comes with a full batch of 45 achievements. There are achievements for burning a specific number of calories, completing 5 sets of exercises in perfect form or completing multiple weeks of the program. It’s a great set that definitely encourages you to keep with the program, even if your overall improved fitness isn’t enough of a goal.
Just adapting my body shape to a little virtual character is already better than the other fitness games on the market. The game’s design is supposed to look like the same workout facilities that you see on the television show and Blitz Games pulls that off. The character models are also great representations of their famous counterparts and they are animated extremely well. The developer definitely captured the same elements that make the show involving. As mentioned before, my only problem with the visuals are the poor UI design.
I'm a bit surprised that the trainers get pretty harsh with you verbally, but I liked it. Watching Bob and Jillian scream at people on my TV is one thing, but hearing them scream at me was completely different. They are in your face when you are screwing up and motivational when you are doing it right. The voice work is great and they recorded a surprisingly large amount of audio just for the game.
Of EA Sports Active 2, Your Shape: Fitness Evolved and The Biggest Loser Ultimate Workout, the latter has the absolute best use of motion tracking during the actual exercises as well as the motivation to keep you going. While the menus and general UI really need a massive overhaul, this is easily your best option for keeping in shape with the Kinect system. Blitz Games was smart to partner with the trainers and producers of The Biggest Loser program and would be well served to produce their next title, assuming they can get the menus right. If you recently purchased the Kinect and want a useful, worthwhile way to increase your level of fitness without leaving the house, you should feel safe in picking up The Biggest Loser Ultimate Workout. Highly Recommended!
Discuss This Game on Our Official VGT Forum
You are asked to setup a profile the first time you pop in the game disc. After entering a few details about yourself (like your weight, be honest!), the Kinect camera takes a full body scan of your shape and creates a digital persona of yourself inside the game, pretty inventive right off the bat as well as darn accurate. You are also asked to record a video diary of your progress just like the show. While the presentation of said video diary borders of cheesy, it’s a fantastic way to keep track of your progress in losing weight. Hypothetically, you can look back at that double chin your former self was sporting 3 months ago in the first video diary and be proud of your progress. The game then launches you into a preliminary fitness test to gauge what you can handle and away you go.
The game definitely nailed how much I could take right off the bat and pushed me just a little bit farther than I could take during my first week. I was out of breath on most of the sessions, but one cool aspect of the game is the ability to tell the trainers to slow down a bit via the Kinect microphone. This helps the game adjust the level of exercises and gives the player a bit of control. There’s a variety of workout plans in the game that alternate between upper / lower body, cardio / cardio boxing and yoga. These exercises alternate along the week and it certainly helps keep things fresh. At the end of each workout, the trainers have you do stretches to keep you limber and basically cool down. At the end of the week, you have to weigh in (with your own scale) before increasing or decreasing the intensity level of the workout for next week.
Given the branding, the game is also structured around the Biggest Loser format. The “weigh in” has you competing against the CPU players. You can also compete in challenges which are fairly strenuous exercise for a short time, like kicking or jumping rope. These don’t contribute to the overall game show structure considerably, but can be fun diversions. There’s also a ton of great content in the game regarding tips for staying healthy. Similar to the show, you can find out your risk for things like heart disease or diabetes. There’s also a bevy of healthy recipes for those looking to overhaul their eating habits. I tried a couple of them myself and they weren’t half bad for a healthy alternative to something like a hamburger.
But everything isn’t perfect with the game. Outside of the exercises, the main problem with the game is the poor implementation of motion tracking within menus. The game uses a system in which you hover over an option and have to wait for a progress bar to fill up to actually select said option. It’s difficult to pull off and waiting for that progress bar is a waste of time. To make matters worse, there’s no controller support. The menu system also doesn’t allow you enough time to read about the menu option which you hover over it. It’s just a terrible UI decision, hopefully something third party developers will avoid on the Kinect in the future.
If you hate exercising alone, the game does support multiplayer workouts. You can join up with 3 friends online over Xbox Live and do a workout together. Their virtual representations are in the gym with yours and you can also chat with your friends over the microphone in the Kinect system. This really isn’t a competitive type of model, but rather another way to motivate each other to complete the workout. For the achievement lovers out there, the game also comes with a full batch of 45 achievements. There are achievements for burning a specific number of calories, completing 5 sets of exercises in perfect form or completing multiple weeks of the program. It’s a great set that definitely encourages you to keep with the program, even if your overall improved fitness isn’t enough of a goal.
Graphics
Just adapting my body shape to a little virtual character is already better than the other fitness games on the market. The game’s design is supposed to look like the same workout facilities that you see on the television show and Blitz Games pulls that off. The character models are also great representations of their famous counterparts and they are animated extremely well. The developer definitely captured the same elements that make the show involving. As mentioned before, my only problem with the visuals are the poor UI design.
Audio
I'm a bit surprised that the trainers get pretty harsh with you verbally, but I liked it. Watching Bob and Jillian scream at people on my TV is one thing, but hearing them scream at me was completely different. They are in your face when you are screwing up and motivational when you are doing it right. The voice work is great and they recorded a surprisingly large amount of audio just for the game.
Conclusion
Of EA Sports Active 2, Your Shape: Fitness Evolved and The Biggest Loser Ultimate Workout, the latter has the absolute best use of motion tracking during the actual exercises as well as the motivation to keep you going. While the menus and general UI really need a massive overhaul, this is easily your best option for keeping in shape with the Kinect system. Blitz Games was smart to partner with the trainers and producers of The Biggest Loser program and would be well served to produce their next title, assuming they can get the menus right. If you recently purchased the Kinect and want a useful, worthwhile way to increase your level of fitness without leaving the house, you should feel safe in picking up The Biggest Loser Ultimate Workout. Highly Recommended!
Discuss This Game on Our Official VGT Forum