Video games have started to come out of the realm where only those with a love for Dungeons and Dragons and repeatedly shooting an alien in the face with a gun can find merit in them. Motion gaming and the Wii in particular has garnered the attention of those who wouldn’t normally touch a controller. As such Nintendo has tried hard to stay in the public's mind with their software and hardware that has become aimed at those who haven’t necessarily been buying their systems avidly in the past. *for better or worse* One of the many peripherals that they have come out with over the last couple years is the Wii Fit and the balance board peripheral that comes along with it.

Wii fit is a game in the loosest sense of the word, it comes packed in with a very sophisticated piece of technology for the price. The balance board is a nice little piece of plastic that hearkens back to the nineteen-eighties for what they tried to do with motion gaming peripherals back then such as the power glove. The first time you start up Wii fit and step on the balance board it calculates your BMI status, it will then ask you to set a goal for yourself concerning your BMI. The goals will end up concerning where you want to end up and the amount of time you want to give your self to reach said goal. The goals will appear on the Wii fit calendar and graphs which will detail your progress of your BMI and weight, it will also allow you to compare your progress against eight others so that you can get the whole family involved.

The Wii fit activity log allows you to record the amount of time you have spent exercising outside of the Wii fit, you enter it on the activity log under light, medium, or heavy exercise and have the ability to compare the amount of time spent and the strength over time. Wii fit allows you to track your calorie intake and how many calories you burn in your exercise and how much exercise you have to do to burn off the calories of the food you have eaten.

While nothing can really get rid of having a personal trainer or coach to urge you day in and day out to stay on task or work harder. The Wii fit does a decent job of trying to give you the illusion of your own personal trainer and gives you the option to choose between a male or female avatar for your trainer if you are so inclined to have a preference. If you are using Wii fit at the very least you should get on every morning before work and checking yourself in for the day to keep track of where you are at and the goals you are going for. Even if you don’t want to use Wii fit for it’s personal training functions or it’s tracking, you can play short little fun mini games that require you to move around on the board to burn some calories while having fun and playing with your family.

I’ll talk more about the specific games and training that Wii fit has integrated into it’s game in a later article.
Next article will be however all about Microsofts new motion accessory Kinect and Ubisofts your shape game for the Kinect.