EA Active - Get Fit In Your Living Room! (active: Personal Trainer (Wii))

Member Name: lkhouse

Product:	active: Personal Trainer (Wii)
Date:	09/07/09 (98 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Suprisingly Good Workout From The Comfort Of Your Own Home

Disadvantages: Inadequate Warm Up And Cool Down

As a working mother, I had despaired of ever finding time to get myself into shape, so when I heard about the release of EA sports Active, I knew I just had to give it a go.
There are over 50 different exercises to do, which include cardio workouts, such as running, boxing and tennis, as well as toning exercises, such as lunges, bicep curls, lateral shoulder raises, and more.
It includes pre-set workouts, which show you the time and projected calorie burn, and also the option to make custom workouts yourself from the 50 min-exercises. In my opinion, the game's best feature is the 30 day challenge. During the Challenge, you follow pre-set exercises for two days, then hae a day's rest, so you'll do a total of 20 workouts during the 30 days of the challenge. You can choose the difficulty between easy, medium and hard, so even after completing the challenge, you can push yourself further by moving up to the next difficulty level.
You can make your character to look like yourself, and choose a personal trainer who shows you how to do the exercises. The music is also variable, which I thought was a great touch.
The game comes with a leg strap and resistance band - during some exercises you will need to place the nunchuck into the leg strap. The game uses the sensors from the wii remote and the nunchuck to tell whether you are performing the exercise correctly, and pauses and corrects you if not.
There is an option to buy an accessory pack with another leg strap and resistance band so you can even work out with a friend.
I was suprised by how effective this game is, I found myself sweating and losing my breath, especially during the cardio. I really felt like I'd had a good workout, and had the tell tale achey muscles the day after exercising.
The only faults I can find with this game is that you are unable to do the 30 Day Challenge when in multiplayer mode, which was something of a disappointment to us. The other issue was that I find the warm up and cool down too short, and chose to do my own warm up and cool down outside of the game.
Other than this, I would thoroughly recommend this game, especially to those who may be too embarrassed to go to the gym, or for people like myself who do not have the time, or are unable to leave the house after the kids are in bed!

Summary: Would Recommend, Especially For Those Looking To Start A Fitness Regime