Reviews// Wii Fit

11.40am With Wii Fit running, our Mii data imported and our heights and dates of birth inputted, we’re taken through a weigh-in and balance test procedure. I hadn’t really thought of myself as particularly overweight, although I was aware of some disparity between the me of today and the me of five years ago.

Already it feels like I’m about to be assessed and duly criticised, and that proves to be the case: I stand on the Balance Board, subjecting myself to a scan before being shown a screen of data that indicates my Body Mass Index (BMI) is 26.5, and I weigh 86.5kgs. “Not good”, says the annoying little animated Balance Board character who fronts Wii Fit and rivals the paperclip from Microsoft Word for the title of ‘Animated Character You’d Most Like to Kick in the Teeth’ - yes, I’m bitter. I didn’t realise I had so much work ahead of me.

Apparently the ideal BMI is 22, so I need to trim 4.5 BMI points, whatever they are. Wii Fit is clever in that it encourages you to make a weeks- or even months-long plan of action, so you’ll probably keep returning to it like it was Brain Training on the DS – at least until the animated Balance Board stops telling you how disgraceful your body is. I commit to a plan whereby my BMI will drop to 25 over the course of the next two months.

The missus inevitably receives a much better assessment, weighing only 50kgs and having a BMI of 20.2, which falls into what is termed the ‘ideal field’ of between 20 and 22. So she doesn’t need Wii Fit; she can just use it for ‘maintenance’ and, you never know, ‘fun’.

12:00pm: The Wii Fit regime (of TERROR) reveals itself as a four-way kind of thing, with equal attention given to yoga, muscle training, aerobic exercises, and so-called ‘balance games’.

Ski jumping seems like one of the most game-y challenges, and it proves to be a basically entertaining property: the Balance Board keeps track of your body’s centre of balance, appropriately, with maximum speed achieved by positioning yourself ahead of the board, crouching, before jumping at the optimum moment by suddenly standing up straight.

(There’s a warning before this event begins – “DO NOT ACTUALLY JUMP” – but that probably won’t stop some of our American cousins from jumping, falling, breaking bones, and then filing lawsuits. Such is life.)

We both play through the other balance games on offer, some of which work better than others.