EA Sports Active for Wii

There is another exergame coming out this spring for the Wii called Active from EA Sports.

Bob Greene (of Oprah fame) is promoting it.

http://www.easportsactive.com/home.action

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxPiZT_n0sg&feature=related


It looks like it uses the wiimote with the nunchuck, includes a resistance band, and uses the Balance Board from Wii Fit.

-Active Fitness Made Fun & Easy- 20 minute circuits feature variety and familiar activities that target upper body, lower body as well as cardio. Start off with a run, followed by bicep curls and get your heart beating with some cardio boxing. Get fit and have fun in minutes a day!

-Benefit of a Trainer in a Box-Your trainer will be the focal point of the experience guiding you towards your own version of personal achievement. Feedback will be given throughout your workout, keeping you on track to reach your fitness goals.

-30 Day Challenge-The game will track your progress as you embark on a 30 Day Challenge and tailor 20 minute workouts to your level of fitness. Circuits will change as you progress each day, and EA SPORTS Active will track calories, intensity and progress throughout your journey.

-New Way to Play- Slip the Nunchuk into the specially designed leg strap and hold the Wii Remote in your hand to track your movements from both your upper and lower body. A resistance band is also included to increase the intensity of exercises such as bicep curls and shoulder presses.

-Get Fit with Friends and Family-Two players can work out together while having their individual calories and workout scores tracked. Using split screens, you both can complete your own customized workout and do them together.

-Workout Your Way- Circuits can be customized to your interest and fitness level. Choose your duration, intensity level & set your own goals for calories burned and workout score.

-Wii Balance Board Compatibility-Get more out of your EA SPORTS Active workout using a Wii Balance Board with added functionality and physical benefits for many of exercises.

I can't say that I'm a big Bob Greene fan. Didn't Oprah gain 40 something pounds with him and is still trying to sell books and stuff?? Sheesh.

Anywho, aside from that, this might be a nice addition to one's exergaming library.


*** At this point, I do not plan on getting this one. It looks more geared toward beginners, which is great, but I'm personally past that right now. However, if my wife is getting bored with what we have (fit and MFC) by then, I may spring for it if she wants it.***

In fairness to Bob Greene (not that I'm a fan either) Oprah did look really good there for awhile but obviously didn't keep up with it. You can give people the tools to eat better and workout but that doesn't mean they'll use those tools.

Anyway, this looks pretty good to me. I had done YourselfFitness on the xbox (which is now My Fitness Coach on the Wii) for about a year and was very bored with it near the end so I'm not interested in getting My Fitness Coach. I don't think I'd want to do the running in place but the tennis stuff looked fun. I've enjoyed using the tennis and boxing in Wii Sports and the boxing in WiiFit but this stuff in this EA game looks like it would give you more of a workout. Thanks for the link with the video. It's nice seeing what's being offered.

I guess you can reserve this game now at gamestop when it comes out in May 09. So I will be putting this on reserve soon. Peg

No Gamestop near me so I pre-ordered it from Amazon! Really looking forward to it!

wow!! thanks for sharing! i am confirm getting this when it comes to singapore?! how much is it selling on amazon? anyone knows?

minidinosaur wrote:wow!! thanks for sharing! i am confirm getting this when it comes to singapore?! how much is it selling on amazon? anyone knows?

It's $56.99 on Amazon.

I'm thinking I'll wait until I see the reviews of this one before buying but it does look interesting. I know that Jillian Michael's one didn't turn out very well so I want to see how this one is before getting it. I figure by that time I'll by tired of Helix and Wii Fit.

Has anyone gotten this yet? I am curious to hear feedback from those that have tried it.

It hasn't released yet but will be in a few days. I chose free shipping from Amazon so it will most likely take another week after it releases for me to get it! I'll post my thoughts once I get it and have had a few days to try it out.

Got it today and really enjoyed it. It has a lot of stuff in it that you can do and you can also set up customized workouts. It's getting fantastic reviews on Amazon with people preferring it over WiiFit and Fitness Coach. I haven't use My Fitness Coach but I did have the Xbox Yourself Fitness game that it was based on and I can tell you I like it a lot better.

First thing you have to do when you get it is assemble the resistance band by tying on the two ends. Thought they could have given you a better one with pre-attached handles but no big deal to do it yourself. Most people who workout probably have one or two lying around the house somewhere already and you could easily use that one if you don't like this one.

Then there is the leg strap thing. I used it while wearing baggy shorts I made from sweatpants. It ended up being under the shorts because they are kind of long but it didn't seem to interfere with the sensor bar picking up the wiimote. I didn't have any issues with it sliding or feeling like it would. The pocket for the wiimote was tight and I wasn't able to push it all the way in and didn't try to. I figured it will loosen up a bit over time.

I did a 30 minute programmed workout first. I had trouble with the squats but I have knee issues and just couldn't squat down enough to register it. You can opt to skip over an exercise and move on to the next if you are having trouble. Apparently you can deselect any exercise in the beginning when the screen pops up showing you what is included in that particular grouping.

They also have a ton of selections for programmed workouts with different degrees of difficulty, upper, lower body, full body workouts, sport orientaited, etc. Then you can also do custom workouts. I initially did one of the programmed workouts, skipped the two segments in it for the squatting and it came out to be about 25 minutes I think. Then I went to check out the custom workouts and first set up a bunch of the boxing ones, then tennis, then dance and a few more tennis segments to bring it up to an hour total.

I really enjoyed both the boxing and tennis but was disappointed in the dance. With the boxing you can use the wii-fit board. You do targeted punching, free punching and kicking and kneeing the bag. Usually the segments for the cardio boxing were target hitting first, then you switch to the punching bag where you either hit or kick knee it and keep switching back and forth until the segments over.

I really loved the tennis. It felt much more like real tennis. It had you doing backhands, forehands, overhead slams, upclose backhands and forehands where you are hitting a target. I didn't play a "tennis match" and don't know if there is an option for that because I didn't see it yet if there is. I know you can play with other people and maybe you can do that then. There was also a part with the wiiFit board where you'd do a lunge and then hit the ball. I had a hard time with that one and couldn't get the timing down but I'm sure once I figure it out I'll love it.

The dancing was a letdown. With games like DDR, Samba De Amigo and Helix out there I know they can do a lot with dance type games. This was very basic with boring graphics and felt very slow compared to some of these other "games". I feel if I use the dancing it will be more for a cool down after a workout. It could just be me though. You basically point in the direction of the arrows with either the wiimote or nunchuck and in some of the workouts there is doing some steps with the wii board. I found WiiFits step segments much more fun and much more of a workout.

There were many other things that I didn't get a chance to check out like basketball, baseball & volleyball. So even if you are like me and find the dancing segment disappointing there are a bunch of things to choose from. Also, I didn't check out all of the dancing segments and just did like the first 10 I think so the remaining ones might be more fun and more challenging.

One of the balance things I did in the initial workout was inline skating with the wiifit board. For me, that was a good challenge because I have trouble with balance. I ended up having to put my foot down a few times but still felt it was fun and different and look forward to seeing what else they have to offer for balance workouts.

I honestly don't see getting bored with this because of the multitude of workouts offered and the flexibility of setting up your own workouts.