EA Sports Active Accessory Box Accessories

EA Sports Active Accessory Box Product Details

Released on 05/06/2009

• EA Sports Active Explained

  Turn your Wii into a gym with your own personal trainer in the latest self-improvement title.

  It used to be that videogames were all about spotty teens skulking in their bedrooms while fantasising about ridding the world of evil zombies/Nazis/gangsters/mushrooms (delete as applicable) but not any more. Nowadays videogames have stepped out of the shadows and are all about self-improvement. Today games are drawing mums to the d-pad with their promises of increased brainpower or language skills and now, with EA's Sports Active, fitness and slender tums.

  The last year has seen self-improvement games revolutionise games consoles and handhelds with brain games, language tutors, cooking guides and all manner of personal betterment. Now, with the advent of EA SPORTS Active even more of a personal upgrade is being offered to the nation. We are being presented with the chance to turn our Wii into a home gym complete with a personal trainer.
  EA SPORTS Active

  At a Glance

  * EA SPORTS Active comes with 25 exercises and sports-inspired drills
  * A leg strap that holds the Wii nunchuk and helps show all your movements on screen
  * A resistance band exercises such as bicep curls and shoulder presses
  * A virtual trainer to help guide and motivate you with clear instructions and instant feedback
  * Fitness goals set yourself a goal and track your progress towards it everyday
  * Take the 30-Day Challenge. Try a new workout every day and go for your goal in just one month
  * A great co-op mode: exercise with a friend to help burn calories, each working within your own ability
  * Customise your work out the exercise circuits you take can be customised to the length, intensity and specific body areas you want
  * Wii Balance Board Compatibility: unlock more exercises by using the balance board

  So how does it work?

  There are three sections to EA's Sports Active: Workout, Nutrition and Lifestyle. You are introduced to these by Bob Greene (AKA Oprah's personal trainer).

  Enter personal data such as your age, weight and fitness goals to receive and overall fitness approach. This will include suggested changes to your lifestyle and nutritional intake, but these are just that: suggestions. What EA SPORTS Active concentrates on is working out.

  You will be presented with lots of options for strength and cardio workouts that you can then build into a circuit-training regime. Once these have been chosen and you begin your routine your personal trainer will give you regular feedback on how well you're doing and how many calories you've burnt. You'll even have the option to adjust the intensity of your exercise regime as you go. The exercises will also be shuffled around so that every day's workout brings you a new challenge and you don't get stuck in a relentless schedule.

  By exercising at home and with friends and family you'll feel more relaxed and be able to tailor your regime to suit yourself. There's also the chance that you'll be a bit more honest with yourself than you might be with a real life personal trainer. One thing that spotty teens have known for ages is that videogames are great because videogames don't judge you. Praise be.
  EA SPORTS Active User Punching

  The routines

  The 25 routines offered in EA's Sports Active cover the gamut of upper and lower body exercises as well as concentrating on overall cardio fitness. They are:
  Cardio Boxing, Basic Dance, Tennis, Inline Skating, Kick-Ups, Cardio Dance, Kickbox, Batting, Volleyball, Basketball, Pitching and Catching, Serve, Run, Walk, Jump, High Steps, Lateral Raises, Lunge Reps, Side Lunge, Squat/Calf, Lunge Jump, Squat Jump, Fast Dance, Punch Target and Punch Bag

  It's easy to see how these games, with their fun and relaxed approach to exercise, are taking the world by storm and breaking down stereotypes of just who uses games consoles nowadays. It also seems that, used in the right way, this new wave of games are actually capable of improving people's lives. That's part of the importance of these gamesthey are being designed to have an impact. They are meant to be good for us rather than just entertain us.

  So where is this going to end? Perhaps this is the end of schooling as we know it. Perhaps the citizens of the world in 2012 will all be fit and healthy individuals with great skin, lovely teeth and rock hard triceps. Welcome to a brave new world, people.
  

