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Nutwiisystem.Com (New York, NY USA) –

  

= Fun: 

The original Your Shape: Fitness Evolved provided an excellent showcase of what the Kinect was capable of in regards to fitness and exercise. Its motion detection was revolutionary in terms of how well it detected how well you were performing exercises, and the mini-games it included were both tons of fun and moderately good exercise.

I’m happy to say that Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2012 does push the platform forward, in an evolutionary if not a revolutionary way. Still, it is by far the best “pure workout” game that you can get on the Kinect.

When you start out the game, you see a blue screen which adjusts the sensor and detects who you are. You’re then brought to a home screen, where you see a stylized cartoon image of yourself. That’s right, there’s no need to create an avatar, because you ARE the avatar. This little change was a huge improvement over the first version, where you played as a brightly colored silhouette. It makes a world of difference, because now you can see your limbs and your body position much clearer than before and match them against the on-screen trainer. More on that below.

The home screen shows a number of different counters: medals won, badges won, and percent of content you’ve played through. On the right you can see the total number of calories you’ve burned playing the game. I do like the fact that there are clear milestones and targets to aim for, which will keep you coming back to the game. (One question a lot of people have is–did Ubisoft fix the annoying bug from the first version where it’d lose track of which sessions you’ve finished in a given routine. The happy answer is yes–now, no matter what order you do the exercises in the system will keep accurate track of which ones you’ve completed).

At the main menu, you have a variety of choices which are color-coded into categories. The blue icons represent your tools. You can keep track of your overall progress, set objectives and take a fitness quiz so the system can recommend specific workouts for you, or go online to share your progress with the community. I do like that they made the fitness test optional in this version, so those who want to can just jump into the exercises.

There are three remaining categories: Yellow icons represent “Activities”, which are mini-games. Red icons represent “Workouts” which are traditional generic calisthenics and strength building exercises of the kind you might find at a gym. Finally, purple icons represent “Classes”, which are essentially themed Workouts.

Under the yellow “Activities”, you have the following mini-games:

1) Wallbreaker: This is essentially the same game as “Virtual Smash” in last year’s version. In it, you have to punch across your body to hit blue blocks that appear next to your virtual character’s body. The more blocks you punch accurately and quickly, the higher your multiplier will go up and the more a grid behind you will fill up–fill it up completely and it’ll collapse. As you get to higher levels you’ll have to kick blocks as well and avoid red blocks and giant anvils swinging at you. Even though this is basically a rehash of last year’s version, it’s still immensely fun, and the fact that you’re controlling “you” and not just a silhouette of you adds a certain dimension to the game. I’d rate this one a 4 of 5 for workout intensity and a 5 of 5 for fun.

2) Stack ‘Em Up: This one is essentially the same game as the game from last year’s version called…”Stack ‘Em Up”. This is the one where you’re holding a plank and trying to catch and balance blocks that are falling from the sky. There are some new twists this year–to make your bar longer you have to raise a leg in the air. Also, the blocks come in different sizes, and they can even turn into ice or catch on fire (you need to kick a giant water drop to make it rain). Interestingly, I found the graphics of last year’s version much clearer than this year’s, especially when it tells you where to drop your blocks. This one gets a 3 of 5 for workout intensity and a 5 of 5 for fun.

3) Run the World: Ah, finally something brand new. This is an activity where you “run in place”. But there’s a twist. You can choose either New York or London and basically “run through” the city from landmark to landmark. When I first heard about this one, I was excited–I thought it might be a virtual reality experience where you could literally run through actual streets (if this sounds outlandish, remember that the technology is already there with Google Maps and Bing Maps, not to mention driving games that have mapped out those cities’ streets). But in reality, the experience was much less impressive than that. You basically just run in place on a blank white screen following a line of stylized “yellow dots” on the road. As you run, you do see buildings to your left and right, but they’re just generic grey outlines. As you…

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