Doing some fitness, when you're permanently sitting on your sofa, you sometimes think about it. All the more when you see TV commercials with catch phrases as striking as « eat and move ». The problem is when you have to step out from the theoric point of view. So, in order to get a body built to make the opposite sex crazy, you're gonna have to move! And to help you maintaining your physical health up, Nintendo proposes on its home console the Wii Fit software, accompanied by its « plate », the Wii Balance Board. After numerous sequences with skiing, suppling ups and streching activities, it is now time to draw a line and get a look at our rolls... or absence of rolls?

A balance usually scares women

Wii Fit's principle relies on its accessory and its Kawashima-like training program on DS. Before you begin the exercises, the software asks you to choose a Mii and to tell the balance the height and age of the future sports(wo)man. Once this done, you just have to step on it, your feet lighlty apart from each other and wait a few seconds for the end of the analysis. Then is your gravity center displayed - materialized by a red dot on screen -, as well as your weight and your body mass indicator called BMI. All this data will be used along and will allow comparisons to know if you have lost the few pounds fixed.

By the way, Wii Fit lets you give it an objective to hold : either losing weight, keeping fit or taking a few kilos. In all cases, a daily use is advised, notably in order to get your body used to accomplishing some sit-ups, muscular stretching and other funny activities you may not count about your present habits. You will have to take on an up to date calendar indexing the different BMI calculations made and displaying graphics summing their evolution up.

Chuck NorrisTM style?

Wii Fit proposes diverse exercises in several themes: yoga, gym and mini-games. Doing push-ups, jogging, ski jumping, playing with your own balance are as many different activities the software offers. Modifying your position and moving on the Wii Balance Board just keeps making your gravity center move and this is the key element allowing to interact with the challenges. For example, in order to take some speed in a snowboard competition, you just have to incline your body forward and to think about teetering left or right to turn. In another category, some disciplines ask you to cautiously control your gravity center, like the ball-game exercise where the hole-filled plate displayed on screen moves through your body attitude. Y the end of each challenge, the score appears and is compared to all the other sportsplayers' ones. If the result is satisfying, a new difficulty mode will be added.

As for yoga and gym, a personal coach frames the trainings and indicates what are the right postures to take in front of the screen. It surely is less hot than a pretty brunette in a sports club but the pieces of advice given, though repetitive, help understanding all the gestures to master.

Performing fitness at home, yes but...

Finally, one does rather quickly see all of this [wii]Wii Fit[/Wii]. If you already are in a rather good shape, with a BMI around 22, nearly all the challenges are done with in a fex days, if you take around thirty minutes per sequence. It is interesting at the beginning, enjoyable for video game novices, catchy for some Misses, but far too simple to improve the trainings. You will need some will to remind you have to go put the Wii on to get your bottom muscled. But, with motivation enough and a precise objective, you can notice some results after a few weeks.

To appeal to gamers, a scoring system is present. The problem is you have to switch between Mii profiles each time and go through menus to put on some improvised competition between friends, really too bad. The realization is ultra-simplistic, my it be about the visual or audio aspect, and may end up boring those who are used to the sofa version of virtual adventures.