M2G Review: Your Shape: Fitness Evolved

It probably would be fair to say that fitness games are going to be a bit of a big deal on Microsoft’s Kinect. Already we have seen the likes of The Biggest Loser and the upcoming EA Sports Active 2, and then there’s the one we are talking about today, Your Shape: Fitness Evolved. Ubisoft’s take on the Fitness game is a fairly decent one (as my sore bones will testify to). The concept is simple really, everything in Fitness Evolved seems to be tailored to meet your needs, allowing you to concentrate on the areas you would like to improve, or you can go for the whole shebang and get yourself fit. Of course we had fitness games on the Wii and for the best part they were fairly decent, the difference here though is that you aren’t holding a controller and Kinect is constantly tracking your whole body, meaning you don’t have to worry about pointing the controller in the right direction, which was constantly a concern as far as the Wii was concerned. Thankfully Fitness Evolved actually seems to work, during the game you will stand in the green box and be required to stay within this in order for the camera to track you. Also when you perform the moves the game asks of you, the camera will accurately track your movements and will also inform you if you are getting out of sync with your instructor. If you are not performing a move correctly the game will also inform you, telling you where you are going wrong and what you should do in order to improve. I found myself often out of time on the toning exercises, at which point the game would let me know by turning the green box grey. Th games presentation is very pleasant, having a nice relaxing colourful feel to it, you can also interact with the background, being able to kick around gym balls and select menus by touch. Its all very impressive. The in-game avatar actually represents you instead of taking the form of your avatar, this is good enough as it enable the game to track your movement more realistically than perhaps an avatar would show. Most of the game types do see you working with a personally trainer, and are divided into three game types in Personal Training, Gym Games and Fitness Classes. The Personal Training is the main section, allowing you to choose from many different routines which are tailored to your needs. All of the routines start off with some training to teach you the various moves before you go on to try and replicate them with the help of your trainer. The diversity in the personal training section is fantastic and all of the training is very simple and easy to follow. Most importantly it seems to give you a fairly decent workout too. The Gym Games, meanwhile, consists of mini-games which allow you to play with friends. These sections, while physical, are also quite fun to play along to at the same time. Games here include Virtual Smash where you punch and kick virtual blocks, there’s a hoola hoop game,  a game involving blocks and also a sort of step aerobics game where you need to stand on panels as they light up.  The gym games are quite fun, although you have to wonder if their inclusion was just to pad things out a bit as they don’t seem like something you would use very often. Fitness Classes round up the game mode and comes in the shape of Zen classes and Cardio Boxing. Cardio Boxing doesn’t half have you breaking a sweat and is a really fun part of the game. Zen Classes meanwhile is great for winding down and helping you relax, which is probably great after a long day at the office. No matter what you do in Fitness Evolved you can count your total calories burned and also your total workout time to date. Everyone will love watching the calories they have burned add up, although obviously if you want to lose weight you will also have to combine this game along with a sensible diet. It does seem that if you stick with Fitness Evolved you may actually go some way to getting into shape, although much like going to the gym, it will depend on how much you manage to stick at it. Motivation is always there at the beginning, however the game won’t always keep you coming back for more, so if you want to achieve a certain level of fitness then you will need to have the willpower to stick with it. Getting fit isn’t easy, but Fitness Evolved will give you a decent starting point.

Rating: 8/10

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