Yourself! Fitness

OK, OK, OK, in order to give this title a fair shake, I enlisted the help of my wife, who was more then happy to get going. And to be perfectly honest, it was she who asked me to review this title in the first place. I say title because game simply is not correct. It is, for all intents and purposes, a workout regiment. A very thorough and complete regiment that takes advantage of pretty much every other workout style out there. Yourself! Fitness is the whole kit and kaboodle.

By the time I arrived home from work, my wife had gotten the mail, opened the package, loaded and created a profile for herself and completed two workouts. When I walked into the family room, she was already singing the disc's praises and was showing me what all the fuss was about. You see, the game has a hostess named Maya, and Maya is the anti-workout cheerleader. Instead of constantly grinning and showing off a physique that most women simply cannot attain, Maya speaks in an even tempo'd voice that merely states facts, rather then demanding that you "Do one more rep!" Maya is simply, nice. And she's your trainer, for when you first start up, the title asks that you put in all sorts of relevant information like how old you are, what you weigh, what you would like to weigh, and so on.  

From there, you can choose what kind of workout you would like to do - upper body, lower body, cardio and others. The title then allows you to pick what kind of music you want to listen to, where you would like Maya to work out (environment) and if you have any accessories to work out with, like hand weights or a stability ball. The title will incorporate all of them into your customized workout. It even allows you to select how long you want to workout for and helps you design a weekly program for whatever your goals may be, whether it's strength conditioning, cardiovascular improvement or weight loss.

The program does a better-than-adequate job of graphics; Maya is plain but a nice-to-look-at trainer who moves for the most part with grace and elegance, some of the exercises she does do though, doesn't look as smooth as others, (there is an option to tutorial the different exercises for complete instruction) but the purpose of showing you how to do it remains the same. Since you typically are doing part of a structured regiment, the title allows you to sign in and do a workout under the guest pass function. This feature was useful for when my wife's friends came over and wanted to see what this title offered without affecting her ongoing workout program. And as a matter of fact, when our niece and nephew came over (10 and 11 years old), they both really enjoyed doing workouts under the guest pass function. Much to my brother-in-laws chagrin they have been pestering him to buy it ever since. So here's my public apology - sorry Steve. 

The music is varied and low key, the 80's, hip hop and others are readily available. And as you progress through your regiment, other music will open up and become available as will other options and environments.

Probably my wife's favorite feature is the sliding bar that moves along the bottom of the screen as you work out. Along with the timer and the numeric level of difficulty that each exercise has, the slider bar travels at a methodical pace from left to right. You can even see what exercises are coming next in order to mentally prepare yourself. It's a unique feature that helps you power through the tougher exercises and it even stops occasionally and the title asks you how you are doing. At that point you must choose one of the three canned answers. The title then adjusts the workout to your answer. For example, if you were really winded after a particularly tough exercise you would want to answer that you were breathing really hard. The title would then make the appropriate adjustments. At the conclusion of each workout, the game tells you how many calories you burned.

This title is the real deal, while any loading occurs, there are fitness tips that are on screen as it loads. There is a 4,500-meal recipe library and even a yoga room for relaxation and calming.

Gameplay: 8.5
It's not really gameplay, but it does do a good job of showing you how to properly do each exercise, all 500-plus. Impressive considering most games do not have 500 moves.

Graphics: 8.0
An occasional hiccup during the workout action, but for the most part, everything looks real nice. Not a lot to complain about and considering the effort put into an ambitious title like this one. Nice varied environments for Maya to work out in.

Sound: 7.5
It's not much of a stretch, you select from several musical tempos and listen to Maya as she walks you through your workouts. The game doesn't take advantage of surround sound, but it does come across fairly sharp.

Difficulty: Medium
Since you are the one calling all the shots, the level of difficulty is completely up to you.  

Concept: 9.0
I can't believe no one thought of this before; yes, I know there have been some other workout titles on other systems. A workout game on the original NES comes to mind, but this is the complete package, from varied workouts to recipes to tutorials.

Overall: 8.2
Of four of the people that came over to the house all of them have either purchased it or are going to. Considering the complaint that is always out there about how videogames make people lazy or fat, this is definitely the answer to that complaint. This is a really good title for the man trying to convince his woman to buy a PS2.