EA Sports Active Review

Written by: Steve Martin Posted: 23rd June 2009

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EA put us through our paces with this Wii review.

EA Sports Active Details:

	Sports
	Nintendo Wii
	EA Sports
	EA sports

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Summer is pretty much here and so now is the time for visiting the beach and getting a tan. But wait! You feel a little out of shape but don’t have the time or the money to go to the gym? How about EA Sports Active: Personal Trainer for the Wii. Let’s see if it’s up to the challenge of taking on the fitness king, Wii Fit!

The EA Sports Active itself comprises of a 30-Day Workout mode in which your personal trainer (female or male) sets a regime of exercises everyday for you to complete. You can also customise your own training schemes or choose from a list of preset ones, which is good if there are ones that you particularly enjoy. There’s an excellent range of exercises available, such as lunges, squats, and curls. A few are set out like mini-games such as boxing that requires you to punch forward or across to hit targets that appear. These tend to be more fun and engaging then the more serious exercises. Each exercise has a tutorial video to show you how to do each task correctly, these are done well and are clear and concise. An animation in the corner of your screen shows you what to do and when to do it as you exercise, your on-screen character is in the centre of the screen and should follow your movements as you do them, although there is a slight delay.

EA Sports Active comes bundled with a leg strap, for putting the nunchuck into in order to follow your leg movements and to keep it safe during the running exercises. There is also a resistance band for use during the upper body exercises, although it is very uncomfortable to hold both the Wii remote (and nunchuck) and the strap of the band at the same time.

Comparisons between EA Sports Active and Wii Fit are inevitable so let’s tackle this first. This is not Wii Fit! Wii Fit is a gentle stroll in the park compared to EA Sports Active. Wii Fit is the family friendly, fun-orientated, fitness game that introduced the Balance Board to many homes in the world. By comparison, EA Sports Active is an army drill sergeant who is going to kick your ass into shape! Do you see the difference here? What I’m getting at here is the lack of fun and enjoyment in this “game”, there is none, it’s all hard work and very little play! If you want to get fit and have the determination to do so then that’s fine and EA Sports Active will help, but if like me you’re not into all that then this can feel like a chore because there’s nothing to enjoy.

Technically, EA Sports Active works fine most of the time, your on-screen representation seems to follow your movements pretty well, but I am dubious as to how accurate it is and whether you could get the same result from shaking the remote a bit. It does give you a workout and it logs the amount of calories you’ve burnt and shows you some stats about how far you are towards any goals that you have set yourself. You are also awarded achievements for reaching certain targets like burning so many calories. So again it’s a solid fitness game that gives a good workout which I suppose is the idea but at the expense of any real entertainment or enjoyment, unless you really enjoy getting fit, I would liken it to a more grown-up version of Wii Fit!

The graphics are solid but unspectacular, your on-screen character isn’t very detailed and the surroundings tend to be bland thing such as fields or on a sports track. It would have been nice to have a bit more exciting scenery to look at, but again this is the seriousness of the game.

There is a selection of different music styles to listen to whilst you do your workout, such as R&B, alternative rock and Hip-hop but the tracks aren’t very long so it seems to loop and repeat after a while. You can use your own songs though if you have them saved on your SD card and have it inserted in your Wii, this is a brilliant idea that more games should introduce. The voice-overs by the fitness trainers are good, although it feels a little patronising when they keep telling you how great you’re doing today and all the effort you’re putting in!

My major dilemma is the fact that this is not a game! It is fitness software and as such does not hold my interest. I would conclude that it is a viable alternative to going to the gym, and it does seem to have a vast list of the most common exercises. It’s presented very professionally and the tutorial videos are comprehensive and easy to follow, and some of the exercises, mainly the ones using a more game-like mechanic such as tennis and boxing, are more enjoyable. The only problem I can and would raise is that although it shows you what to do, your form or stance maybe wrong when tackling some of the exercises. Also the resistance band provided seems cheap and flimsy, so much so that I could not trust it for some of the exercises. I didn’t really enjoy EA Sports Active, but fitness is not an interest of mine. I’m sure others will find this useful and enjoyable. However, my thought is that this is too serious and is appealing to a niche market of fitness fanatics. I’ll stick with Wii Fit, it seems to put some fun into fitness!