Consumer Reviews

Rating

I purchased this game for my wife who always wanted to have the option to dance at home, on the Wii. I had been watching all dancing titles on Wii in the past, but was discouraged by the reviews. I finally took the plunge to pre-order this title to surprise her. Last night, she played with it for about half an hour, and liked it very much. This dancing game did make her sweat a bit, and was great fun to play with at the same time. The only complaint is that the dancing tutorial is a bit too short and too fast. Maybe there are more detailed tutorials embedded somewhere in the game. We will find out in the following days; but as beginners, we do feel it would be more helpful that there is a dedicated and thorough tutorial section on the moves. Also, holding two wiimotes is something to get used to, but the game registers the moves quite accurately.

Overall, this title is fun to play and definitely worth the money.

Rating

While I agree with some people who say the game moves quickly and the tutorials are wimpy, that doesn’t bother me. I missed most of the steps but worked up a crazy sweat trying. Isn’t that the whole point of working out? Who cares if you move exactly right? You’ll get it eventually.

I was so thrilled to pick up a few steps here and there and feel the vibration in the controls when I got things right. The second time through I did a little bit better. I am going to play this quite a few times so eventually I’ll figure it out. I like the ability to create a workout or have one made for me. I like that I can’t figure the whole thing out the first time I do it. There is a LOT more to it than “Just Dance,” and the controls are infinitely more accurate. My advice to anyone with a new game… give it a chance.

Rating

This “game” provides a really great workout! I have not exercised in 3 months, and thought trying a new game would give me the motivation to get back into exercise. I own just about every Wii exercise game from Just Dance to Jillian Michaels Wii games to The Biggest Loser. This workout is great! Yes, it takes a few tries to get the dance moves down, but in the process, I worked up a real sweat! My heart rate went up and stayed within the fat burning level.

The game also has a feature that I love! It is the heart rate check! I love the music, and the routines! My muscles are still sore from doing the karate mini game on the first try! This really did the job in getting me back in the groove. Try it! You won’t be disappointed!

Rating

I hardly use my Wii because I’m too busy, but now me and my girlfriend have a reason to get off our butts and to stop watching TV… while, sort of, watching TV…

We still haven’t used the Gold’s Gym membership (the game comes with a 7 day trial…) but we plan to. The game is revitalizing our love for exercise [tongue-in-cheek], and maybe after a few weeks my girlfriend will find me attractive again. Just kidding. The music is really good. It’s a great way to get the anti-social people in your apartment complex to come over and actually do something social, because it’s both a video game and a somewhat demanding physical experience. Everybody ends up talking and dancing and getting sick of it after a while and then actually being social, because it gets the blood flowing.

I played Just Dance and Just Dance 2 and those are good but this one has a different kind of edge to it and I’d say it’s way better.

Rating

When Gold’s Gym Cardio Workout first came out a year and a half ago, it pushed the bar forward and helped prove that there was a market for Wii Fitness Games. So the question is, does its sequel do the same? I’m happy to report the answer is yes.

Gold Gym Dance Workout consists of three main types of exercises: a pure “dance workout”, a “boxing workout”, and “mini-games”.

In the “dance workout”, you perform fast-moving choreographed dance steps using your arms and feet. It’s not exactly like “Just Dance” in that the choreography doesn’t really contain any “signature moves” for the song. Rather, the dance is made up of a series of basic latin dance steps (i.e., merengue, samba, salsa, reggaeton, and cumbia). You first go through a series of tutorials to learn the steps, and then you put them together through beginner, intermediate, and advanced stages of increasing difficulty and speed. Just as you’d do in a dance class at the gym, you follow the lead of an on-screen workout instructor shouting out steps to you to the beat.

In the “boxing workout”, the game has come a long way since its predecessor. Again following an on-screen instructor, you upper-cut, jab, punch, and hook to the beat of music. And thankfully, Ubisoft decided to license a whole slew of popular songs, so you’re not stuck to boxing to “Eye of the Tiger” over and over and over. The motion controls are remarkably accurate in detecting specific boxing moves, and the workouts were fast-moving and fun.

I admit that I loved the “mini games”. Unlike other fitness games where minigames are an afterthought, Ubisoft seems to have put a lot of thought into these, and I love the touches of humor in the games. There are a variety of new and original mini-games, you can dodge charging bulls (ducking from side to side while holding your Wii remotes), try to balance yourself on a bucking bull (on the balance board), canoeing (using a combination of your Wii motes as a double-plated paddle while sitting on the balance board) and running (basically making rapid punching movements, made more interesting when you get chased by the occasional lion!). There are also a few games clearly borrowed from Wii Fit and Wii Sports resort (chopping things with a samauri sword, boxing a kangaroo, and karate-chopping certain items).

You can either jump into the various workouts immediately, or have your virtual trainer prepare a weekly workout routine for you. You can also choose two-player mode, which lets you exercise along with a friend (there will be two trainers on the screen, and when each person follows their trainer, not only can they compete to see who scores the highest, but to the casual bystander it looks like they’re doing a cool latin dance together).

One thing I was impressed with was the accuracy of its controls, which is head and shoulders above previous Wii exercise games. It allows for the use of two Wii remotes. That Ubisoft eschews the use of the nunchuk is a good sign that they’ve taken accuracy in motion controls more seriously than they have in the past.

The one big thing I wasn’t crazy about at first was how very difficult it was to follow and learn the dance steps. The first few times you play the dance workout games, even at the tutorial level it’s very easy to get very overwhelmed. You have to basically follow the on-screen trainer and mirror the moves she’s making, but she’s moving so fast that it’s incredibly difficult to follow, especially trying to do it in a mirror image. They provide a series of video and audio cues to help you, but it’s still terribly difficult to follow her feet and to match them to yours.

The good news is, for each dance they offer a “practice” mode which breaks down the dance into different sections, lets you review each section, with three different camera angles to view the instruction, and lets you view the whole thing in slow motion. I would definitely suggest playing the entirely in “practice mode” until you get the arm and leg movements down and memorized, and then proceed to the workout. This may take days or even weeks for each song, so if you don’t have the time or inclination to do this, you might be disappointed. On the other hand, once you commit the moves to memory, they’re yours to do over and over again. And it probably goes without saying that you need a LOT of room.

And so while the game isn’t for everyone, I think it’s a great new Wii fitness title after a very long string of disappointing ones. Once again, Ubisoft has set the bar, let’s hope upcoming fitness titles like EA Sports Active 2, Zumba Fitness, and the Dance Dance Revolution reboot continue to move the bar forward.