EA Sports Active Vs. Wii Fit Part 2

Continuing my 3 part comparison between EA Sports active and Wii Fit, we now come to my segment completely on:

EA Sports Active

EA Sports Active is a more recently released fitness game - compared to Wii Fit - for the Nintendo Wii. This game tries to act as your own personal - and virtual - fitness trainer by setting up specific workout routines and schedules.

You begin by creating a profile. This involves entering your age, weight and height. You also get to create a character to represent you and to replicate your actions when working out. After creating your profile you can start the 30 Day Challenge. In this you are given a schedule that shows which days you are to return to work and which will be for resting. Each day will be different than the last as the game sets up specific workouts each routine. Some days you will be focusing on your arms, some day will be lower body.

You also get to input your goal that you wish to reach. The goal is broken down into three categories: calories burned, time spent working out, number of workouts complete. For each, you select the amount and in how many days you want to complete it. As you progress through the 30 Day Challenge, your time, workouts and burned calories will be added up towards your goal. You are shown your progress after each daily session.

Exclusive to EA Sports Active is the leg strap and resistance band. The leg strap acts as a pocket for the Wii controller's nunchuck so that the game can monitor your right leg's movement. Along with tracking the wii remote in your right hand, the game can get a general reading of how your body is positioned. The resistance band is just what it sounds like, this will be used for arm and back exercises like bicep curls and tricep rows. The balance board can also be used in this game but it is not required, there are also only a few exercises that work with it.

Along with completing the daily session in the 30 Day Challenge, you can take nutrition and extra physical activity surveys. In the nutrition survey, you must answer a number of questions ranging from how many full fruit/vegetable portions you ate yesterday to how many hours of TV you watched yesterday. The extra activity survey is a list of other possible activities you may have done. This can be things like swimming, running or even household chores. You must enter in how long you did them for and the intensity of the work on a scale of 1-10. The game then marks these down on its calendar so that the "player" can reference back to to see how they are doing.

Doing both the surveys and the daily workout session will add to your daily work out medal. This is a percentage reading that shows how fit you were recently. The higher the percentage - the more fit your daily activities are. The workout session will add 50% to the meter (earning you bronze), while the two surveys and any other workout sessions you partake in will fill the remaining 50% (earning silver and then gold).

Things I Like

• The idea of a workout schedule is great. Showing the person which days they need to show up and which days they can rest really motivates a person. Also, by mixing the days up and not repeating the same routines over and over, the body gets a good and full workout and the player isn't left bored.
• Probably the best inclusion to this game are the trophies that you can earn. These are like achievements that will unlock as you workout longer and harder. Some can be as easy as completing your first day or earning a gold fitness medal, while others can take a while, such as burning 10 000 calories or completing a full 30 Day Challenge. Some of the more fun ones are the workout specific ones. For example, having ran 25 laps in all the running in place workouts or doing 100 squats in total. This adds another layer to make the player feel that they should try as hard as they can and workout as often as they can. This was a wonderful idea.
• The leg strap is a great idea to ensure the user is moving their entire body correctly. It would be very depressing if you went through several workout sessions just to find out you did the majority of them wrong and weren't achieving anything.
• The option to workout with a friend is good. Bringing another player into the game to workout with you can add motivation and enjoyment. Though there is no way of doing the daily 30 Day Challenge session so if you plan to workout in partners, you will have to return by yourself to do your daily segment.
• The game shows how long approximately your daily session is going to last and how many calories you will be burning. This is a great idea so people can make sure they set aside enough time to get their full workout. Along with this, the game has a timer in the corner to show how long you've been working out. It also shows how many calories you've currently lost in this one routine and it goes up each time you make a motion in the exercise. Seeing the calories burned number increase was a great idea as it adds a small reward function during the exercises.
• The inclusion of a settable goal is good and showing it after each exercise routine is great. Allowing the player to see how close their are to their goal is good to make them feel good and want to come back.
• The vast number of different exercises is great and can really get you moving and sweating. It's very much for cardio so I could definitely see someone losing some weight with this game.
  

Thing I Don't Like

• Since the game only works by tracking the controller's movements, it's not the most accurate. There were several times when I found myself having to repeat a step because I either lowered my arm to slowly or the controller wasn't moved quick enough to sense it. This is quite disappointing since it can really throw off a person's rhythm.
• The resistance band is far too flexible and not strong enough. For most of the exercises that require it, my muscles are hardly being worked because there just isn't enough resistance going against them. It also feels very cheap and there are many times that I'm thinking I could snap this thing any second.
• Many of exercises that mean to replicate an actual sport (ex: basketball or tennis) just don't end up working me at all. They feel a lot like the balance games from Wii Fit and I'd rather just not do them.
• The audio trainer that you follow doesn't give enough instructions I find. Instead of being told to do it slower or follow her pace, I'd like there to be some actual tips and more precise information. Though with the way the game tracks movement, knowing exactly what I'm doing wrong might be hard.
• The majority of the exercises are very easy. I currently have it on the hardest difficulty and always do the full session and, even though I do work a sweat up, my muscle don't feel very sore. There just isn't much in this game for muscle building.
• The user interface takes some time getting used to. This is mainly because there is just so much packed into this game; finding it all and knowing what to do can be a bit of a challenge.
  

So there is my generalized look at EA Sports Active. Now that I have talked about both Wii Fit and this game, tomorrow I will write up my comparison article between the two of them. I will mention things about each game that stand out and just work better against the other. I will also end it with my recommendation on which you should purchase.