• Get off the couch - GAME looks at fitness games

  
  

  

  Asthmatic Athletics

  The popular image of video games is that of a pastime requiring no more physical effort than a sofa slouch and nimble thumbs - along with a carb-heavy diet of pizza and sugary soda. The fast-track to a slow death from obesity, in other words.

  Fitness games fly in the face of that assumption, but they're not the recent invention many think they are. Even as far back as 1982, companies like Atari were looking at ways of connecting exercise bikes to a virtual reality under the codename Project Puffer. In 1986, Bandai released a control mat for the Nintendo Entertainment System which came with Family Fun Fitness, a suite of exercise games. Nintendo was so impressed, it bought the product and repackaged it as the more exciting sounding Power Pad.

  This, of course, led to games like Konami's seminal Dance Dance Revolution, which ushered in the age of the dance-mat as a legitimate and popular game controller. 2005 brought EyeToy: Kinetic to the market - the first modern motion tracking exercise game - while 2006 saw the short-lived and rather naffly titled Gamercize system wire actual exercise equipment up to games consoles.

  

  The Rise of the Wii

  It was the Wii that really pulled all these ideas together to create the fitness game genre though. Indeed, it almost had to be Nintendo who would finally crack the nut and make gaming and exercise feel like natural bedfellows. The Wii was a friendly machine, and with titles like Wii Sports it had already made jumping around part of the gameplay experience. Here was a console where the all important mums and dads might buy into the idea of gaming to get healthy.

  With Wii Fit's balance board Nintendo finally had the peripheral to make it work, while the software cannily combined solid fitness goals with more accessible video game mechanics. Motivation is the key to any exercise regime, and video games are nothing if not efficient effort-to-reward systems. What better approach than to tap into our natural desire to beat our last score, to reach the next level, and to be congratulated for doing well?

  In the years following Wii Fit's 2007 release, the floodgates opened. Celebrity endorsed fitness packages aped Wii Fit's style, but without adding much to the genre. It was only when SONY and Microsoft got involved, with Move and Kinect, that there was enough competition to drive the development of even more advanced fitness games.

  

  Which brings us to today, and the chart-topping success of Zumba Fitness. Based on the popular fitness franchise, it ditches the squats and thrusts in favour of more fun dance-based exercise. With its Latin rhythms and have-a-go simplicity, it's no surprise that it's selling so well - this is a fitness game disguised as a dancing game, which is then dressed up as a bloody good laugh. Perfect for people who might otherwise feel intimidated by the genre.

  EA Sports Active 2 goes in the complete opposite direction, with its wireless heart-rate monitor and resistance band accessory. This is the game for serious fitness nuts who really want to push themselves further with each new workout, with loads of stats and options to tweak your experience for maximum calorie-crushing impact.

  Similar in style, but slightly less ferocious in approach, is Your Shape: Fitness Evolved. This also concentrates on scalable aerobic workouts with an emphasis on personalised training routines and lots of encouragement to keep the pace up. For players who have taken Wii Fit as far as they can, both titles represent the obvious next step.

  

  Workouts Are For Wimps

  But what if this is all still a little too much like leotards and headbands? What if you're worried that doing star jumps in front of your console won't impress your hard mates? Well, that's why there's UFC Trainer. This manly fitness game for manly men offers much the same workout results as other fitness titles - but in a style that makes you feel like you could kick a man's head through a wall. Heavy on the cardio and sparring, it offers an experience as tough as its name suggests. Unless you actually do fight in the UFC, we suggest you don't go steaming in, ready to show off with the hardest settings.

  It's doubtful that motion control is going anywhere soon, what with Wii U around the corner and the next Xbox likely to incorporate Kinect, so it seems that far from being a passing fad the fitness game is here to stay. Maybe the stereotype of the lardy wheezing gamer is finally coming to an end. Pass the leg-warmers.

  Published: 10/08/2012

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