19)EA Sports Active(Wii) Reviews

"Initial review after completing the 30-Day Challenge"
EA Sports Active By Wii.

After 32 days of huffing and puffing, this player finally reached the end of the Easy difficulty on the 30-Day Challenge portion of the software. It is fun and challenging, even on Easy. After feeling lightheaded during portions of the first couple of workouts, the rest went by without too much difficulty, but I would like to make several comments about the overall system.
When the player first makes a profile, statistics like Height, Weight and Age are entered. While the player can edit these values, only the Weight appears to have any significant bearing on the game mechanics in an adjustment of the tracking for the amount of calories burned. The concern that I have is with the Age category. I am 36, and I found myself physically struggling with some of these exercises on Easy, like the jumps. If someone a lot older, say in their 60s or 70s, decides to use this product, the 30-Day Challenge does not take a factor like age into account, so a senior citizen would still be encouraged to make it through the same number of jumps and rigorous routines. Likewise, someone who is extremely overweight would be requested to do these jumps as well.

This lack of adjustment based on physical fitness makes jumping into the 30-Day Challenge a disappointment after the first time for the physically-challenged, such as those who are older or who are morbidly obese. Now that I have completed the 30-Day Challenge once, I am not encouraged to do so again because certain of the exercises, such as the jumps, are really hard on my joints like my ankles. I also had an extensive surgery on my left shoulder a couple of years back that makes the combination bicep curl followed by the shoulder press nearly impossible for me to pull off correctly.

The game only includes slightly over two dozen exercises in what to me seem mostly circuit-training routines, and some, while really a lot of fun, are not utilized more than others in the 30-Day Challenge. If the player enjoys shooting hoops, dancing, pounding the bag and targets in boxing, or practicing tennis, volleyball or baseball, the amount of time that one does these activities in a typical 30-Day Challenge workout is somewhat limited.

For the limitations mentioned for the 30-Day Challenge, however, the game has other modes in the form of preset and custom workouts. I have yet to try these modes, but the custom workout should help to alleviate the issues previously described because this mode allows the player to define each exercise included in the custom workout.

The Journal feature does not fare so fortunately because it includes no customization. The Journal can be somewhat tedious to maintain because a survey must be completed for each day, and it affects the user's overall achievement rating for that day. After a rest day (the third day after two workout days), if the player has not entered data during the day off, the player is required to remember some events that have happened two days ago, such as the number of meals eaten and the fistfuls of vegetables eaten as well as items from the day before, such as stress level and energy level. Unless one has kept track of these items somewhere other than in the Journal feature, it is hard to come up with objective values for these survey items.

An aid in using the Journal might be to track the items on a spreadsheet or in a notepad throughout the day, but what is the Journal feature really accomplishing in addition then? Spreadsheet software allows a player to visually graph recorded data just as easily as the Journal feature can and with a lot more customization, such as adding or removing categories, along with possibly more accessibility. There is no option to see more than one month at a time in the Journal's graph feature either, so if the 30-Day Challenge is spread out over more than one month, the player must page back and forth to see the full graph of any survey item.

I'm sorely tempted to skip the Journal from here on out and spend that time customizing my workout instead. What ended up happening is that I would just put estimates that typically ended up being the same day after day, such as having drank eight glasses of water regardless of how many glasses I drank since I had not kept track of these items throughout the day in another location, but I knew that I had drank plenty. The Journal gives tips on improving the different categories surveyed, but these tips start to repeat in short order, so even the "personal trainer" rewards for completing Journal entries are limited.

Review by TarakaDark

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/10/09

Game Release: EA Sports Active (Wii)(US, 05/19/09)

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