Wii Fit: Nintendo's New Yoga Toy For Girls

By Adam Hartley

Christmas came early for me yesterday. Imagine having your own central London pad kitted out with three separate rooms containing a bunch of Nintendo hardware and some of the best games ever developed running on nice, big HD tellies. All to yourself.

I didn't have to imagine this yesterday, as I spent the day at the Nintendo flat in central London playing not one, but four of the best games from E3 this year – Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass on DS and (yes, REALLY!) Nintendo’s new amazing yoga toy for girls, otherwise known as Wii Fit.

The first three of the above-mentioned 'proper' games were, I’m happy to report, all that I’d expected. And loads more. I simply cannot wait to play the finished versions later this year – the Wii is finally getting the games we’ve all been waiting nearly a year for, since greedily playing through Twilight Princess last December - what for many has been the only really triple-A game on the console to date.

The beautifully designed puzzles, ground-breaking FPS controls and jaw-droppingly massive levels and boss fights of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption left me craving more. As did the brain-meltingly fun perspective of Super Mario Galaxy and the touch-perfect stylus control in Phantom Hourglass. More on all three of these very soon, but simply put, Nintendo has delivered on every promise it’s made us with all three of these must-own games. If you don’t yet have a Wii and/or a DS, then get one as soon as you possibly can because you are going to need all three of these games in the very near future.

After gorging myself on Zelda, Mario and Metroid, I moved across to the small bedroom, for a quick session on Wii Fit. I have to say that I was slightly unconvinced about this one when [Nintendo President] Iwata and [Chief God of Game Design] Miyamoto unveiled it at E3. The weighing scales lookalike controller is much more solid and robust than I imagined, yet the ‘games’ that are packaged with the software just suck. I found both the ski jump and the football heading game to be both annoying, totally unresponsive and virtually impossible. They were so poor that I almost gave up before I’d started, wanting to return to the room next door for another crack at Metroid. The ball-rolling game was the best of the three, though that became quite boring very quickly. Perhaps I need more practice, though any game which makes you feel this annoyed after five minutes is pretty flawed, in my opinion.

I persevered. I was glad that I had, because the balancing, yoga and muscle-stretching exercises well and truly work. Surprisingly well. And were (whisper it) actually quite fun – at least for around 15 minutes, before my weak and lazy legs decided they had had enough and I flopped back down on the couch with old friends Samus, Mario and Link for company.

So, while the games in Wii Fit suck badly, it nonetheless still achieves what Miyamoto promised it would at E3 – it actually makes exercise fun. Just as with the brain-training games, it looks to me like Nintendo has hit on another massive money-spinner with Wii Fit, which launches over here early next year, with Euro pricing still to be decided.

Watch out for more on Wii Fit’s release date and pricing when we get it.