Review: The Biggest Loser: Ultimate Workout

Now whip it - into shape - shape it up

Kinect really does work and so does this game. However, there are a couple of problems with kinect itself and this particular game. You need a lot of room space to play kinect. The ideal amount would be 10 x 10 space. The perfect placement for kinect might also take some trial and error. I have my kinect sensor placed about 3 feet off of the ground and The Biggest Loser requires you to do floor exercises. I had a hard time getting kinect to track me while I was on all fours. Maybe not a deal buster, but it was frustrating during the challenge games.

The Biggest Loser also has a horrible menu system. I hope this is game specific menu fail, if not, every kinect game is going to be a pain to navigate. It will take you a good 20 minutes to figure out what is going on, which is unacceptable. I felt blind for those first 20 minutes.

You start the game out by doing a training lesson with a virtual trainer to see how fit you are. It will then recommend the difficulty you should proceed at. The difficulty ranges from light, moderate, challenging, hard, or intense. You can also setup your exercise program to target specific areas of your body. Arms and chest, core, butt, legs, or full body. After you do that, you will go into this full body scan mode. It basically gets your measurements which you can tune afterwards if something is off. Supposedly you can go back and get your body scanned again. That way it can tell if your body shape has improved.

It has over 120 exercises to choose from and only five actual "games." It is more of an exercise program than a game. You do get graded on how well you execute the routines. Most importantly, The Biggest Loser will teach you how to perfect the techniques of each exercise.

Back to the "games" which are called challenges. This is where you compete against the other Biggest Loser contestants. To complete the challenges you have to do certain exercises depending on the difficulty selected. For instance, one challenge you have to get a cannon up a hill and fire it off. While playing on intense, I had to do sumo jumping jacks to get the cannon to the top of the hill. Once at the top, you have to do speed bag punches to fire the cannon off. Fastest time wins the round, followed by an elimination, (bottom four of eight ) and each game consists of 3 rounds. After one challenge of doing countless sumo jumping jacks and punching as fast as you can for about 3 minutes straight, good luck doing anything else. This game will help you get into shape if you stick with a program tailored to your needs, that I know.

If you are in shape or skinny it is hard to win The Biggest Loser competition. It is probably better if you fib on your weight and make it higher if you are slimmer. During weight-ins, you can lie about how much weight you lost during the week.

It does have multiplayer modes which I did not get a chance to try. So in theory you can get a workout partner over live and do routines together. The online could be a paradise for single men or the unfaithful.

It also uses the kinect voice recognition feature sparingly. The virtual trainer will ask you questions in the middle of a routine. Like, "getting tired" or "do you need a break." That works like a charm.

Achievements:
The game will take at least 24 hours to complete since it has an achievement for that amount of time spent exercising. The burn 25,000 calories achievement will be the toughest I believe. It will make you shed pounds.....seriously. As for the 12 weeks achievement, you can set it up for 2 routines a week for quickness. You can also go offline and change the date in your system settings to advance time. Not really an easy game for precious gamerscore. Although, you will get the benefit of health if you choose to take it on. Good luck playing another kinect game after playing this for 45 minutes or more.

Conclusion: 
If you are looking to lose weight, give this game a look. If you are looking for a fun game, skip it. It really does give you good guidance to meet your fitness goals, not to mention, having tons of exercises to choose from. I can 100% guarantee it will get you into shape if used properly. It was hard to put a score on this game. Very good exercise program, but actual gaming was not tied in so well.

Score: 6.2 Decent

Summary:

The Good:
Will challenge you physically
If you stick with a schedule, you will lose a ton of weight.
Work out routines for everyone. Young or old. Fat or skinny.


The Bad:
Not a fun game....it is not really a game.
The menu system is hard to navigate. I did not want to even bother making my character look proper. It would take too long.
Problems tracking you while on the ground

You can cheat the game during weekly weight in

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