The Nintendo Wii U is about to get physical, physical with the upcoming release of Wii Fit U, latest in the series of fitness oriented games. While it was announced pretty much as soon as the first murmurs of the new console broke, it’s taken more than a year for it to see the light of day, which left far too much time for the podge to set in. Luckily though, Wii Fit U will be arriving just in time for Christmas 2013, so you should be able to trim down in the run up to jingle bells and minimise the damage during the carnage of turkey, mince pies and advent calendar chocolate.
Release
Set for release on the 6th December 2013 as the full packaged game (there’s a 31 day free trial already available through the Wii U store, but the paid downloadable release won’t be until 1st February 2014), Wii Fit U will be a big part of Nintendo’s winter game release line up, along with the likes of Super Mario 3D World and Watch_Dogs. They’re all big releases and they will be crucial in Nintendo’s bid to outmanoeuvre Sony and Microsoft as they launch their own next generation games consoles, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox ONE.
If you’ve already got a balance board from the old Wii days, you’ll only need to get the game edition, but for anyone else Nintendo are also releasing a bundle of the game and balance board all in one to give you everything you need to get training. The game and Fit Meter edition will be released with an RRP of £49.99 and the bundle version with the balance board, game and Fit Meter will be £84.99.
Graphics
The graphics are a step up on the previous installment, but they’re still centred around a Mii based visual environment, so things are pretty cute and approachable. The coolest looking mini fitness game, and probably the toughest physically, has got to be the Core Luge, where you balance on the Wii U board and steer an Olympic style sled down an ice run.
However, our take on the Wii Fit U having seen the game in action in a little is that the big N could have done more to take advantage of the extra power of the Wii U to make the game more visually impactful.
Gameplay
With 77 different exercises Wii Fit U is all about broadening your options for keep fit, even through the darker, winter months. The game concept is pretty simple. You just choose an exercise and get training. Some of these will use the balance board, while others will use the Wii game pad. Things get even more diverse with the possibilities that are achieved by combining these up.
Examples include luge on the balance board and step aerobics with the board and game pad. There’s everything from yoga to muscle toning, and a fair few of the exercises can be done using the off-TV feature of the Wii U game pad, so you can work out while watching TV, or while someone else uses it.
All of the exercises become more focused with the calorie and activity tracking features of Wii Fit U, which lets you see how you’re fitness is progressing. You can set yourself calorie targets to aim for or workout timescales and let the game come up with a series of activities to get you were you want to be.
The calorie and activity tracking is taken to the next level with the addition of the Fit Meter into the mix. This takes the experience out of the living room and into your day-to-day life and fitness activities. It tracks everything from steps, distance and elevation, to calories and activity type, whether you’re walking, hiking or running, to give you an accurate view of what you’ve done and what you can do to improve your weekly activity.
The good news for anyone with existing records on Wii Fit is that you can transfer your progress to Wii Fit U, so you get to continue with your ongoing fitness data. However, there’s a bit of a glitch with the system apparently, and a pretty inconvenient process to fix it, so you might be better off starting from scratch. Find out more at the Nintendo data transfer support page.
