My Basement Gym

Well, since I wasn’t too keen on the 10 Minute Solution Game for the Wii, I was reluctant to buy the new Gold’s Gym Dance Workout without seeing any reviews first – despite the fact that it was the game I was most interested in out of the upcoming titles. But, I found myself at my local Gamestop store on the day it was released anyway. The game wasn’t out on the shelf, but when I asked about it at the desk, the cashier pulled a copy out of the drawer. So, here I am. I’ve only played it a few times and haven’t tried every lesson yet. This isn’t a complete review but I wanted to capture my first impressions of the game.

Let’s get started.

The Latin Dance and Cardio Boxing lessons are done workout video style with cueing – no scrolling bar like Gold’s Gym Cardio Workout or other targets like other boxing games. The timing of the cues felt right to me, but I was often watching the lead instructor instead of listening to the vocal cues. There is also a pop up image in the lower right corner showing you what combo is coming up next. The remotes also give feedback, so you feel a vibration when you hit a move correctly. Correct moves are shown on the left side of the screen, with a green “Great” – or red “Miss” when you miss them. For now, I like that the remote gives you feedback – but I’m pretty sure that feature can be turned off, if desired. The controls feel very accurate in the dance and boxing lessons – though there is a slight delay between your move and the movement on the screen. This delay seems consistent throughout though, so once I knew the timing it wasn’t difficult to be successful with many of the exercises and games. I like the music better than Gold’s Gym Cardio Workout, but I wish the music was more selectable. Each song is assigned to a different difficulty and activity, including the tutorials. So, if you want to dance to Good Vibrations, for example, you can only do so during the dance tutorial. I also found some of the song assignments curious. As in, I didn’t feel very empowered doing a cardio boxing lesson to Material Girl, heh. And it seemed like many of the advanced songs weren’t recognizable titles. A complete song list is given in the review section at Amazon.

As far as difficulty is concerned, I found the game pretty doable. And while I’ve discovered that I enjoy dancey video games, I usually don’t like complex choreography and dancey video workouts - since I’m uncoordinated with no rhythm. But, by focusing on the arm movements I was able to score very well in the dance and boxing lessons that I tried out. It reminded me a lot of We Cheer 2 in that regard – lots going on and lots to work up to, but I could still get a good score without adding in any fancy footwork yet (or at all, if that’s how I want to roll). I also found it quite active with the potential to get a good sweat, and think it could provide a pretty decent workout. There is an option to create your own workout and string together several lessons and/or mini games (I think you can select up to 6), so I look forward to trying out that feature to see how quickly the activities transition. One amusing feature is that after each activity, it shows your score by how many (inflated) calories you burned and represents it with some kind of food or drink. I found myself paying attention to see what the picture would be each time.

The Mini Games offer a lot of variety, though they are quite short. You can select a time of either 1 minute, 30 seconds or 2 minutes, 30 seconds for each game.

Matador shows your avatar in some kind of alley -with bulls racing at you. You need to dodge them by swinging the remote from side to side. I got trampled a few times, but I also lost interest in this one pretty quickly.

Bull Ride was interesting, but I’m not sure yet if it is me or the controls that need work. You are supposed to compensate your avatar’s balance by leaning the remotes, but I was thrown off the bull repeatedly and my twisting and leaning didn’t seem to be doing anything. But, it’s too early to say for sure. I need more time on that one.

Canoe was kind of neat – you paddle down river using the remotes in a paddling fashion, and the scenery is nice. Then, an alligator appears and latches on to your boat! You are supposed to be able to shake the remotes somehow to get the gator to release, but I wasn’t able to do so. Again, I need more practice at that one!

Sword Fight was pretty fun – but is very similar to the sword games from Wii Sports Resort where you chop things up in various directions. Except, sometimes there is a Chinese star thrown at you to block or duck from. The time delay in the controls was noticeable for me here, so I needed to adjust my strategy a bit to improve my accuracy.

Marathon is your usual running game, like in Jillian’s 2010 game. But, here you might be grabbed and pulled to the ground by a lion that is nearly twice your size. Seriously. And I’m not sure how you are supposed to out run them, as I was shaking the remotes as fast as I could and I was still getting caught by lions. Not sure how often I’ll try lion running, but it might make a nice sprint interval when I choose to create my own workout.

Jump Rope is you trying to jump a rope that is being twirled by two people – with four other people watching you. I’m about as good at this as real jump rope (as in, not at all) so I need to work on my timing with this one. I’m interested in trying to get better at this to see if the stakes are raised, like more ropes or something. At one point I jumped like 5 times in a row – and I thought one of the spectators was rushing me (I had just been chased by lions, after all) but he was joining in, which totally threw me off and made us both trip on the rope, heh.

Boxing was the one I was most looking forward to from the screen shots – Kangaroo Boxing, that is! But, I found the kangaroo a bit too cute to want to hit, plus there is a baby kangaroo that pops out of the pouch now and then, making me even less eager to punch. I wish the kangaroo would have been holding punch mitts instead. The cues were new here, too – random red or blue gloves (left or right) popping up, showing you what type of punch to do. And it’s split into offense and defense sections, and I haven’t figured out the defensive moves very well yet. Perhaps in time I’ll be willing to fight back more after being pummeled by said cute kangaroo…

On to Karate. Karate was my favorite Mini Game during my first go round with all of them. You just punch left or right, or chop down on various objects. But the coolest part for me was how responsive the controls were to your speed. The faster you punched or chopped, the more powerful and damage inducing your hit would be to the wood planks, vases, watermelon – etc. It reminded me of how you can vary the power of your hits during the target punching in EA Sports Active. I can see how I could work up quite a sweat (or injure myself, heh) using the hard punches in this game. Well done, Ubisoft.

Balance board support is also offered for the Mini Games, but I like that you are still able play all of the Mini Games without the board as well. Bull Ride, Canoe, Jump Rope, and Boxing all have a balance board option, but I haven’t explored that feature yet. Perhaps the balance board will improve my bull riding skills. So, overall I was pretty pleased with this game – and there is a lot more for me to explore. I’m not sure yet if there are more features to be unlocked, but whether there is or not, I think this is a nice addition to Wii exercise game genre.